July 21, 2009
I think in one of my previous posts I talked about my progress on bench. Although yesterday was supposed to be DE bench, it was more like RE/ME.
For me, benching is difficult because I have long, skinny arms. This disadvantageous leverage means that I have more distance to travel and that I really have to work on pushing through my sticking point just above my chest. The most weight I ever lifted before this summer was 165lbs for three reps last year. Two weeks ago, I think, I repped 165lbs for 4, which was a PR.
Yesterday, I obliterated last year’s PR. I first started by doing the barx20, then x12. Then I proceeded to do 95×6, 115×5, 135×5, 150×5, and 165×5, a PR. Since I snagged that PR, Alex suggested I just go for 175lbs. I wasn’t sure if I could do it after all those reps, but I decided to do it anyway and I got it for a double with some energy left in the tank. After that, Alex said I might as well try 185lbs to get that goal out of the way. I was tentative at first, and I told Alex I wasn’t sure if I could do it. He simply said, sure you can; I can do it, just watch me. And he jumped under the bar and did it with bands. (The bands are connected to dumbbells that are lying on the ground to create the highest tension at the top of the movement and least tension at the bottom). It wasn’t encouraging, but I decided to do it and spent a few minutes to mentally prepare myself.
A lot of times, when I try a new weight, my arms shake and I feel really unstable. For some reason, when I unracked 185lbs, it felt heavy, but stable. I started the descent and gave it all I had. The bar went up so quickly I thought I could have had 190 or maybe 195. However, I stopped there because I had already handled two weights that I had never handled with full range of motion, and I had just set three PRs.
No mattter how many times I see other people benching 185lbs (or like, 400+lbs), I still feel satisfied that I was able to bench my goal. Because increasing my bench has been such a struggle, it meant a lot to finally meet one of my goals.
I guess my next immediate goal is to bench 205lbs, then 225lbs. 225 is a milestone because it’s two 45 pound plates a side, and there’s just something magical (and psychologically intimidating) about that. As a sidenote, Alex says he’ll sto calling me “McLovin” and come up with a different, [possily more embarrassing] nickname when I bench 225lbs and weigh 175lbs or more.
With that out of the way, hopefully I’ll meet my other goals, too:
- Squat 315lbs
- Deadlift 315lbs
I’m not sure which will come first, but I suspect the deadlift will. I haven’t free squatted in a while so I’m not sure how much progress I’ve made on that.
Erwa said,
July 22, 2009 at 12:18 AM
Haha, what do DE, RE, and ME stand for again?
Yo, I’m gonna start calling you McLovin’ too. That’s such a funny name. Sounds straight outta McDonald’s
, even though you would never eat anything there unless you had no choice.
Oh snap, that’s awesome you just randomly set some new PRs. It happens to me too with cubing sometimes. One day, I’ll just randomly be on my game and set a whole bunch of PRs.
I’m really amazed at how much warm-up you do and how many steps you take to get up to max weight. Are most people as rigorous and careful as you in slowly working up or do you see people jumping immediately to max weight?
Keep it up!
eigenpolynomial said,
July 22, 2009 at 11:22 PM
DE = Dynamic Effort, RE = Repeated Effort, ME = Maximum Effort.
The name “McLovin” is from the movie “Superbad,” not something my buddies came up with themselves.
Also, you have to earn the right to call me McLovin. In other words, until you can outsquat, outbench, and outdeadlift me, you don’t have the right to call me that. =) I’ll be waiting.
Most people in the gym have no idea what they’re doing. Maybe 5-10% of gymgoers actually have a plan and a goal and even fewer realize the importance of programming. But most powerlifters know much more than the average gymgoer and probably do something similar to what I do.