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Question: I typically bench heavy twice a week...one being a wide grip bench day and the other being a close grip day. Also one of them will be flat and the other incline. For instance on a Monday i might do close grip incline, and on Thursday wide grip flat. Now my question is, since im going heavy both days (from 3-5 reps, occasionally as low as 2) would it better to just combine and do both lifts on the same day? And then recover the entire week and do no other benching? My thinking is that by splitting them up like i do now i may be inhibiting gains somewhat because im not getting enough recovery between the 2 heavy workouts.

Now the logical solution would be to keep it the way i got it now, twice a week... but instead of going heavy on both, make one of them a light workout each week. Like close grip incline heavy on Monday, then wide grip light on Thursday. But thats just not something im interested in doing.

I think you ought to be alright the way you're doing it now, since you're mixing up the two portions of the pecs. The only potential overtraining problem I see is with your triceps. They're involved in each heavy training day, and especially for close-grip days. If you feel you're overtraining then try cutting skullcrushers/dips/kickbacks etc. first.

I think what im gonna do for the time being is combine them, and do seated military presses as my main and first exercise on what was the other bench day. Probably throw in my rear delt and lat raises on that day too. My overhead strength is weak compared to my bench, i just hardly ever do it, and it could probably use its own day for a while rather than doing it after a bench workout when my delts are already worn out.

Also im not really worried about overtraining my front delts by doing this, even though im combining the two bench workouts it'll still probably be only 7 or 8 bench sets total for the workout...with only 2 of them being to failure. I think i should be ok doing the military presses 3 days later.

jeff, I'll just add my .02 in. I'm not into bodybuilding much, but did compete in PL. A popular split was Bench, with arm assistance on one day, and Mil press or push press combined with close grips on another day, along with shoulder upper back assistance. Worked well for me.
Tim

Thanks for the input Tim. Im definitely gonna split bench and military press now and give it its own day.