The Get Strong Show: Building the 400 Pound Bench Press
Carl: Welcome back to another episode of Super Human Radio. Today we’re joined by Coach Wade Johnson. How are you doing, Coach Johnson?
Coach Johnson: Great to be with you, Carl. Glad to be here, to be honest.
Carl: We’ll tell the story in a second about your trip to a recent meet. Today’s show was actually prompted by a question that came in on The BluePrint Power Hour. It was from Johnny Gray and he said, “I’m 44 years old and making one last run at a 400-pound bench press. It’s been years since I’ve been bulked up and things are moving along but I don’t recover like I used to and recently wrenched my back.” That was a question about back issues.
Rob gave some great advice about helping this guy, but one of the things that I said was, “If you’re really serious about making this one last run at a 400-pound bench press, why not hire a power lifting coach?” I gave the analogy on the show. I went to school to fit contact lenses. If I took you and put you in contact lens lab and I said, “Wade fit that guy with contact lens,” you’d look at me and go, “Carl, what? Are you kidding me? I don’t even know where to start.”
We all assume because we can wrap our hands around the bar and we can move the weight, that we surely could teach ourselves what I would consider an elite lift. A 400-pound bench press is respectable.
Coach Johnson: You’re strong. If you can bitch 400 pounds, you’re strong. Once you get in that area, that’s where you really separate yourself from the crowd. You don’t go into every local gym and seeing multiple guys mention 400+ pounds. It just doesn’t happen.
Carl: Exactly. With that being said, I’m like, “If you want to achieve an elite level lift then you need to incorporate the advice and guidance of someone who not only does it themselves but can teach other people to do it because there’s a big, big gap between a guy who can bench 400 pounds and a guy who can teach somebody how to bench 400 pounds. Why not hire somebody like Coach Wade Johnson?”
I happen to throw you in there. I know that you do distance training or people can sit down with video and YouTube and everything. You can critique somebody. You can help. Then I thought to myself, “You know, I don’t know that I could ever bench 400 pounds. Maybe I should make this one on my missions, too.”
Selfishly and on behalf of Johnny Gray I thought, “I know what I’m going to do. For this episode of The Get Strong Show I’m going to have Coach Johnson lay out his best as possible that you could do on the radio some of the things that you need to do and consider when you’re trying to reach an elite level lift at any age.”
For those of you who already bench 400, a lot of the stuff we’re going to talk about maybe will take you to your next level bench press. It’s all about progression. It doesn’t matter where you start. Would you agree with that statement?
Coach Johnson: As a matter of fact, I got an email this morning from a lifter who is looking to get some coaching and wants someone to really teach him the ins and outs of powerlifting. He goes, “But I’m a small guy and only squat about 250 pounds.”
This is how I explained it to him. Recalling the best I can, I said, “It’s not where you start, it’s where you finish. Everybody has their grand.”
What that means is someone like me at 350+ pounds who spends 15 years in the gym without missing and the culmination of that is squatting 1000 pounds. The guy that weighs 150, his grand may be 500-600 pounds in the squats. It’s never where you start. It’s always where you finish in everything – everything about training, whatever endeavor you’re doing. Like your radio show or other people being a doctor. It’s all in the effort that you put into it. That’s really where the journey is.
Carl: It’s in the effort, but it’s also in the guidance because you could have all the best intentions. You could read magazines. You can do a lot of things. But when it comes to that elite level, you must have guidance. You must have guidance. You must have guidance.
Coach Johnson: Yes, I agree with that 100%.
Carl: Let’s start up with this. Since Johnny Gray is 44 and I’m 55, let’s start off and get this out of the way first. What if you have shoulder injury, do you progress? Do you go ahead and start lighter and build the shoulder girdle up under the bar or do you go and get worked onto your shoulders first? What do you think?
Coach Johnson: What would you have to do is if someone is taking on the endeavor – like in Johnny’s case, “I want to bench press 400 pounds and I’m lifting,” then if there are shoulder issues, it’s something that has been overcome. The thing I always tell people like surgery and things of that nature, that is a last resort.
I understand this is a general statement. There are times when you’re injured that requires something getting fixed, but if it’s just some shoulder pain – not sharp or really hard pain – then you figure out ways to train around it and you find out what your weaknesses are and you start addressing those and then you start conditioning those.
A lot of times we can address some issues just by nature and how someone is training looking at form. A lot of things can be corrected by using correct form over a small period of time and issues start fixing themselves, so to speak, because you’re not putting certain muscle groups especially with the bench press, the shoulders. You’re not putting them in a compromised position. I’ve had that issue a lot where by fixing the form and then training in that manner and conditioning those areas versus trying to lift so heavy, that we start reversing those shoulder issues.
Carl: I have to believe that because I’ve had shoulder problems that when I started to focus on doing more shoulder work but adhering to forms, starting out very, very light and following the curve of strength before going heavy that the shoulder problems went away. I’m a big believer in what you just said. With that being the case, without becoming a bench press specialist with there are out there (guys like Tiny Meeker), assuming that you are training other areas of your body, how many times a week should you be training the bench press if you’ve enlisted the goal to build a bigger bench?
Coach Johnson: For me, based on the protocol that I use, we bench twice a week. But we’re not flat benching twice a week. We have one session that is dedicated to the flat bench where we do our competitive training, and then 72 hours later we do a close-grip decline bench. There’s a method and some science behind that as well because it allows us to bench heavy twice a week without adversely affecting the shoulders.
Carl: What if a guy has not been benching at all? In my case, I have had been relegated to machine lifts by and large. Now I’m going to go, hadn’t laid down on the bench. Do I give myself a couple of months just to get the groove back, just to get the supporting muscles to work together and stay ridiculously light just getting the motion back under my belt?
Coach Johnson: What I’ll do is someone that’s new or even if someone is experienced, but again because the protocol we use is what I would say is somewhat different and from what is typical out there. What we do is we think moderate most of the times as opposed to light and we go the moderate route to see where the lifter’s thresholds are, what their work capacity is going to be, and what their form issues are going to be. If someone has been training and can bench 250-300 pounds then training at 95-135 pounds is probably not going to exploit them enough to see where their form issues are.
