Today we are bench pressing with a pause at the bottom position. This is done the same way as the pause squats we do, holding the lowest part of the lift for a certain period of time. In this case it will be with the bar touching the chest.

Why pause bench? Well first of all it can help get rid of some bad habits especially for people relatively new to bench pressing. We are doing sets of 3 with the 3rd rep being a pause. You can imagine that paused rep will get pretty hard. In fact all three reps will be pretty hard. Adding the pause (should) force the bencher to focus on bar path and tension on the bar. Often times, especially in beginners, bench press reps get ruined by the bar traveling far too forward over the sternum and stomach area. Moving the bar straight off the sternum is how we want to be. As for tension on the bar, thinking about breaking the bar in half will help with proper muscle activation throughout the lift. Paused reps will allow you to focus on both of these a little more.

Pause reps for all the power lifts also are good at times because they just plain old mess you up! That pause eliminates and momentum or stretch reflex meaning you need to activate every muscle fiber in the biggest of muscles in your body to get each rep. Our muscles work through neural connections called motor units. These bad boys fire and trigger muscle fibers to work. Motor units work in a linear order, meaning they always fire smallest to largest based on the stimulus they are reacting to. Lifting light weight a few times requires activation of only smaller muscle fibers. Get that weight going for 20+ reps then you start breaking into the big boys. Paused reps require the greatest effort to get the lift meaning we use the biggest motor units/muscle fibers we have. Since it’s hard to train these upper end fibers because it’s just plain hard to get to that point when we are lifting, paused reps are a good way to break into those bigger, badder muscles.

There is evidence out there that motor units need to be trained to be used as well. Think of if you take 2 weeks off and then come squat the first time. Your old 3 rep max feels real slow and heavy right? But then 5 days later you squat again and it feels fine. You didn’t get 2 weeks of strength back in one session, rather the first time you lifted those high end motor units needed to lift the big weights weren’t ready to go as they hadn’t been trained in who knows how long. After that session they were back into the pattern of knowing how and when to fire. In other words we need to train our body not just to lift weight but also how to lift weight. It’s muscle memory at it’s finest.

So. Pause reps. There you go. Get in, get big and be beautiful.

TUESDAY
Strength: Bench Press

5 sets of 3 reps
-rep 3 with a 1 full second pause at chest

WOD: 12m AMRAP
2 Wall Climbs *
15 Pull-Ups
9 Burpees

*Add wall facing HSPU after each wall climb for RX+

SkWAT Team: 8 alternating TGU (each side) 53/35