HOW OLD SCHOOL LIFTERS INCREASED THEIR BENCH PRESS! DOUG HEPBURN'S METHOD

In this video we look at Doug Hepburn's method and how he increased his BP to the 500 LB mark. Enjoy!
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Doug Hepburn: • Doug Hepburn

[@maia3420]

This is very odd. I randomly out of the blue decided to search for 500 lb bench presses and this was uploaded within 5 minutes of that. Some things are meant to be!

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

The Universe speaks to you sometimes...listen. Happens to me all the time

[@AB-ne9pz]

@@GoldenEraBookworm sounds like something Frank Zane would say

[@MrCawk]

What's more amazing is his wide grip, to lift such weight with such angle, no easy task.

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

True!

[@davidpigozzo5918]

I started to used this routine 2 yrs ago during COVID lock down. I can’t say a bad about it. It works for me, my best bench was 345 touch n go back in ‘14-‘15? Early this yr I did 347 using Hepburn’s routine and that’s also not benching for around 18 months. Not to mention that I have set 11-12 PRs this year in various presses & rows at age 54 using this routine

[@jamyleach8292]

I've used this method for years.

[@emoski1235]

Another gear vid on a legend. A underrated legend at that too. I started a modified Hepburn schedule about a month ago. Take your 75% at 4sets of 3 and increase by 1 rep every workout until you reach 10. Simple and effective. It’s been over four years since I trained with weights and in one of these blocks my lifts jumped 30lbs. Not back to my old numbers from years ago but as I learned watching these vids, the methodical disciplined approach is amazing because it gives my tendons time to catch up, I’m willing to bet that Hepburn rarely had any injuries because he trained in terms of a lifetime, not the sprint! I plan on following this style for about 2 more cycles. Awesome work GE BookWorm!!🏋️

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Nice work and thank you

[@Awakenedmind333]

Do you do the work out weekly or multiple times in the week?

[@emoski1235]

@@Awakenedmind333 I train every other day on the basic meat and potatos lifts. Bench squat and Bor's on first day, Standing military presses deadlifts and weighted chins on day 3rd day. I do this every other day approach because im active on the inbetween days. And ill throw in some extra work on those inbetween days for some arm work and core but its a feel good workout.:-)

[@heisensperg9264]

These videos on Hepburn's training are great

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Thanks please share

[@right-wing_reactionarychri8798]

Well. Time to increase my bench press.

[@URWELCOME]

Time to achieve that 500 mark

[@christopherseat9871]

Love the PODCAST for OLDSCHOOL TRAINING............REAL TRAINING ❤💪💯🇬🇧🇺🇲🇧🇪🇦🇺🇨🇵🇨🇦🏋️‍♂️❤‼

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Thank you, please share

[@72Dexter72Manley72]

Leroy Colbert always talked about trying to add at least 1 rep each workout. Full body style. So you would be adding at a minimum 3 reps but you can add more to your sets each week. I like working in the 5-8 rep range. So I'm adding weight and reps every month. 💪🏾👍🏽 This is a huge and quick increase. Possibly 12 reps or more of an exercise in a month. Depending on which rep range a person is using. Which also means you need to increase the weight. All lifters can use a version of this if they want to get stronger with bigger muscles. If you add 2-3 reps to an exercise you are ready to add weight. 👍🏽

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

I use a similar system too

[@davidseva6533]

Great advice more warm up sets otherwise injury city.

[@myostar7]

True I used more 5 reps and limit time between sets. Always finished with a 60% burn. Shoulders and triceps.

[@ericcagle1263]

Awesomeness

[@stephenlewis6409]

It's the classic 'Power and Pump' Hepburn method.

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Yep. I hope to try it soon

[@StephenDoty84]

Educational. And I thought I was the only one who did their first warm-up set with 360 lbs.

[@Jayhargo78]

This was a great video another guy worth doing a video on is big Jim Williams I'm pretty sure he trained fullbody everyday and benched something like 600lbs

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Great suggestion!

[@DENATALKS]

How to train for hypertrophy if i am a boxer i just want to know how to use bodybuilding without affecting my cardio

[@paporomanroman5304]

big men,big bench

[@markharris4825]

Great

[@michaelfabian6992]

Again, sounds like an independent discovery of what is now knows as a High intensity princicple, more specifically Rest-Pause (multiple sets of 1 rep at max)

[@TyghtAlso]

Nope

[@DENATALKS]

Could you explain to us how to use vince's diets without supplements since its very expensive

[@TyghtAlso]

Excellent question. How are things going for you, bodybuilding wise?