Carl: Interesting.
Coach Johnson: I always think moderate. Let’s see where we are within a medium weight range and see if we can spot any issues and start making adjustments from there.
Carl: People may have gotten attracted to the show because of this discussion which everybody seems to want a bigger bench. You did not specialize in the bench press but it was a compulsory lift for you in order to get your total where you were. You’re more of a specialist in the deadlift. With that being the case, what was your best competition bench?
Coach Johnson: In a full knee after I have squatted, my best bench was 700 pounds.
Carl: That’s really awesome. I wanted to get that out there for everyone to understand that Coach Johnson never specialized in the bench press. It was like, “Oh man, I got to do this lift if I’m going to get the total I want because my lift is really the squat.” I would imagine how you put the effort into the bench press that you put into the squat you could easily have been a champion bench presser as well.
Coach Johnson: I’ve benched more than that in training and there’s a new series of shirts, a different strain of poly material. I tried them out and I had a sponsor at that time that would send me shirts, but at that time I’ve not completed a 700-pound bench press in meet and that was really the goal because ultimately the big goal was the total 2400 pounds as a master. I have had a serious amount of weight in my hands more so than the 700, but I just never did it in a meet.
Carl: We’re going to try to assemble this discussion in a way that you come away with at least some of the basic foundations that you need to address the bench press and become a more elite lifter wherever you’re starting from and whatever your goal is. It could be you just want to bench press 225, that’s fine. Whatever we discuss today will apply to you. If you’re already at 400 and you want to go to 500, it will apply to you.
The Dynamic Wave program is the one that you’ve developed. Is that what it’s called?
Coach Johnson: We’ve labeled it different things. We don’t have a real name for it. Just like you and Rob have been after me, I am working on an obvious flow. I don’t really have a real name for it other than it’s just a method that we have developed over the years. But it will ultimately be in an e-book like you and I have discussed.
Carl: Two days of benching. How far apart are these days?
Coach Johnson: Seventy-two hours.
Carl: Minimum or could they be longer than that?
Coach Johnson: You could do it like that. I know people that don’t train in a weekly template and my mental makeup wouldn’t allow for that. I would freak out completely.
Carl: With that being the case, is day one a heavy day and day two a lighter day? Or they just differ?
Coach Johnson: No. Ninety-nine percent of the people in the world, we bench on Monday – that’s flat bench – and then 72 hours later on Thursday we do a close-grip decline press. Both of those days are heavy.
Carl: Let’s go through day one. If you go to the gym, what do you do first? Is there a warm-up first?
Coach Johnson: Absolutely. It’s not just for the master lifter but especially as a master, one of the things that I had to do – from the rigors of all the years of training that I’ve done – is to make sure that I warm up properly. A lot of people think that that’s coming into the gym and putting a plate on each side of the bar and you start warming up at 135. That’s false.
The first thing that I do when I get in the gym is I’ll take 5-pound dumbbells and I’ll do a set of 15 on side raises. Then I’ll grab 10-pound dumbbells and I’ll do a set of hammer curls. And I’ll repeat that. I’ll go up to like 8 pounds and do 15 reps. All I’m trying to do is to pump blood into the muscle and get warmed up. I’ll do some bend work for my rotator cuffs. I’ll do a few sets of very light pull downs and a few sets of shrugs. These are all muscles that I’m going to be engaging when I bench press. When I get that done and then feel like I’m warmed in, I will go to bench and I start with the bar. That’s where I start. When I bench press over 700 pounds in training I started with 25 reps with a 45-pound bar.
Carl: A lot of people will think why even go through that exercise? What does that do for you? Is that just to lubricate and get things moving?
Coach Johnson: Absolutely. You’re preparing the body for gain. We’re not in there pumping 135 pounds for three sets of 10. The goal is I have to have a certain number, the total of this weight that I had up in mind for a goal, so I knew what I had to do and the weight that I had to lift to achieve that.
The thing is, the muscles just aren’t awake. You got to remember at that time I was training at 5:00 in the morning and I’ve moved it up to 5:30. You get up early and you’ve got to get your body just rolling. You got to start developing some heat. The big thing is preparing. When you jump in there, it doesn’t matter how strong you are, if you don’t take the time to warm up, that’s when the genesis of so many injuries are simply due to not properly warming up.
Carl: Now you’re ready to start benching. So you just did the bar, 25-30 reps, you feel good – where do you go from there?
Coach Johnson: I put a quarter on each side and I do 95 for 15.
Carl: This is still warm up then?
Coach Johnson: I do a lot of warming up. I absolutely do.
Carl: Where do you go from there?
Coach Johnson: I go to a plate 135 per 8, 185 per 5, 225 per 3 and then from there it really depends. Am I getting in a shirt or am I working shirtless? If I’m in a shirt then my last warm up is 405. Four plates a side for a single pause.
Carl: I want to go back. I want to illustrate something. Obviously you could really rep out with 225 but your objective is to be strong and not to find out how many reps you could do. So you just do 225 for 3 reps because you’re just...
Coach Johnson: I’m preparing the body, preparing the central nervous system.
Carl: You have a good point. But not pushing the central nervous system to some nth degree at this point because that’s for the heavy weight.
Coach Johnson: A lot of times if there’s a strain or there’s something that’s hurt or even an injury, at those light weights you might feel something, you might not, or because you’ve got a strain or because you are sore, doing those reps and doing it in gradual increments allows you to judge, “Hey, even though I’m sore, I’m starting to feel better as we go along,” or “You know what, I can feel this. I’m going to have to pull you know back on the throttle a little bit.” It allows you to gauge what you’re going to be able to do that day.
Carl: I think a lot of guys have a hard time resisting repping out with 225, and again you have to remember, what is the end point of the mission here? It’s to be able to bench a very heavy weight for one rep. Sure you can do more with 225 but the goal here isn’t to prove that at this moment. I just want to illustrate that. Your last warm up is going to be with 405.
For people who are using different weights, just look at the incremental movements up. Maybe your last warm up is going to be 225 (for those who are trying to build a bigger bench). Once you get to that last warm up, you’re just doing a single with it. Right?
