I strongly believe, when you are older / stronger / more experienced, you should trade some intensity for volume.
I am 40 and bench 3-5 times a week with great progress.
Excellent way to build up volume, build muscle, and really hammer proper form over and over is the Sheiko bench press pyramid.
Boris Sheiko is probably THE most successful Russian powerlifting strength coach of all times as he produced dozen of world champions who broke hundreds of European and world records.
When you bench 2-5 times a week, try the Sheiko pyramid every second or third week for one of your bench sessions to work some serious volume. As you probably know from many Russian texts, strength is usually best built in the 70-85% range. Anything below that is more for hypertrophy and conditioning and above 85% is for peaking. Most of the best Eastern Bloc athletes work in the 70-85% range to build their strength.
Here we go, Sheiko bench press pyramid (one of many variations):
(sets X reps @ %)
1 X 6 @ 50%
1 X 5 @ 60%
1 X 4 @ 65%
2 X 3 @ 70%
2 X 3 @ 75%
3 X 2 @ 80%
2 X 3 @ 75%
2 X 3 @ 70%
1 X 5 @ 65%
1 X 7 @ 60%
1 X 9 @ 50%
As you can see the weights are not heavy but the load is very high. You do 30 lifts (!!!) in the strength building zone 70-85%.
Always pause the 1st rep of every set. IPF 2 sec pause.
Use excellent form on all sets and all reps.
Your goal is to build and practice, not test. Leave your ego at home.
At the end you should feel tired but not exhausted. Muscles should feel very loose and well worked.
The second part of the pyramid should feel way stronger than the ascending part.
After several weeks, if you did all correct, you should be able to increase the load on all your benching workouts (a "shift" in strength). You should also experience increased mass in your chest, shoulders and triceps.
Good luck!
