Top Bodybuilders and Raw Bench Pressing

Many people have been asking me about how a Pro Bodybuilder would do in a RAW bench contest against the strongest power lifters in the world.. Names that come up include Greg Kovaks, Marcus Ruhl and Ronnie Coleman. I can see exactly why this question comes up. We have seen Ronnie Coleman dumbbell benching 200lbs for 10 easy reps and have heard about Ronnie benching 225 for 75 reps, which equals a 731 1 rep max in theory. As we know, theory doesn't always equal truth since we know that doing 225 for a load of reps involves mostly slow twitch fibers and doing 731 for 1 would include fast twitch fibers, and finally we know that slow twitch and fast twitch fibers work in opposite directions.

Then we hear Greg Kovaks at 410lbs incline bench pressing 700+ pounds. Then finally, we have Isaac Nessar, the man with the biggest muscular chest, measuring 74 1/2 inches claiming that he has benched 825. The bottom line is that with all these amazing claims the same question always enters our minds "How would these monster bodybuilders do against the strongest RAW benchers of the world and why aren't these mastodons in bodybuilding not hitting the world records in RAW bench competitions or even competing among even the powerlifters who are almost, but not quite at the top"?

Well, to answer the question, on external levels, many top lifters have constantly seen bodybuilders that can hit 505 for almost and more than 10 reps on the bench press, and then they get smashed by 600 for 1! See, Strength is different than rep power; bodybuilders don't have the Central Nervous System (CNS) training that power lifters have. My 750 bencher friend, Mike Witmer, saw a guy at world gym, that could sling 405 around for 10 easy warm up reps, but he couldn't bench 550! Bodybuilders have a certain make up of muscle that allows them to genetically get huge, and rep big weight, but central nervous system can pop a bigger one rep max! On the other hand, maybe the top RAW benchers in power lifting couldn't rep 405 as many times as the strongest bodybuilders, but again they have a higher 1 rep max.