Coach Johnson: Right. Usually for me, if I’m getting in the shirt, my last single is 405. I’ll do 225, 275 for a triple and then 315, 365, 405 for a single. All I’m doing is just getting enough incremental weights where I don’t make too big of a jump, I’m feeling my way through and making sure everything feels okay before I get into the shirt.
Carl: For those of you who are not getting into a shirt and for those of you who are getting into a shirt, this is when you would put the shirt on and now you’re going to go for one of your more serious one rep lifts.
Coach Johnson: In the shirt, I either do singles pause or triples pause. There’s a mini wave that we use in the flat bench training. We have three- to four-week mini wave depending on the lifter, depending on the need and whether they’re shirted or whether they’re un-shirted.
Carl: Let’s describe the pause. The pause is at the chest. Is it touching the chest or is it just above the chest?
Coach Johnson: Yes. In a competition you take the bar in arm’s length, you bring it down, when it touches and is motionless, the head referee will give you a press command. When that press command is given you can’t sink it back down which is what we call a heave. Once it’s motionless, you get the press command, it has to press up without any downward motion and go to full lockout and you hold that weight until you’re given a rack command. You have to show control.
Carl: A lot of people will be inclined to stop and then let the weight sink into their chest and then heave it back up. That is not the objective here. I wanted to point that out.
Coach Johnson: No. A lot of lifters get red lighted for that and beating the commands. A lot of lifters get red lighted for that.
Carl: Let’s talk about something that maybe isn’t talked about. When you’re down in that pause, there are things that can happen that could derail the lift. Your shoulders relax. What do you say is one of the things you want to be careful of when you’re at that pause – what to do or what not to do – that won’t unwind you from being able to go back up and complete the lift?
Coach Johnson: I think the biggest thing is learning to maintain your tightness. You breathe in super big at the top and you hold that air and you do not let any of that air escape and you’re squeezing everything. I tuck my elbows in and touches low on the chest as the rules will allow and I maintain it, keeping that tightness. That’s what I see the most not only from my lifters but being a head judge in several meets. You’ll see guys that loosen up at the bottom and then they try to explode and recover that tightness. Once you loosen up, no matter what it is, you never regain that tightness 100% especially when you’re under a load.
Carl: A guy who’s wearing a shirt may not have as much trouble keeping his elbows in but a guy who’s doing a raw lift is going to. How critical is this to be an elite lifter and not try to pec press, just keep your elbows in?
Coach Johnson: That is really an individual thing. I’m a big guy and I have a big chest but I’m not one of those guys that have this huge pecs. I definitely consider myself a lat style bencher. That’s what I had to do to start pressing more respectable weight. The bench used to be my albatross. It was by far my worst lift of the three lifts when I was competing and it was the one that required me to do the most work to become at least reasonably proficient at.
It’s one of those things you have to find out where your strength is and then given that strength there’s (you’ve heard me say this a lot) a risk/reward kind of ratio. If I’m benching like this, what is my risk for injury? Am I sore all the time? Am I making progress? Am I having to fight and scrub just to maintain? You have to find what you can do to remain healthy, what’s going to keep you in the gym training in order for you to make progress. For me, I had to go away from the pec delt tie-in benching and pursue more of lat style benching. This not only worked well for me in the shirted bench but when I went to that method and that form of benching, I hit my biggest raw bench as well.
Carl: I got to believe that most guys are stronger in that bench approach. Let’s illustrate something. What you’re talking about – and I understand this is a real stretch – is more like a dip to the body than it is a pec press. In other words, you’re really enlisting the back muscles to a greater degree than a guy whose keeping elbows more flared out and depending more on shoulder and pectoral strength to push the weight back up.
Coach Johnson: That’s absolutely correct. You’re still engaging the shoulders. You’re still engaging the pecs, and the triceps are still a primary mover. Let me give you the best illustration. This is what I try to do.
I have grease boards all over my gym so we can write numbers or I can use some sort of illustration where people can kind of get a mental picture of what I’m talking about. We’re using the bench press. You have a train and it has 100 cars that are full of steel but you only have one engine, one motor, and in that instance it’s just too much of a load for that one motor. So now we’re going to break all of these down.
For the guys that are primarily a pec, tricep, shoulder type bencher – and there are guys out there that do it and do it well and bench more than I’ve ever dreamed of benching, but I’m just saying by and large and how it worked for me – we would break each one of those body parts into a motor. Now we have four because we’ve got pecs, delts, triceps and we’re benching. We have bench form.
The biggest strongest muscle group in the upper body is the lats, so how can we get more components working and working together in order to push more weight? We engage the lats – not only do we have another component but we have the strongest component in our upper body. Even more so is how can I use the traps to keep me stable to help me push more weight? Now we’re adding more components where we had one or where as a pec, delt, tricep, a dominant venture, we only had four components. Now we have six. Now we can start adding better form, how to add leg drive, how to increase our use in arch and all those things. The more components we have and the more of those components they are working together, the more weight we’re going to push.
Carl: I also have to believe that this method of bench pressing is safer for the shoulders. I got to believe that when you keep your elbows in, you place a lot less risk on the shoulders.
Coach Johnson: That’s how it has worked for me. I had shoulder issues when I was pec/delt style bencher and it was something that really halted my progress. When I made the commitment to change my form – it was taking a few steps back, but a year later I was benching 100 more pounds than I had ever benched in my life.
Carl: Let’s finish up on this first movement. How many sets and what kind of rep scheme do we look at that the working sets now?
Coach Johnson: When I do a three-week mini wave. I have a raw week. This is what I’m typically training. It will change somewhat when I get close to a meet. I have a week that I’m not in the shirt and my working sets will be two sets of six reps then I drop 20 pounds (maybe 30 depending on the day) and I do eight reps. That finishes my competition bench training. Now I may do some assistant benching but that all depends on the day timeframe but that’s the bulk of what I do on that day.
The second day, whether I’m in a shirt or out of a shirt, I do three sets of three reps pause. Each rep is paused by command and I hold the weight at the top and get a rack command. So we’re actually doing competitive training.
