negative bench presses

[vegieburger]

What do people think of negatives and how often should you do them?

I was talking to one of the trainers at the gym about how my 1rm is only 5kgs over my 6rm (45 and 40kgs) and that there should prob be a bigger difference. So he suggested doing some negatives, which is what I did with 55kgs. It went well and was more difficult than I would have expected (but that is good) but he said I should only do them once a month at most. Was just wondering if once a month is a good amount to aim for and have others found that negatives helped with increasing their 1rm

[The Duke]

Negatives do surely work.

But you do have to overload that bar and fight it all the way down. Not just slow it down a bit but push it like it was a car that was going to crush you.

A suggest that you always do these down to pins set an inch above you chest in a safety cage. That way you are not relying on a spotter (by definition you will fail on a neg rep and spotters do tire of pulling 60kg of your chest!!!)

If you do this you can follow the negatives by dropping the weight and then doing some bottom ups at a lower weight.

Ninearms will supply the correct answer in a bit.

[JP]

i wouldnt bother with negatives. You cant transfer your 6 repp max to a bigger single because you lack practise with heavy singles

heavy singles is another art form, repping does very little to help it, only an indication of increased strength, especially in lifts like bench and squat.

Many ways to approach this, one idea could be to have a session where you do:

5 sets x 2 reps x 42.5 (last warm up set maybe 2x35?)

and if thats ok then next week:

5 sets x 1 rep x 45 (last warm up 1x40) - normally wouldnt recommend that but i have a feeling you might be able to do this judging from the 6 rep max?

50kg is in the bag already vegieburger, its just a matter of finding it from there

[vegieburger]

Thanks Duke and JP.

I think next week I'll start with what JP suggested (although I do like negatives, even if only because they will make anything at a lower weight feel easier).

I'm begining to think that I do need to focus more on heavy singles, as my 1rm on all my lifts is barely higher than the weight I lift in sets.