Brandon Lilly’s 575 Bench and Training Tips

Really proud of my PR today. It has been a very long hard road coming, and I am extremely glad that people believed in me, and also doubted me. I train my Cube method and am happy with it. Obviously numerous other methods work and work well, I just choose to do what I like. Believe in yourself, always. Make a plan, stick to it, and hurt feelings.

Believe it or not to have any success in life you need good people around you. One of the people who helped me map out the Cube Method is Corey Hayes. He is without a doubt one of just a handful of people I blindly trust when I need training advice or coaching. He answers two questions for me today…

•When benching i feel like i can get anything off of my chest but suck in the middle. Board work has helped, any other ideas?

The number one suggestion I would give you is shoulder work. My personal preference is the seated overhead press but any variation will due.

Second, since you are explosive off of the chest, use that to your advantage and continue to work on exploding as much as possible so you can blast through that transition spot. Speed is king. Chain work on heavy days and bands on your speed day.

Third and final, make sure you are working on a board that is under your weak spot. This again will help blast through that weak spot with speed and force. To make this even more extreme, try going without a board but pausing right under your sticky spot. Bring the bar down, hold for a 5 count then blast it back up. Start with around 50% for multiple sets of 8 on your repetition day and slowly work this up into heavy 5’s and 6’s.

•I have a terrible deadlift. Id like to try sumo but my hips are really weak. Should i stay conv? What can i do to bring my hips up.

Why not do both? Conventional and sumo will feed off of each other when trained in unison. A good deadlifter will have both variations within 25-40lbs of each other.

To bring your hips up, really work on some extra wide movements such as
– Extra wide box squat
-Extra wide pause squat
-Extra wide sumo deadlift
-1-2in deficit sumo deadlift
– Belt squats (if available)
With each of these exercises, keep the reps high as you are trying to build some muscle on the hips and do not want to get injured. 2-4 sets of 10-15 will suffice.

Since you have weak hips now and are hesitant to go full bore with sumo, maybe you could continue to use conventional exercises for heavy days and start using sumo on your repetition and speed days. As you become more confident with the stance, start adding more sumo work in on your heavy days.

Check Out Brandon’s Training Log Here