The third week is three sets of one. I’m using a much heavier weight and we do three sets singles paused. It’s full commands like you would be at a meet. After that third week then we repeat the round. Some lifters depending on their need will do two weeks of 6-6-8 then a week of 3 x 3 and then a week of 3 x 1. That’s our basic template.
Carl: How long is the pause if you’re training by yourself, if you’re training with people who don’t know how to pause you?
Coach Johnson: I generally get it down touch one 1000 press. That’s going to probably be a long a pause as you’ll ever have to hold.
Carl: I want to talk about what you do after you finish that part. And we’re going to cover day one first and then we’re going to do day two after that.
Depending on where you are in your wave, you’ve just completed your flat bench work, what do you do after that?
Coach Johnson: I will generally do a couple of things. I select another bench movement that I rotate in and out. I usually run this on two-week waves and this – without seeing it on paper – is going to sound more complicated than it is. I have a couple of specialty bars that I like to use. One is the bamboo bar and this is something that Louie Simmons stayed on me for a couple of years until I finally relented and got one. Basically, it’s a thin piece of fiber glass bar that is very flexible and there are wood collars on the end. What we do is we strap kettle bells draped in with a mini band. What this really does is work your stabilizers really hard. It does not take a lot of weight and it makes you whole form. I’ll do 15 reps with the weight, hold it at the top for a 10 count and then I’ll do 10 more reps.
Carl: What it does is exciting. What this does is it removes the predictability of the glide path. So you actually have to every inch of movement keep the bar where it belongs on a horizontal basis.
Coach Johnson: Yeah. Your stability is not just lateral, it’s every direction. You really have to work on holding it – and this is never heavy. We’ve done it with multiple kettle bells but they’re small. A lot of times I’ll do it with a 35 and a 15-pound kettle bells, so 100 pounds of kettle bells and that’s plenty.
Carl: I interrupted you when you were giving the rep scheme. I’m sorry.
Coach Johnson: What I do is 15 reps, I’ll hold it for a 10-count at lock out, and then I’ll do 10 more reps. Then I’ll hold it at the top and I have to show control and put it in the rack. I’ll do two to three sets of that. That’s for two weeks.
I have a thick bar. The advantage of a thick bar and why we use it is – think of a diameter of a standard 45-pound bar and then a two inch thick bar obviously it’s much bigger. But with the small diameter, when people are developing what we either call whipping or whirling problems where the bar doesn’t always sit equally in the hands and your body will adapt to that. Remember West talking about this the last time, those imbalances is what creates a lot of the issues. There are two things we do to combat that.
The first one is we bench with a two inch thick bar because the bar has to sit in your hands one way and makes you equalize it in both hands.
Carl: Interesting.
Coach Johnson: That’s training the neural pathway to go. I have to have the bar here in order to have control of the weight.
Carl: How many reps are you doing with that? What kind of weight are you using?
Coach Johnson: I will use a medium weight range. Depending on feel, if I’ve been in the shirt, not in the shirt, I’ll do three sets of eight to 12, anywhere from 225 to 315 pounds. It is solely by feel.
Carl: Where do you go from there?
Coach Johnson: When I’m finished with that, the finishing movement that we use each week came from a good buddy of mine, Mark Bell out of Super Training. He suggested as prehab/rehab to really pump the pecs. Working on stabilizing and how to equalize the hands when you bench is we will do dumbbell flat bench. But it’s different. We’re not going heavy. My first set, I’ll take 25-pound dumbbells and do 35 reps. They are deliberate and quick, but they’re not out of control. They’re deliberate in trying to maintain a solid range of motion to mimic what my flat bench would be with a barbell. Rest a couple of minutes, we go to 50s, and we do two sets of 25. We don’t go heavier. We don’t do more reps. We fill those pecs full of blood.
By nature of being a lat bencher, I don’t do as much pec work as someone else, so I’ve got to make sure that I condition those areas. There’s some science behind this and I’ll get into that when go into the assistance movements. I do that usually each week and then we rotate. The three movements we typically rotate after we do our competitive bench training: we do the bamboo bar for two weeks then we will rotate to the fat bar, and then we will stay with the barbell and use the sling shot which we’ve talked about on here before.
Carl: Yeah. Barbells and benching basically.
Coach Johnson: We’ll do usually two to three sets of six to eight – usually two sets – and we use that as an overload movement because what it does is again it keeps those shoulders healthy and it helps us tuck those elbows in. We can use a little bit more weight. We always go touch and go and use a little bit more weight that way. Sometimes depending on where the lifter is and what the objective is, we’ll spend more time with the sling shot.
Carl: Interesting. No board pressing? You don’t use boards?
Coach Johnson: There are people that do. Again, this is not a knock on West side. I love those guys. I spent time with Louie over the weekend. But the problem I see (at least for the lifters that I worked with) is there’s such a change in form immediately once the board is on there. That’s not to say that we don’t use them, but we use them sparingly. What happens is when the lifter starts to descend to touch, they gravitate high. When that bar path comes up high, we are putting in an extreme amount of stress on the shoulders.
The whole idea behind the method that I’ve developed – the shoulders are there, we have to use the shoulders – but we try to eliminate any undue stress. It’s a risk versus reward. I’d rather do a full range of motion with the sling shot to do an overload motion as opposed to taking a lift with that bench as 315 and letting them do a 495 pound board press. The ratio for injury is something cataclysmic happening and over stressing the shoulders is too great.
Carl: It really does sound like to me – and the number of shoulder injuries out there probably will attest to this – that the shoulders are the weak link in the bench press.
Coach Johnson: If you’ve got a guy that’s benching 315, he’s strong and he’s got strong shoulders. What typically becomes the bigger issue (a lot of people that disagree with me but I say that my experience will say differently) is that most of the time it’s a lack of conditioning. It’s not usually a lack of strength; it’s a lack of conditioning.
Carl: When you talk about conditioning, are you talking about muscular endurance?
Coach Johnson: Absolutely.
Carl: Interesting. The muscles become fatigued and they just button out on you.
