Exponential Bench Strength

Today, I hit a milestone PR in my mind.

Yeahh. 

Started with 5/3/1 bench. Warmups felt pretty good, MUCH better than last tuesday. Hit the bar, 95 for a few sets, then 135. Then went to 160 and nailed it for a triple, and wrecked 185 for a triple as well. Loaded up the bar to 205 - This was the weight that my bench was plateaud at for almost a year. Finally I broke that PR last march, but even so it still was hanging out in the 210 range for months. But today, I hit 205 for a solid set of 5. That's awesome. It makes me feel like I own that weight now, a weight that used to be the bane of my fucking existence. It's still not a good bench by any stretch of the imagination hahaha, but it shows that keeping at it is the most important thing. I'm happy to be repping out my old max, and look forward to those reps increasing exponentially in the future.

Paused bench went just as well today. The weight was 185, and the last time I had to pause bench this I did 2 sets of 5 and a set of 7. This time the weight was moving really well, and I got 2 easy sets of 7 and a set of 8. Honestly, I think I may have had more on that last set too - problem was that I got "reps" in my head too much, and got sloppy on the first few, which I think cost me a 9th or maybe even a 10th rep. Still, 7, 7, and 8 reps at that weight is awesome. Hopefully that first month when I re-set, I might be able to hit 185 for 10. Then again, I always get weak after taking a week off hahaha, so we will see. Anyways, learned from that last set at 185 and took 160 x max paused reps one rep at a time. ended up hitting it for a set of 11, which is pretty good paused and after a ton of other lifts.

Kroc rows went really well. They hurt like fuck, but I got a set of 50 each side with the 100 lb dumbells. That's pretty awesome. Now, I am going to switch to 2 sets of 30 each arm and maybe build up again. Maybe. Might stick with 2 x 30 for a while, these hurt a lot hahaha.

Overhead press was alright. Weight was moving pretty well, but it just felt heavy and was a little out of position on a few lifts. Hit the bar, 95, 115, 135, 155, 165 and finally 175 for 2 singles, but failed on a third attempt. Again, that's not too bad, it's like 94 percent for a couple singles, after a bunch of pressing hahaha. But it just didn't feel great. I think I probably just need to back off of overhead press a little bit, give my body some room to grow with these again. I'm thinking, when I start up after christmas (and maybe I'll even start next week), I should start with some lighter, easier rep work, moving it really fast and explosive with great form, and after a few weeks work my way back up to hitting 3-5 heavy singles every tuesday. That strategy was working really well for a while, but lately it's just not happening after heavy bench. I'll still keep Press tuesday as a "do what you want" sort of lift, but I'm definitely going to do some lighter stuff for a little bit before working up heavy again.

Finally, intermingled some lighter press singles at 155 and 165 with 25 pullups done with differrent grips and degrees of kipping. Man my pullups really went to shit. doing those 25 sucked horribly. I need to start working harder on these. Also, hit 135 x 9 paused reps at the end of it all.

Anyways, overall a really good day. My bench and Paused bench is still on the rise. I'm excited for next week, excited to max out, and excite to drop my weight back again and grow Grow GROW. It's gonna be a ride next semester. Lets keep at it.