Bench-gasm

Finally, I had an awesome upper body day. This is the first GREAT bench session I have had in months, so I'm pretty pumped. First of all, my back was feeling a little tender yesterday from that shitty rolling bar during squats. I was worried that it would be really bothering me today, but for whatever reason it really felt great. When I got to the gym, I started warming up and feeling out my position on the bench a little more - as I wrote in a post this weekend, I found a new foot placement/position on the bench that felt fucking AMAZING. Finally, I get exactly what my benching should feel like. However, on the weekend I was doing reps with a really wide grip, so I wasn't sure if my much better reps were due to the wideness, or the added tightness and leg drive from this new positioning. So today, I brought my grip back in, to a point where the power ring was between my ring and middle finger. Here's what my warmups and sets looked like: 

bar x 5

75 x 5

95 x 5

115 x 5

145 x 5

160 x 3

180 for reps (got 4)

Considering last Tuesday, I only got 4 reps at 170, I'd say that's a fucking great improvement. 

And it felt fucking amazing too. After 180, I brought the weight down to 100 and started my 5 x 10 benching, with 90 seconds rest between sets. On the final set, I managed to rip out 20 reps, which is also fucking awesome. I am daring to hope that my bench is FINALLY going to make some progress. 5 x 10 bent over row with 100 was cake. Then, I felt out those dumbbell overhead presses, doing them like I do the dumbbell bench on Fri - three sets to failure. I hit the 30lb dumbbells for an easy set of 20, then went up to 35 and got 11 and 9, with 90 seconds rest. And finally, 5 x 10 lat pulldowns with 130 were great too. 

All around, just a strong, strong day in the gym. All the weights felt like cake, and I'm excited to just keep working at it. Unfortunately, I have to take some R&R next week, as I'll be going away. However, a few days of delicious food and laying on the beach in Florida will probably be awesome for me (even if I would love to just keep lifting), and I'll come back ready to wreck the weights. 

And now, to pump anyone who wants to bench a shitload up...

What the fuck. One day...