Coach Johnson: The pecs themselves are big but, by nature, they’re just not the strongest muscle in the upper body. The shoulders are strong but look at it – it’s such a small muscle group and they’re divided into so many little things that all work together. The bigger issue is how to condition them and how to make the connective tissues stronger and better.
Carl: If you look at the mechanics of the shoulders versus the pecs, the pecs are placed against the chest bone. The majority of the pectoral muscle is supported by bone except where it attaches to the upper arm, which is where a lot of pec tears happen, which is evidence of what I’m saying. The majority of the pectoral muscle is supported by bone in the plain that gravity is pushing against it but the shoulder is out there on the end.
Coach Johnson: It’s floating out on its own.
Carl: The only thing that’s holding it in place is musculature. There is nothing that it can lean against to get any additional rigid support other than musculature.
Coach Johnson: The reason why the method that we use was developed is we went away from doing things that were so shoulder dominant, and that’s when we started alleviating a lot of the shoulder. We very rarely have shoulder issues.
Carl: It sounds like that’s it for day one.
Coach Johnson: Other than the assistance movements, which we will cover.
Carl: We’re going to talk about the assistance movement and then we’ll get into day two.
What’s accessory work?
Coach Johnson: I do three sets of 12 reps in this order, specifically these motions. On my flat bench day I will do a seated row wide grip or a pull down either a neutral or a wide grip. Then I do rear delts. I do this phasing in on a pec day. I have one there you can do. There are different movements that you can do for the rear delts. From there, I do hammer curls with dumbbells and then I do shrugs. I use a static hold. There’s a little bit of method to what I do with shrugs as well. There I follow it up with 100 grips of abs. That’s the session.
Carl: Obviously you’re not going to train in this fashion. You’re not going to train your chest or your bench press or any type of pressing movement for a minimum of 72 hours.
Coach Johnson: I don’t have my guys do it. You got to remember I’m an Olympic lifter, so I don’t do any specific overhead training after bench but on Wednesdays and Saturdays I practice the Olympic lifts. I do not suggest that for everyone. If a 400-pound bench press is your priority, do not do the Olympic lifts like I’m doing.
Carl: Any tips on anything that can be done or should not be done other than not training the bench press again within that 72 hours to prepare for the second session?
Coach Johnson: The big thing is recovery, whether that’s making sure you get adequate sleep and rest for the master lifter especially, but I tell people just because your shoulders and your elbows are healthy, ice them. Make sure that you’re doing everything you can to fight inflammation. We do some things with natural supplements as well.
Carl: You’re a big fan of white willow bark. In fact, I started taking white willow bark because of you.
Coach Johnson: White willow bark, bromelain, boswellia, and ginger root. There are so many other benefits to taking the supplements. Do a little reading and look at the food that you’re taking in. Some of the foods that we use can create inflammation. A lot of times it’s just simple things like getting some adequate rest. We all would love to be able to get eight or nine hours of sleep but in today’s age that’s not always realistic. But make sure that you’re getting as much rest as you can.
The other thing is just simple hydrations. Stay hydrated. That’s one of the biggest things that I think is going to make a big difference in your ability to recover. Not everybody can go out and buy a bottle of glutamine, creatine, and branch-chained amino acids, etc. All the things that we sometimes take to do anything we can to help us recover.
Make sure you’re eating well, make sure you’re resting well, and that you’re staying hydrated. That’s really the biggest thing that I would suggest because there are so many people out there that are just way dehydrated all the time.
Carl: That adds to weakness, by the way. You lose strength even when you’re minimally dehydrated.
So now you come back in, you’re well rested 72 hours later. You did first session on Monday, you come back on Thursday?
Coach Johnson: That is correct.
Carl: So Thursday, what are do you doing?
Coach Johnson: I am doing a close grip decline. The thing that is not typical of this is that it’s not a body building decline bench. We’re not trying to work the deep and low end of the pec. We’re trying to develop pressing power by nature of the decline, and then we use a much steeper decline angle than the typical commercial gym fixed bench decline.
We have it up quite a bit. I’ve actually got a video that I posted on YouTube for my guys and my online clients that I’ll post to your page. It gives you some explanation. It’s very awkward for the new lifter because they’re so accustomed to touching on the chest. If you touch at that angle on the chest then the very thing that we’re trying to eliminate is – you start bunching it up on the shoulders and that’s where run into problems.
So we’re trying to restrict the range of motion. I touch right above my navel. It’s that steep. By nature of bringing in the grip close, we’re making the triceps a primary mover in a compound movement versus what you didn’t hear when I said after flat bench and that all my assistance work, there is no triceps isolation work. None.
Carl: It’s interesting. I have a note here to myself and I circled it and I put the word “dip.” Does the dip work into this equation? Since you are doing this more of a lat supported press, but this is where that comes in. This is where that enhancement to this type of form that gets you into the groove of pressing this way comes in, this very, very steep decline press session.
Coach Johnson: It is. It is an orthodox. A lot of people have tried declines and have failed. The simple reason is that they’re approaching it like you were at the flat bench.
Carl: Yeah. They’re trying to touch their upper chest from that angle.
Coach Johnson: It is not. It was never going to help you. Again, we bring in the grip, shoulder width maybe a little more narrow depending on the lifter and the size, and those triceps become a primary mover. But we’re doing it in a compound motion, in a manner in which the triceps are made to work ergonomically in nature. By nature of touching low, we make those lats become a pushing mechanism versus just support.
These are the things that which allow us to train heavy twice a week and recover and keep our shoulders heavy and our elbows. What you’re not hearing, there’s not a bunch of these, I’m doing 100 reps of triceps press down or push downs or nose breakers because we used to do those. And I love doing it, I enjoy training triceps. But my primary objective was how to stay in the gym, stay healthy so I can achieve my goals.
Most of us are always complaining with our shoulders and with our elbows do the all the triceps work. So we eliminated those things as much as we could and put our focus on other things because with the decline, we use a completely different template and it’s never about doing a bunch of weight for a single, it’s a repetition thing. So we’re developing that connective tissue and that pressing power in making those lats work in the range of motion that we want to. It is solely for the purpose to assist the flat bench.
