Quote Originally Posted by hurley842002 View Post
I may need to hear your secret on bench. As long as I've been working out, I've never been able to produce a strong barbell bench, in fact it's quite embarrassing. I was (at one time) throwing up the 105lbs dumbbells on flat bench, 70lbs dumbbells for shoulder press, and doing weighted parallel dips with up to 65 extra pounds. So fairly well rounded in the important areas. I'm sure it doesn't help not having a consistent spotter.
Bench has always been my most embarrassing lift, given my tremendous wingspan.

My only real "secret" was running linear progression with 5/3/1 for a few months and then taking a day to actually go AMRAP on my proposed actual 1RM. I ended up putting it up for 4, and that in turn boosted the numbers all around.

Sometimes just ignoring the prescription and seeing what you can do to yourself will yield a lot of confidence and insight to your capabilities.