How I benched 315 by first time benching (it's not genetics)

The first time I ever benched properly a few months ago, I was messing around with 225lbs and a thought i may as well try doing 315, with a spotter of course. And I got the rep! It looked ugly as hell. My arch collapsed, no scapular retraction, no leg drive, who knows what I could have done if my technique and tension was on point.

But keep this in mind it wasn't the first time I had worked out. Before this, all my upper pushing work consisted of push up and dip variations. When it comes to calisthenics and gymnastics, I have barely entered the intermediate level relative to some of those monster gymnasts out there, who knows what they can do.

What I am trying to say is there it is possible to climb through the open window into the house of great pressing strength. If you want a big bench, benching is important, but here are a few reasons why I think you should add high volume calisthenics into your program:

• Most pressing exercises can be done anywhere, so when traveling or can't get to the gym, you can still work on your pressing strength
• It will build up your work capacity so you can train harder, for longer.
• If done smartly, it won't impede your recovery.
• If you pick your exercises correctly, it will make you hella strong. 

One program I recommend would be the 100 push up program for any level of strength, it teaches you to follow a program through and be patient which is so important if you want to get anywhere in life, it will improve elbow conditioning and give you great endurance and work capacity.

Here are a bunch of exercises that you can use to increase your bench:

Beginner exercises 

• Push ups and it's variations
• Tricep dips
• Straight bar dips
• Handstand holds against a wall
• Planche leans
• Plyometric push ups

'Advanced' exercises

• Planche variation holds
• Planche variation push ups
• Freestanding handstand holds
• Handstand push ups, freestanding and against a wall
• Handstand push ups with a close grip
• Handstand push ups with one hand elevated
• Full ROM handstand push ups
• Tricep blasters
• Ring dips
• One arm handstand holds against wall
• Weighted dips

Hope this helps
Enjoy the gains
Alex

progress from the advanced tuck planche to the half lay straddle planche

Progressing from the advanced tuck planche to the straddle seems like an impossible task for anyone, especially if you are built a little heavier than the rest. I was stuck in the adv. tuck planche for what felt like a lifetime, and there were no articles on how to progress between these two progressions that differ so much in difficulty and load on the muscles and joints.

This article will show you the progression that I used to get to the half lay straddle, once I got that for ~5 seconds, I got a full planche (a low/banana planche), so I actually skipped the straddle when using this progression.

Once you can do each of these holds for 5-10 seconds, start doing push ups, when you can do 5 push ups, go onto the next progression. Don't do these progressions until you can do an adv. tuck planche with your knees behind your elbows for at least 5 seconds

1: start doing your tuck planche like this:

If you can't see the image very well, basically, do the tuck planche with your legs straddled, but your thighs still vertical, Make sure not to rest your knees on your arms.

2: Frog planche:

As you can see in the image, lean forward a little more, and push your thighs back, so the are at a 45 degree angle. Almost there.

2:half lay/crooked planche:

Lean forward even more, and push your legs back until they are in line with your torso. It will feel like you almost lock into place. You will find that you will be a lot lower and your back will be a bit arched, this is fine, I actually think it looks cool this way. But as you get stronger try spreading your lats and get into that hollow back position.

Hope this helps.
Enjoy the gains,
Alex (Don't forget to stretch your glutes) Heath

You want a 500 lb bench what??

Here I am going to be laying out my long term upper body strength goals (aim to get this aged 25, so 7 years), for my lower body I have not chosen to have any serious long term goals, I wouldn’t mind being able to dunk within a year, but apart from that I am just going to have fun and see how much I can squat. All of these targets will seem pretty far fetched, but you can’t hit anything without aiming at something. So here they are:
500 lb bench press: I don’t know how much I have to weigh to get this as a natural athlete, or if it has even been done before, for now, my main pushing strength I will be working planche and handstand push ups. But I will incorporate partial bench presses working up to 500lbs and slowly increasing the ROM over the 7 years. But I will be very careful of elbow pain and will progress at a very slow pace, it will not be my primary focus for now.
100 one arm pull ups (50 each side) ok, this one is straight out crazy, Jasper Benincasa could do 25 on each side, alternating arms each rep, so I thought, what the hell, I’ll go for twice that,  I am planning on doing this through steady state cycles, slowly increasing the number of reps as the cycles progress. Once I get 10 each side, I may have to get more creative, maybe do some west-side style training, I don’t know, I will think about it closer to the time.

100 Full planche push ups: This is going to be a challenge, I am currently doing crooked planche push ups (below), or about 10 reps, so I will aim to get 100 of those and work from there, to try and get my work capacity up before i do it in harder movements such as the full planche.

120kg strict curl: I am a torso dominant athlete, and so my arms have always lagged behind, After seeing Denis Cyplenkov do it, I thought I had to at least give it a go, I will go over how I plan on doing this in the near future

Enjoy the gains
Alex

Getting 100 reps of a difficult exercise (periodisation method)

Everyone that has been doing calisthenics for a while has at least heard of a program that gets you 100 push ups or 200 sit ups. And these programs are fantastic. But what if you want to get super high reps of an 'advanced' exercise (e.g dips or handstand push ups)?
when it comes to doing difficult exercises for high reps, you will plateau quickly, so multiple methods will have to be used, this one is called the periodisation method.  I will be using push ups as an example, when your target reps is 100.

1. Start a routine where you are doing 100% - 200% of your target reps a day. Example: make sure you are doing 100-200 push ups a day
2. find your max, during the day, just go for max efforts when you feel like it, only go for a max effort 2 or 3 times a week. Example: you currently have 32 push ups.
3. add some kind of small resistance, for example: resistance bands, pause reps, a different variation. and work up to your current max without the resistance.Example: change to diamond/ close grip push ups and work back up to 32 push ups (While keeping your total volume daily at 100-200 push ups)
4. Test your max, it should have increased 
5. Take a week of just doing your regular variation, getting 100% - 200% of your target reps daily. Example: go back to doing 100-200 push ups daily, making an effort to increase the reps in your sets. 
6. Repeat steps 1-4

 Now obviously the harder the resistance, the longer it will take you to get back to your max, but the rep increases will be much better, so have a think about how much resistance you will use. Also change it every cycle, keeping up variation is another way of keeping from hitting plateaus.

Enjoy your strength gains.
Alex