Carl: How many sets, how many reps again of this particular steep decline session do you do?
Coach Johnson: We do a three-week rotation. The first two weeks are two sets of six, we drop 20 pounds a do a set of eight. On the third week, we will do a set of six like we typically do and then we will go up in weight and do two sets of three so you’re handling a little bit more weight. But we only do it every third week, maybe every fourth week depending on the lifter. Then we drop 20 from the six rep set and finish with a set of eight.
Carl: Where do you go from there?
Coach Johnson: From there I do overheads because of my Olympic lifting. But for the guy that is focused on power lifting then we go back and do the assistance, not unlike what we did on our flat bench day. The one variable is we will do either the row or the pull down. With the row we’ll use a close grip or neutral grip or close grip on a pull down depending on what you have available. We pump the rear delts just the same. We pump the hammer curls just the same and we pump the traps just the same and do 100 grips of that.
Carl: To be clear, neutral grip means palms facing in. Is that right?
Coach Johnson: That is correct.
Carl: The assistance work that you’re doing is the same bamboo pole pressing.
Coach Johnson: No. Once we’re done with the decline press, we’re done. We’re done pressing. We go straight to the assistance. By nature of the decline, we’re going to handle more weight than we’re ever going to handle on a flat bench. Let’s face it. Even if we’re healthy and recovering well and doing all the things, training heavy with that motion twice a week is tough. Once we’re done with the decline pressing then we’re done pressing for the week.
Carl: It goes to some back work.
Coach Johnson: Yes.
Carl: Are you doing a bent over row when you say rowing or seated row? Or does it matter?
Coach Johnson: You can do those bent rows but because we’re power lifters – there’s a huge benefit to bent rows but I always use some sort of machine, some sort of support. Usually I use a seated row machine where I can keep the stress off my lower back because after Thursday, Friday is my deadlift day, so I’m trying to keep my low back as fresh as I can.
Carl: This fits nicely. This is a much shorter session than the first session, it looks like.
Coach Johnson: It typically is, yes. The third session where we’re doing the heavy triples is where you will run into a little more time by just nature of it. It’s another set in the way that it’s heavier.
Here’s the real key. This is the one thing that a lot of people don’t think about. When we’re doing those main movements like our flat bench or competitive training in these decline movements, when we get into the working sets the rest intervals are adding minimum seven minutes.
Carl: That’s what I’m going to ask you because I know you’re a proponent of longer rest intervals than most people take.
Coach Johnson: With the big sets, it is crucial. I’m not trying to get a pump. If you want to do that that is completely separate. We’re trying to maximize the training and get as strong as possible.
Carl: That’s something you have to make a decision up front. If you’re looking to build a bigger bench, you have to stop thinking about pumping your muscles and all the other stuff that goes with trying to have bigger muscles. You’re not looking to beat yourself into the ground. You’re not looking to flirt with fatigue and you’re not looking to over extend. You’re actually looking to make your power curve grow, if you will.
Coach Johnson: Exactly. You want to be as rested as possible. I want the lifter’s breathing to be normal, I want them to stay warm. There are guys that will keep staying in jackets even in the summer time just to make sure that they stay warm, but you must be recovered to handle the rigors of the heavy weight lifting. There’s no way around it.
Carl: I was just on your Facebook page and I see that you officiated at an event where a fellow whose last name is Hoff that bench pressed 1000 pounds.
Coach Johnson: Dave Hoff. That was one of the most insane things I have ever seen. I’ve seen Dave attempt – he did it and it fooled me – 1000 pounds and was really, really close and just wasn’t able to quite lock it out, but that’s what he opened up with. He took one attempt, benched 1000 pounds, racked it, and he was done.
Carl: That was awesome.
Coach Johnson: Just insane.
Carl: Looking at him – correct me if I’m wrong – but it looks like he is a lat presser.
Coach Johnson: There’s no question.
Carl: When the arms come down, the elbows move in immediately and it’s really the forearm that just stays out there and the elbow goes into this plain where vertically it just stays right where it belongs right next to the body. It’s almost like a modified dip. If you could actually take gravity and change its direction slightly to the back of you where your legs would stick out instead of straight down, it’s almost like a modified dip.
It’s an amazing thing to see how you can get the body to work. Interestingly enough, this is a successful 1000 pound lift but he locks his left arm out first and then his right arm. It’s very definitive. You can see you get the left arm locked out and then all of a sudden the right shoulder pushes and the right arm locks out and then you call the lift successful and he racks the bar.
Coach Johnson: What we’re really careful about uneven extension and what happens with these lifts, what will look like uneven lock out with what you’re explaining, when you’re lifting weights to this extent, any little bit of shift left or right will shift the lifter dramatically. What you see is when he locks it out is he is leaned to the right and then he shifts back upright. That’s when I call rack. I’m making sure that both elbows – if it’s distinctively left then right then we call it uneven extension.
But what you’re seeing now is with the way the material has advanced – and now lifters are now just simply stronger, they're lifting more weight – there’s a variable that you haven’t seen in the past especially with the equipped lifter. The pad technology has not changed with the amount of weight that the lifters are lifting. So they will sink down and there’s some lateral movement. A 700-800 pound bench press with elite lifters is now not as uncommon at all.
What happens with Dave, as you can see, as he’s coming to lock out, the entire body shifts to the right. Once he shows control of the weight, that’s what I’m looking at lock out. You’ll see me I look left, I look right, I take both hands, and tell him to rack.
Carl: Very cool. Is that Louie Simmons behind him?
Coach Johnson: Dave Hoff trains at Westside Barbell, so that is definitely one of Louie’s guys.
Carl: Was that this weekend that you told me the story about driving through Louisville in the snow for six hours?
Coach Johnson: Yes. It was at the Sweatshop CrossFit Conjugate which is Laurie and Shane Sweat’s gym. They do the North of the Border SPF Meet this time of the year every year in Cincinnati.
Carl: He lowers the bar with such control. It’s just amazing. When you look at this lift – it’s on Coach Wade Johnson’s Facebook page – you have to remind yourself that that is 1000 pounds. That is half a ton this guy’s got in his hands.
