Bending program suggestions

[dean_redzic]

Hello,

I have only been unbraced bending (just double underhand at the moment) for less than a month. I am currently focusing on volume with 220-300lb steel. I found a post where Jan said he works up from 5 bars to 15 bars one bar a session, then moves up to a harder steel. I was planning to take this approach for a while, but I am not sure what to do after that. I will be training 2 days a week.

Are there any training plans out there, or does anyone have any program suggestions on how to progress when I move onto intensity.  Any resources that will guide me?

 

Thanks 

[Fist of Fury]

Bending is hard to program like you do in most other exercises because it's mostly about isometric strength. I would count the amount of hits you do and how much time you spend doing that instead of counting bars.

It also depends on what type of bending you're doing. If it's double overhand there will be much more muscle involved in the movement. Like shoulders and chest. In reverse bending it's very little about muscle and more about tendons. It takes longer time to heal and it's also not necessary to train high volume because of this in my opinion. It's very non-technical as well so it doesn't require a lot of practice.

DU I would say it's in between the two, it requires more muscle than reverse but not as much as DO.

The way I would do it if I ever started bending again would be very low volume, except for DO, which require more training because of the technical aspect and mobility. For the other two I would do very minimal work and focuse on strengthening my body in the gym while recovering between bending sessions.

I would do 1-2 bends that are 80-90% of my max then I would attempt a goal bar which I can't bend. Then I would probably take two weeks off. Maybe less for DU since I think it's a little bit more technique involved in that style.

[Blacksmith513]

3 hours ago, Fist of Fury said:

Bending is hard to program like you do in most other exercises because it's mostly about isometric strength. I would count the amount of hits you do and how much time you spend doing that instead of counting bars.

It also depends on what type of bending you're doing. If it's double overhand there will be much more muscle involved in the movement. Like shoulders and chest. In reverse bending it's very little about muscle and more about tendons. It takes longer time to heal and it's also not necessary to train high volume because of this in my opinion. It's very non-technical as well so it doesn't require a lot of practice.

DU I would say it's in between the two, it requires more muscle than reverse but not as much as DO.

The way I would do it if I ever started bending again would be very low volume, except for DO, which require more training because of the technical aspect and mobility. For the other two I would do very minimal work and focuse on strengthening my body in the gym while recovering between bending sessions.

I would do 1-2 bends that are 80-90% of my max then I would attempt a goal bar which I can't bend. Then I would probably take two weeks off. Maybe less for DU since I think it's a little bit more technique involved in that style.

This.. I never did any high volume bending. Like 5-8 bars and isometric holds one day a week and it worked well. I also never gave it the focus I should have looking back but I've been chasing multiple goals. Some people respond well to high volume and there's nothing wrong with that IMO, other than it can get get costly.  I'm looking forward to returning to it again. But starting out go super slow.

And Id either go up in diameter or cut quarter inch to half inch of the stock as I progressed. 

[Fist of Fury]

1 hour ago, Blacksmith513 said:

This.. I never did any high volume bending. Like 5-8 bars and isometric holds one day a week and it worked well. I also never gave it the focus I should have looking back but I've been chasing multiple goals. Some people respond well to high volume and there's nothing wrong with that IMO, other than it can get get costly.  I'm looking forward to returning to it again. But starting out go super slow.

And Id either go up in diameter or cut quarter inch to half inch of the stock as I progressed. 

I've done some high(er) volume bending but to be honest I got the same results by doing low volume, plus that's much cheaper.

However there are benefits for DO bending to bend more bars. Using different lengths to improve mobility and to work extra on the crush etc.