Tag: benchpress

I suppose it’s worth discussing A) why I do any of this B) why I do what I do specifically and C) why anyone would care.

A) Weight lifting is an extremely simple empowering activity. There is little or no complexity. I know when I’m done.

As a physicist/engineer by education and trade, most of my problems are complicated. There’s not a whole lot of simplicity, and you can’t think harder when confronted by difficult math. The usual way to overcome difficult math is think easier, think from different angles, run down a hundred possible solutions and do so lightly so frustration doesn’t set in. There’s none of that in weight lifting. You just pick the bar up, run the miles, do the stretch. You know when you’re done because you’ve finished the schedule or you can’t lift/move/bend anymore. It’s over. It’s done. The task is completed, and there is nothing left but resting and recharging.

B) No particular reason. I used to run a lot, and I’ve gotten out of that. Now I like hiking and even aggressive hiking like the Incline is simpler than old running. But the weights are just complicated enough to do a little math and a little planning. They’re also close. Getting up to the hills, even from Denver, takes a little time, planning, good weather, and gas. The gym’s a few miles from my apartment.

I suppose there’s a physical sense of accomplishment and pleasant fatigue. I don’t notice that much, but I do like being able to carry boxes from my apartment to car easily.

C) These posts are more writing exercise than anything else. If you’re interested in what I spend my time on, this struck me as more interesting than counting uses of ‘said’ and chasing down dialogue tags. Do I always hyphenate this phrase like so? I cannot imagine anyone would like to read about that. I don’t want to do it, but it’s important.

Week reset for Bench Day!

Warmups: See before. I threw in some side lunges where I squat, stick a leg sideways, slide over, and stand up from there, going back and forth ten/twenty times. Those help the soreness from real squatting. As always, the purpose is just an elevated heartrate, so I’m not too picky.

Bench:

3×70%
10 Jump squats with 18# medicine ball
3×80%
10 Jump squats with 18# medicine ball
3+x90%
10 Jump squats with 18# medicine ball

Heavy weight:

1×95%
Pullups
1×95%
PU
1×95%
PU

Assistance: I didn’t do any math on these numbers. I just put round numbers of plates on bars. DL was with a hex bar.

5×65%
5x DL 40%
5×65%
5x DL 40%
5×65%
5x DL 40%
5×65%
5x DL 40%
5×65%
5x DL 40%

Hit a wall on the last set of bench and my spotter basically pulled the bar off me at rep 4 or 5. I was done. Closer to acclimatization, but not there yet.

Monday: Bench-day

Warmups:

The objective is raise my pulse. I want to get the blood flowing to all the little muscles and tendons as well as the large ones. The methodology is low weight exercises, low speed cardio, and low intensity stretching. Low, low, low are the rules of warmups.

3 supersets:
70 jumping jacks
stretch whatever’s tight for 20-30 seconds each
10 jumpsquats or lunges (each leg)
10 pushups
5 exercise of the day (Monday is bench day, so 5 reps at a low weight. 5x 40%, 50%, 60% of training max for each of the supersets)

Exercise of the day:
5/3/1 increase in primary exercise supersetted with assistance. Yesterday I did pull-ups. The objective is maximize the amount of muscle used and hot during the primary lift to maximize muscle usage and gain. Assistance is only assistance, so weight isn’t that important.

When I say pullups, I mean getting the chin over the bar. I rotate through all grip positions I have a bar to use. Supinated, pronated, neutral, whatever is open in the gym. It’s assistance work.

5×65% bench
5x PU (or something else, say 10x jumpsquats. I do jumpsquats a lot)
5×75%
5x PU or w/e
5+x85%
Assistance if I can, but I may be dead

Rest as needed.

Max weight sets
The objective here is get the body ready for higher weight. After years of sticking to 5/3/1, I find that spending so much time at low weight leaves the nervous system unprepared for the big weight. These are assistance work sets as Wendler would describe them but critical to go heavy if you’re pushing towards PRs.

Other assistance is just more assistance. So if I was doing pullups before, I’d do deadlifts or lunges at some low weight. DL would be around 40%. The aforementioned jumpsquats would be perfect here.

1×95%
Other assistance
1×95%
Other assistance
1×95%
Other assistance

As mentioned by everyone, assistance work is assistance. I’m making my money in the main ramp up above, so if I fell like I’m about to die or fail on one of these, I drop weight immediately. They’re gravy.

Work sets:
The objective here is get some work in. The high weight sets don’t do much for building muscle mass, so 5×5 at, say, 70% is fine. I was really feeling the low air density after returning to Colorado, so I did sets of 3. Again, add supersets. I did pullups yesterday.

3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU
3×70%
5xPU

Light stuff and cooldowns:
Do things like grip work here. This is normally where I do long, slow stretches, like a 5 minute hamstring stretch. I couldn’t breathe, so I didn’t.

Point of interest on picking assistance: Remember the objective is use as much muscle mass as possible. Pullups invoke the back and biceps. Dips invoke chest, back and triceps. Why PU instead of dips? Because this is bench day, and I’m already using chest and triceps. I’m pushing them to the limit in the open sets, and working them hard everywhere else. I can add a lot of bicep and back work without hitting the limits of other muscle groups, without increasing my recovery time, and getting that added muscle mass usage.