Coach Johnson: That’s crazy.
Carl: There’s an orthopedic surgeon in Northern Ohio that I think is one of the best doctors who applies critical thinking skills. His name is Dr. William Seeds and he’s a friend to the show. After talking about this today with you and doing the show, I just realized how strong he really is. Now I know why his son, Billy Seeds, is so proud of his dad. He competed in a master’s event somewhere in Northern Ohio. This was around October 10, so you may even know about it. He bench 425 without a shirt. I want to say he’s in his 40s.
Coach Johnson: That’s impressive.
Carl: That’s really impressive. The guy gets in the room, you repair his shoulders and knees and all this other stuff. He’s one of us. Anybody in Northern Ohio area, if you're an athlete and you need the services of an orthopedic surgeon, you want a guy who lives our life as well. Dr. William Seeds is a great guy.
Coach Johnson: Absolutely.
Carl: Let’s say my goal is to get to 400 pounds but my best lift is 200 now, so got a long way to go. Maybe it’s going to take me a year or two to get there. What do you think?
Coach Johnson: There is no way to gauge. Everybody is so different. A lot of times, when someone says they bench 200 and want to bench 400, we’re doubling the weight that this person has the capacity to lift currently. This is where having a coach and training in a group of experienced lifters is so crucial because what your 200-pound bench may be today without you getting any stronger could be 225 or 250 just having some experienced eyes on you to make some adjustments in your form.
I’ve got a lifter originally from Egypt who’s been in the country for maybe five years. The most he’s ever benched in a competition was 462. The first session I had him on his fourth attempt bench 470 pounds. Did he get any stronger? He’s in the first week of his training cycle for me, and he already set 8-pound PR. How’s that possible? How that’s possible is that you have an experienced set of eyes that’s looking at what you're doing, looking at your form, your technique, and even the style of lifting that you have and making some slight adjustments, boom! We immediately in one session, he’s setting a PR.
Those are the things that, as opposed to putting a timeline on it, if you're a 200-pound bencher, let’s make the goal – in the next six months I want to hit a 250-pound bench. Let’s start looking at the things necessary in order to get you there.
You always want to dangle that carrot in the distance of “Ultimately, this is where I want to be.” When I was squatting 700 pounds, I was always thinking about that 1000-pound squat. I thought, “This is what I got to do to get to 750.”
We’re doing a lot of baby steps and a lot of training cycles and building on those things. Going back to what Brandon Lily said, we’re also training in a method where we stay strong. We’re not peeking for something and then when we come back and we’re training two or three weeks later, we’ve had such a dramatic drop off that we can’t even come close to the numbers that we used to hit. We’re laying the foundation where we’re continuously getting stronger.
Carl: If you are taking longer to get to this endpoint, are there detraining periods? Is there time off that you figure into this? Do you just gently go for as long as it takes you to get you there?
Coach Johnson: Yes. I always use this analogy. How many times have we either heard or read the story about the tortoise and the hare? I have yet to hear/read the story or see a TV program where that rabbit went. He never once does he ever win the race. It is the guy/girl, the lifter that puts the time in consistently. It’s going to take what it’s going to take.
That’s why I always tell lifters: “Once the meet or the training cycle is done, let’s test and let’s evaluate what worked, what may not have worked, and focus on a couple of items.” You can’t do all this wholesale changes because you don’t know what is helping and what is not. So we focus on a couple of items and make that the focal point of the training cycle. With strength, I ask this question: how do you eat an elephant?
Carl: One bite at a time.
Coach Johnson: One bite at a time. It is not a race.
Carl: Did we miss anything?
Coach Johnson: You've seen me at my biggest and my strongest. One of the things that I do is on a decline day – I usually decline – is I’ll do a four-week period on, four-week period off. When I’m doing my shoulder work, I’ll do my rear delts. I will take 5-pound dumbbells, never heavier. I’ll do three sets that will range from 25-50 reps.
All I do is I keep my elbow locked. I don’t hyper extend it. But I go to parallel with the floor. The thumb is low, the pinkie is high like you're pouring. When I come up from my side, I’m pulling the pinkie up. I’m flushing blood into those shoulders and that light weight is not going to be a detriment.
When you get to the point that you can do three sets of 50 with 5-pound dumbbells, nobody thinks, “I’ll take a 5-pound dumbbell and throw it across my yard.” But do it for 50 reps – and what did we talk about? If a guy is benching 315, he’s got some shoulder strength. It’s the lack of direct conditioning. But we have to be careful when we’re isolating movements because everybody wants to grab the 50-pound dumbbells and swing it for a set of eight. We’re doing a whole bunch of other things. When I’m doing five pounds and I’m strict, and I go past the point of fatigue and I keep my form for 50 reps, I’m not only throwing blood into that muscle and conditioning it. I am strengthening all of that connective tissue.
Where do we see the pec tears? It’s rarely from the sternum (the bone) from the process up. It’s from that pec delt tie-in. When West was on, where do we see the big imbalances? It was pronation from the pec minor. Where does all that tie into?
Don’t always think strong. We’re conditioning and we’re doing prehab/rehab type work. That is the basis of the bench template that I’ve used for the last 10 years that we have had huge success with.
Carl: Wade had just detailed how to build a bigger bench. Lots of great information here to start off with. Where can people reach you if they want to use you as a distance coach? A lot of this stuff you may be able to do on your own. But a lot of it you're going to need critiquing on. “Am I doing this right? Am I not doing this right?” It’s very easy now with video. How can people reach you and what would it cost for someone to retain you?
Coach Johnson: You can find me at my personal Facebook page. It’s Wade Johnson. Or simply email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. I charge a one-time fee for writing the program. From there, monthly I charge a $25 coaching fee. I will send you an email of what to do, the weights, and the adjustments we need to make from session to session. What you send me back, what you did complete with video of the main list, that’s $25/month. That’s so cheap. It’s very affordable. You pay the flat fee just for me to write your program. The following month is when the coaching fee starts.
