Shawn Phillips Bench Program

[mgil]

An interesting nugget of information lost to antiquity has been unearthed in the basement:

http://www.weightrainer.net/spreadsheets/mm2kadd50.html

Thought this might be good to discuss.

[AllM1ght]

Honestly looks awful to me.

Not that my numbers are particularly great, but from what I see you bench 2x. And dB bench 1x. Which is not a whole lot, and then you more or less neglect everything else with maintenance type volume?
I don't think even my bench would improve and everything else would regress

[Hanley]

I dunno. I kinda like it as a bench program. The loading seems....ambitious. I feel like I'd want to review some "case studies" of those who've used this.

Things I'd tweak:
1) some of the early volume seems nasty. 2 x 4 reps with 88%. Eh. No thanks. But - current research tells me I can magically turn that into 4 x 2 reps with all benefit. Doable as 4 doubles for sure.

2) I'd have to swap in slingshot instead of 1/2 ROM negative as my supramax work. Not gonna ask my wife to "row" 445 off my chest.

Might try, might try.

[mgil]

It’s a short cycle and peak.

The rationale behind the programming is useful as well.

[jake241983]

So it's a peaking program like Smolov Jr except instead of high volume and lower intensity it's low volume and high intensity? I'm having trouble picturing the program as a whole swapping back and forth between those charts.

[Hanley]

I'm having trouble picturing the program as a whole swapping back and forth between those charts.

The days before linkable spreadsheets...

it's basically a 2-week cycle, and like you said, high-intensity lowish volume. I had to fill out the sheet to get a sense of what's going on. Here's the numbers for 410# 1RM:

[jake241983]

The days before linkable spreadsheets...

it's basically a 2-week cycle, and like you said, high-intensity lowish volume. I had to fill out the sheet to get a sense of what's going on. Here's the numbers for 410# 1RM:

I don't know, experience tells me I don't do well with higher intensity stuff. But I've never done it with a low volume approach either, it's always been stupidly pushing too hard on top of normal volume. Some of those days look a little crazy, the negatives especially make my shoulders hurt thinking about. Reminds me a little of that Squat Every Day book minus the negatives and being lower frequency.

[Hanley]

I don't do well with higher intensity stuff.

You thrived using Smolov Jr day 4. It's more like "moderate-high intensity). But that session is the single hardest session I've ever tried.

[dw]

When you guys call the volume here low or lowish are you considering reps or sets? I would think 5 bench or bench-related sets every workout is pretty high?

ETA - Just read the program description, so you're only benching twice a week? Seems very low.

[jake241983]

You thrived using Smolov Jr day 4. It's more like "moderate-high intensity). But that session is the single hardest session I've ever tried.

My first time running it was like that using my actual 1RM for my training max. I remember halfway through the third 10x3 every set was a grinder. This last time I took like 7% off for my training max and never surpassed RPE 7 even on the last set of the third 10x3 day.

I wonder if that same approach would work on this program. Would defeat the purpose of doing a negative though. I have some of those hook things you can do a negative with and they release the added weight at the bottom of the rep. Bought them years ago and used them like twice on squat and never on bench.

[Hanley]

I wonder if that same approach would work on this program. Would defeat the purpose of doing a negative though. I have some of those hook things you can do a negative with and they release the added weight at the bottom of the rep. Bought them years ago and used them like twice on squat and never on bench.

I might drop 10# on everything.

C'mon, try it, try it.

[michael]

I ran that program in college. I have the paper version somewhere.

[michael]

For the negative, you just lower, leave it on the safeties. No rowing required.

[Hanley]

For the negative, you just lower, leave it on the safeties. No rowing required.

Is that what you did?

I have to admit, doing a very-supramax negative to safeties freaks me out a little.

[michael]

Is that what you did?

I think so? It was 25 years ago.

[Hanley]

Is that what you did?

I think so? It was 25 years ago.

C'mon, try it again.

[DCR]

@mgil, thanks for bringing this upstairs. @michael, do you recall your result?

My experience from the basement: also did it in college, 160 lbs bodyweight at the time, went from 200 (could’ve been lower, definitely was not higher) to hitting a 240 single. Specifically recall the result because I didn’t do anything heavy with barbells for a long time post college, so it sat as my PR for years.

One caveat is that I believe running this may have been the first time that I ever fucked with lower end reps. In college, I was doing dumb bodybuilder shit for the most part. (To be clear: I don’t think bodybuilding shit is dumb generally. What I personally was doing was dumb.)

I do remember there being a session or two when I couldn’t quite hit the prescribed reps, but I just kept going with the program despite that.

Anyone else read/like MM2K at the time? It was my fav mag. MuscleMag and Flex always were ridiculous, and while I did like Ironman, it was a bit corny and, when they weren’t printing pro bodybuilder routines that were as bad as anything in Flex, they were telling dudes to do “hardgainer” programs that didn’t work (for reasons that I now understand far more than I did at the time). They loved Mike Mentzer and all that do one set that makes your face melt once per week shit.

I recall Shawn Phillips once wrote an arm training article that specifically was anti all that. His thesis was, bros who train arms like four times a week tend to have really big arms - maybe stop thinking you’re smarter than them.

[michael]

@DCR , my log says 245 @ 145 bodyweight. I gained around +50 on my 1RM. It was certainly the first strength based workout I did. I imagine I bridged that single. We didn't have video back then.

[DCR]

@DCR , my log says 245 @ 145 bodyweight. I gained around +50 on my 1RM. It was certainly the first strength based workout I did. I imagine I bridged that single. We didn't have video back then.

No, we sure didn’t. I remember specifically where I hit that max. Was home on winter break at this one-off gym in Fairfield, NJ. Owner was this Austrian sounding guy who played The Black Album over and over and invited us to come lift with him on Christmas morning. This was 1999 or 2000. No idea what happened to him; the gym got bought by Golds or something not long after.

[CamLeslie]

When I lived in Seattle and worked out at the YMCA in Bothell there was a guy there who was in his 70's setting American Records in the Bench Press in USAPL and AAU who swore by this program. He benched in upper 300's weight ~240ish. He gave it to me but I haven't tried it... yet..