Use this trick to break through it!
If you’ve been training for more than a few years, you know that it can be tough to break through a plateau. For many, if not most advanced trainers, plateaus are the rule rather than the exception.
New research coming out of Italy suggests that experienced lifters may have better luck breaking through a bench press plateau by trying to press the weight up as quickly as possible.
Researchers at the University of Rome assigned subjects to one of two groups. Subjects in the first group were asked to perform the bench press by pressing the weight up at their normal self-selected speed. Subjects in the second group were asked to press the weight at 80-100% of maximum speed. All subjects were experienced lifters.
After 3 weeks of training, the subjects who pressed at 80-100% of maximum speed increase their maximum bench press strength by 10.2%, whereas those in the normal/self-selected speed group increased their strength by less than 1%.
