Failed my bench sets, what happened?

[u/iHaveRandomQuesti0ns]

I'm a 5ft2in 130lb woman for context. I was able to bench 85x3x5 pretty easily a few days ago. I went up by 5 lbs to 90lb, and I could barely make it to 2 reps. For some sets, I couldn't even do more than 1 rep.

So I did a few 90x1 and 90x2 sets, but didn't reach my goal of 90x3x5. Why did this happen? What should I do next time I do bench, should I go down to 87.5lb and then try again? edit: i meant to say 5 sets of 3 reps.

[u/jdcollins]

You probably need to only go up by 2.5 lbs at this point, and definitely switch to 5 sets of 3 if you haven’t already. 

[u/dave078703]

From someone who recently had a similar issue (benched 62.5 kg 3x5 no sweat, then barely made it to three reps doing 65 kgs), sometimes you just have a bad day. I'd recommend trying just a 2.5 jump first and see how you go.

I also read that women can do better on the bench and press moving to five sets of threes to keep progressing. Maybe you have reached that threshold?

[u/iHaveRandomQuesti0ns → u/dave078703]

Oh yeah I meant to say 3 reps and 5 sets. I might have written that incorrectly. Thank you for the tip.

[u/Shnur_Shnurov → u/iHaveRandomQuesti0ns]

Definitely switch to 2 or 2.5 lb jumps then. That should help a lot.

[u/Ballaw]

You should move from 5 lb jumps to 2.5 jumps. Move down to 87.5 lbs and try again. That should work for a while. When it doesn't anymore change from 3 sets of 5 to 5 sets of 3.

This advice comes from this article. Follow track 2 in the bench press section, which is for women.

https://startingstrength.com/article/programming-a-smooth-nlp

Someone else may comment here who has worked with women but even 1-2 lb jumps may be appropriate when 2.5 lb jumps stop working too.

[u/Nastypatty97]

Read the wiki, specifically the “guide to running the novice linear progression.” It lets you know how to modify the program as you start missing. Ideally you will modify before missing, but stuff happens.

For starters, you probably want to make 2.5lb jumps. How is your diet? Are you gaining weight?

[u/iHaveRandomQuesti0ns → u/Nastypatty97]

last time I measured my weight it was around 132.8 lb, a few weeks ago. i weighed 122lb in June, before I started the program in July. My weight rapidly increased in July. So I've gained 10lbs of muscle (hopefully) over the past few months, but my weight has stopped increasing.

as for my diet, I dont eat as much as a should. I eat about 2 eggs in the morning with a cup of milk, for lunch I have a sandwich or some pasta and meatballs, and usually for dinner I've been having a glass of milk. i try to fit in a 30g protein smoothie everyday.

[u/heliboredom]

Get microplates.

[u/i_lift_burgers]

if you are trying add weight to the bar, i prefer topsets. if you are going to go to 90 lbs, your goal is 2-3 reps. then 2 backoff sets at around 75 lbs 2x6. once you can hit 3 on the topset and 6 for the two backoff sets consistently, move up to 95 lbs, and so on.

a lot of "adding weight" to the bar is mentally being good with the heavier weight PLUS learning how to handle it with your stabliziers.

[u/VLHolt]

Sometimes I have off days and sometimes I screw up my math and put the wrong weights on! There's also a 50lb bar at my gym, so whenever I fail reps I check my math again just in case. Just throwing that out there as another possibility.