If you stay with me, I don’t do this where you get a six or eight week program and then you charge a re-up fee. Most of us can’t afford it. I can’t afford this, so why would I charge someone else like that? My goal is to help myself make a living, but it’s more important that I help these people. I get a little bit of money for my time. That’s really all I’m after.
Carl: How old are you now?
Coach Johnson: I’m 48 years old.
Carl: And you've been squatting a little bit here and there. You’re going to try and compete again. What was your last squat session like?
Coach Johnson: Because of the trip this weekend and I was exhausted, I did three sets of two with 505 and a set of two with 555 with some light knee reps on just to make sure I got some work in. The week before I’ve done a couple sets of doubles and my suit was 635 pounds
Carl: Are you still benching regularly as well?
Coach Johnson: We declined this morning. I couldn’t go heavy because with weather and everything like that, I did three sets of 405 for 15 reps. Monday, because I was coming back from Cincinnati, I did 405 for a paused rep. The week before I did in my shirt at 515, 525, and 535 for pause triples.
Carl: I don’t want you to brag, but what I want people to understand is this is a guy who can do the work but he also has shown great success in teaching other people to achieve their goals in the gym as well. That’s what I said at the beginning of the show. There are a lot of guys out there that can bench heavy. But can they teach you to bench heavy? No. They don’t have the analytical mind and they don’t have the ability to observe kinesiology and say, “This is what I’m doing. Let’s see if it works for you too.” They just do it. They don’t even know what they're doing a lot of times.
This is a great opportunity for those who want to increase their bench. Maybe you're 44, you want to bench 400 pounds. Here’s an opportunity to enlist a coach that can help you get there because he’s helped a lot of other people get there too.
We’re going to do two more interviews with Coach Johnson. We’ll schedule him, let everybody know. The next one is going to be on the deadlift and then the final one will be on the squat. So we’ll have all three of the big compulsory moves laid out by Coach Wade Johnson, the way he’s laid out the bench press here. Everybody should have everything that they need at that point in time to improve any of these lifts. How does that sound, Coach Johnson?
Coach Johnson: I’m absolutely for it.
Carl: I think it’s a great idea. It’s a great gift that he’s giving you for the beginning of the year with the New Year right around the corner here. Anything you want to say in closing?
Coach Johnson: Given the material that you have here – the one thing that I want to say is I’ve spent countless hours – it’s been weeks, months, years – either researching, reading, and talking to people and this is the method that took me to a 224 pound total. I was fortunate enough to coach one of the four female lifters to bench over 500 pounds. My son’s world record from 17 years old – who turns 26 on Saturday – that world record still remains. We’ve had some really great success and we have really minimized the entry.
But the thing that I will tell you is it’s never the method; it is the person, the guy that will stick in there and keeps learning and becomes very in tune with his body. That’s what our method does. We want your training to become intuitive and so you’re not just relying on a template of numbers and movements and things like that. You become more intuitive.
There are so many methods out there that work. But Louie and I had this conversation and he said to me, “When you’re talking about and elite level athlete, it’s never ‘Are they’re going to train hard enough?’ It’s going to be whether they will train smart enough.”
Clearly Louie’s method works. You got Dave Hoff who just bench pressed 1000 pounds and you guys think I’m a bad ass for squatting 1040. I squatted 40 more pounds than Dave benched. We’re different animals and we can argue that until the day is over, but at the end of the day the guy had a 1000 pounds in his hands, brought it down, it touched, he got a press command, and he locked it out and got a rack command. That doesn’t get any more badass than that – and he’s a Westside guy.
There are other people like Ed Cohen. Ed Cohen wasn’t a Westside guy and he certainly never trained the way I did. There are a lot of different methods out there. And there’s Brandon Lilly with his Cube Method.
It is the guy who will work steady, work consistent, and makes the commitment. That’s how you’re going to achieve your goals. You start by setting up some small short-term goals into medium-term goals into that one long-term big goal.
I feel like I’m very affordable, I’m very hands on and I feel like I can help a lot of people out there. It’s very, very affordable.
Carl: Working with a coach keeps you accountable too. That alone will help keep you on track.
Coach Johnson: There are a lot of the guys. I’m sure they would tell you and I’d be happy for them to email you, I’m sure they would. There are a lot of text and email conversations that have nothing to do with the numbers that you’re lifting. Sometimes it’s mental or I have to remind them, “Hey, you just worked a 60-hour work week and your kids have five of these dance recitals in a row.” All those things have to be kept in check or I got to tell a guy to his head out of his ass sometimes. Those are never things you want to hear. You don’t want to make excuses but sometimes the guy that’s on the outside looking in and watching over a lifter has to go, “Hey, you’re being a little too hard on yourself,” or “Hey, we need to mash on the gas here and get something done,” or “Hey, you’re not paying attention. Do not color outside the lines,” or “Hey, I think you got more in you when you do this weight and you’re going to hit this weight with a lot of other colorful language.” Then you’re going to text me and I’m going to tell you what you’re going to hit for this PR.
These are the things that go a long way in having someone even if they’re not in the same building with you. Having a guy that’s going to help keep you accountable and then keep yourself in check because what I find more and more regardless of the advancement or lack thereof of the lifter is that they're their own worst enemy. They’re so hard on themselves. So we have to find a way to keep that in balance, to keep lifter positive, and keep them focused and on point. That’s my biggest job.
Carl: Those of you who want bigger benches, no excuse now. You’ve got a guy you can go to for help. You got a pretty decent plan here laid out for you. Now it’s just a matter of getting in the gym and getting the work done. Who knows? That 400-pound bench press may come faster than you think once you start doing it right.
Coach Johnson: If you have questions – I’m not going to ask you to pay me if you’re asking me a couple of questions. That’s just never going to be the way it is. If you were to retain my services, that’s great. I’ve set it up to where it’s extremely affordable and convenient. But if you’ve got a couple of questions, please feel free to email me. I’m happy to answer those questions.
Carl: Great show. Thank you so much, Coach Johnson.
Coach Johnson: Thanks for having me on. I always enjoy being on with you, Carl.
Carl: We’ll do installment two and three shortly.