[@rickdalbey6009]

I get really tired of Bro Science, all these sets and rep schemes. I am 71, I bench 295 and I am moving towards 3 plates, 315 lbs. See ya when I get there.

[@rpk2435]

hardcore lifting!

[@jeffreybabino8161]

Doug Hepburn was one of the great ones

[@ClickClack_Bam]

Pretty old school method. Low reps high weight for strength. High reps lower weight for endurance.

[@Fred-px5xu]

Winner winner chicken dinner my friend.😂

[@CaliMaxStrength]

the weighted dip is better than the bench press.....

[@gokuryu]

Some of his lifts looks like he didn't even use leg drive.

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

He was that strong

[@MrDeanmfitz]

Hes like the antithesis of Doug Funny

[@josephhayes1591]

Have fun re-racking the weight on that bench.

[@maximisatwat]

Out of curiosity, Alex Bromley quotes this same programme as 8x2, 3x6 ... kzbin.info/www/bejne/p3yThmmZp92ImrM You quote it as 5x2, 3x8 8 makes more sense as "pump" (hypertrophy)

[@zxtenn]

WOW, benching 450 + pounds on a wooden box!!! Truly amazing. I agree thats not much of a warm up but he was probably so strong 350 wasnt that much weight. Probably natural too, just a big, strong country boy that only genetics is responsible for, i have known a few people like that, just big strong natural country boys but no physique

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Probably natural? 100% natural

[@LiftingwithGrandpaCharlie]

👍💪🐂

[@mduggal]

What's the song intro?

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Some spy track that was on KZbin Music as a free download

[@mduggal]

@@GoldenEraBookworm any chance you could send the link if you still have it?! 🙏

[@JohnnyYT91]

So this type of style Vince would not advice correct ? As it is only for strength? Getting that blocky look losing the flow of the aesthetics correct ?

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

you said correct so many times...yes....correct....correct?

[@TyghtAlso]

Correct, correct? Correct? @@GoldenEraBookworm

[@arthurblackhistoric]

Here's the thing regarding Hepburn and others who are very open when it comes to how they trained. These men were what we used to term "NATURALS" . . By that, we didn't mean drug free, but it was the old fashioned term for genetically gifted. What made Doug's lifts even more incredible was his having polio as a kid and he had a withered leg as a result of that. He still went on to squat 600 pounds regardless. A man with only average genetics will over-train something fierce using Doug's programs. Even the limited warm ups Doug did indicate his incredible natural ability, compared to normal men. I'll say here and now that most normal men are hard gainers. If getting big and strong was easy, everyone would be doing it. Then you have what Denis Dubreill and I term ultra-hard gainers. Those are the guys for whom nothing works, Even the abbreviated training methods that work on hard gainers have no effect on ultra-hard gainers. They require a training method that is definitely not for the faint of heart. I've written extensively on the subject of how an ultra-hard gainer should train, and I'm willing to correspond if anyone wants to know more. But I'm a real grumpy old geezer these days, so don't waste my time if you're not gonna do as I tell you. If you're gonna add more exercises, or practise the Zercher Lifts, don't write to me.

[@handsforwarrodneymorgan2616]

No one is truely a hardgainer. Maybe compared to drug ussers. But everyone,i mean everyone who doesnt have a medical condition,can and will pit on serious muscle if they just show up and lifts weights and est. But alas....most sre laxy. This is why everyone isnt walking around muscular and in shape. It is laziness.

[@arthurblackhistoric]

@@handsforwarrodneymorgan2616 . . You don't know anything, son. You don't know the frustration many feel when nothing seems to work. I even asked my doctor if I had cancer! I couldn't gain. The only time I did gain was during the times when adolescent males experience what is known as growth spurts. I was fortuitous enough to be on a hard gainers' bulk up program when I went through a growth spurt and I gained well. Of course I had no understanding of growth spurts at that time. All I knew was that after I'd made those gains, I couldn't gain for years! That is until I experienced the final growth spurt that happens at age 24. Purely coincidentally I was on a bulk up program then as well. After that spurt was over, it was back to no gains at all for a number of years., Then I happened upon the right way for me personally to train. The level of intensity was staggering to my senses, but I stuck with it. I ended up achieving very close to 100% of my physical potential, which not too many people ever achieve. One more thing . . Just because someone writes for Hard Gainer Magazine doesn't mean that person is a hard gainer. Never forget that.

