You Can Bench Press Your Max Every Day and Get Stronger, Atleast in the Short Term
But it's risky.
Hitting your bench 1RM every single day for over a month sounds like a recipe for injury, and not at all a legitimate training strategy. But, a study published in the Journal of Exercise Physiology Online did exactly that, and the seven participants who followed the protocol saw an average 29% increase in bench press strength in just 38 days. The gains were consistent across men and women, raising serious questions about how often lifters should be pushing true maximal effort.
Aim
To determine whether daily one-repetition maximum (1RM) bench press training could produce meaningful strength improvements in physically active men and women. The researchers also wanted to assess whether time spent training, measured in days, correlated with ongoing strength progress and whether the approach was practical for general use.
Methods
Seven physically active participants took part: 3 men and 4 women, none of whom had serious injuries before the study. Each day for 34 consecutive days, participants worked up to their daily 1RM on the bench press, then completed 5 volume sets of either 3 reps at 85% or 2 reps at 90% of that day’s max, depending on the participant.
On day 35, a short taper was performed: 5 sets of 1 rep at 90-100% of their original day-one 1RM. Days 36 and 37 were full rest days, and the final 1RM test was conducted on day 38. Participants also supplemented daily with 10g of creatine monohydrate, consumed caffeine before each session, and took 20g of protein post-workout.