[@handsforwarrodneymorgan2616]

@@arthurblackhistoric well I feel I do know something. I will respectfully tell you that I've been what people call a hardgainer all my life. But luckily I had good teachers so I got programs and stuck to them. I am 50 years old this year and because of illness and injury I dropped back down to a paltry 170 with a weak 225 bench but guess what ...I'm using the mad Cow 5x5 routine, eating as much as I can handle using digestive enzymes to help with the eating and I'm already putting on muscle and strength and I absolutely consider myself a hardgainer. However even at 50 years old I am sticking with the program day after day and week after week and month after month and eating and the games are coming .that's all it takes is consistency and effort.

[@handsforwarrodneymorgan2616]

@@arthurblackhistoric i wish you luck. Just pick an old school program from the time before heavy drug usage and stick to it and eat even if you have to drink a gallon of milk a day buy digestive enzymes and use them they helped tremendously and you will gain

[@arthurblackhistoric]

@@handsforwarrodneymorgan2616 . . Many people wear their hard gainer identity like some sort of badge of honor. Like it's not cool to admit to being an easy gainer. If all it takes you is consistency and effort, then like it or not, you're what I'd classify as a moderately easy gainer. So, what does a really easy gainer look like? Go to the Old Time Strongman website and check out John Wood. He's what I'd describe as an incredibly easy gainer. He does intense cardio on the days he doesn't lift, including running and the rowing machine, on which he holds several records. He engages in stair climbing competitions as well. He is such an easy gainer that I don't believe he's qualified at all to be giving out training advice. It's like he's kicking sand in everyone else in the world's faces. Brooks Kubik is what I'd classify as a moderately easy gainer. With not much specialised training he got his bench press to 350 pounds. I know Powerlifters who can't bench that much after years of training! Writing for Hard Gainer Magazine doesn't make you a hard gainer. Jack Lalanne was also an incredibly easy gainer, right up there with John Wood. You might like to Google Jack and prepare to be astounded!! Another ridiculously easy gainer was Chuck Sipes, who did mountain climbing (!!!) on his days off from training. He and Clint Walker's brother . . Clint from the TV show in the 1960s, Cheyenne . . used to work together as lumberjacks, and they'd pump iron during their lunch hour!! Chuck had one of the most densely muscled physiques ever built and was the 1970 IFBB Mr World. I'm gonna give you the keys to the kingdom now, with a link to the incredibly obscure Dennis DuBreuil and his article on gaining arm size. He was an ultra-hard gainer made good. He wrote articles for Iron Man Magazine in the 1970s. He coached Ron Thompson to an AAU Mr America title back in the day. Politics in bodybuilding being what they were, any machine manufacturer who coached a bodybuilder to a title didn't do the man any favours. Even the mighty Casey Viator couldn't get a victory at the NABBA Universe because he trained only on Nautilus Machines. Likewise Ron Thompson was given the short shrift at the NABBA Universe because he trained exclusively on Dennis DuBreuil's Ultra Machines! Dennis showed a photo of himself in Iron Man using the Ultra leg Machine. I took that magazine to a friend of mine who owned an engineering shop and he made it for me!! It was only by using Dennis' training methods that I was able to make gains at a stage in life when they would not otherwise be possible for me to make. At age 49, in 2003, I had 19-1/2"" arms!! Mind you, they weren't all vascular and defined, but they were strong! I had a 54" chest and a 50" gut as well. I'm short at 5' 7", and I was kinda like a scaled down Paul Anderson at my heaviest bodyweight of 124kg. or 273 pounds. With my back being bad even before then . . I fell off my truck in 1988 and damaged my lumbar region in a serious enough way that it could never heal . . I couldn't train my legs hard enough to make them grow commensurate to my upper body, or I'd have been able to weigh 300 pounds. As it was, I'd pre-exhaust my hamstrings and quads, using my pirated Ultra Leg Machine, then work up to a set of however many reps I felt like banging out on 400 pounds. How I built up to a 650 squat in 1985 is a tale for another time, but suffice to say it involved training at a frightening intensity that many wouldn't have the courage to do themselves. I'm gonna claim to have developed this method on my own in my home gym, which has been described by everyone who ever saw it, as a dungeon and a torture chamber. I wouldn't have that any other way!! I've been rambling here, like I do when I talk with people as well, but I've accumulated a helluva lot of Iron Game savvy over my 55 years of lifting weights. I'm 67 and turn 68 in June 2022.

[@Regularguy1798]

Before massive steroids...

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

Absolutely

[@roadstar499]

the grip that his guy uses in this bench is only good for one thing...that is increasing his max lift...the form is horrible for shoulders etc... way to wide...

[@GoldenEraBookworm]

He was a powerlifter afterall

[@roadstar499]

@@GoldenEraBookworm yes... its all about full extension and how much weight with power lifting... a grip like that lessons the amount of movement of all muscle groups involved....