Pushing to 300
 

I'm going to go ahead and start a thread I've been thinking about for some time.

I've, at different periods in my life, played around with the weights. This dynastry will chronicle my quest to bench 300lbs by spring break (March '05). I've been to that point before, but I'm pretty damn far from it now. I haven't touched a weight in damn near 2 months, and was spotty before that.

Here it is then, my public display of pride or humiliation for the next 3+ months.

Ah, finally a thread right up my alley!

I'll be reading this one for sure!

I can lift a hundred pounds over my head.

I bet you that I can jump and touch the awning outside your building.

I'll follow this, i started 2 months ago to workout too. 10 years ago i was getting ready to enter in the military officers academy and i was really addicted to the gym,. getting pretty big on that years. Now i have come back after 10 years not doing any sport and with fat where i had muscles before. The first month was terrible, all my body hurting but now i'm growing fast and recovering my shape (i'm still far from where i was). I suposse you're talking about press bench, when i was in full shape my max for 10 repetitions was . Two months ago when i started i benched 110 pounds for 10 repetitions, now i'm benching 155 pounds and my goal to beat for 10 repetitions is 200pounds that was my max on full shape 10 years ago when i was 19 (i'm 29 now).
I read some time ago about muscles having "memory" and that once you have workedout hard in the past, when you try it again later, you grow faster than a guy who is doing it for first time. I can realize now that it sees true, i'm getting in shape much faster than when i was 19. Now i need to also increase running and cycling as i need to lose the fast that covers my growing muscles. Of course all this i talk is being natural, just with a good diet and workouts.

I need to jump on this too. My goal was to get back to 300 before the Football Season started and I ended up at 285, I have been back in the Gym 2 full weeks now that our Season is over and I have lost strength (As always) I want to shoot for March too, and will check my Bench Max Tomorrow, hopefully it is still in the 265-270 range. One thing that has impeded me in my quest to get back to a 300 max is my left Shoulder (torn rotator cuff) I need to bring it along slowly or it just give out on the heavier weights if I push too much. I am 41 now and it has been this way for the last 5 years......maybe now if we push, encourage each other we can both get there.

if some others want to join in, we can make it a pumping Iron support group.

:)

Muscle Memory refers to more repitition than actaully getting more strength back quickly.

The best example i can give of good use of muscle memory is Tennis. Seriously.
Forehand, backhand, forehand, backhand and so forth.

I'll be following as well.

Ok Monday and Tuesday I Maxed out in a couple of core lifts

Monday Squat 520

Tuesday Bench 275

I am shooting for 600 Squat by March and a 300 Bench. Squat will be a challenge as I only weigh 215 and I already feel almost crushed....It is on a Smith Machine by the way which is a little easier to say the least, I don't squat free anymore to stay safe :)

Bench would be easy if it weren't for my Shoulder......I will work hard building my Shoulder up to compensate for the Rotator cuff tear and hopefully get it, otherwise it won't be possible until after Surgery.

Started up on Monday as well.

I don't max, as there's really no point. If I tried, I'd likely just hurt myself.

At any rate..I do Max-OT style, a little modified. Basically, the point is to get in and out quickly, higher weight with lower reps. Work out a single body part or two per day...more of a BB routine, but my strength and size really blew up last year when I was doing this and eating strictly.

So I started, and damn was I weak. I mean WEAK. I know it'll flood back quickly, and that by the end of december I'll be -significantly- stronger, but it's still way humbling to start out anew again.

Bench warmups
135x10, 155x8, 175x6, 205x4
work set
225x6 for 3 sets. I didn't get all 6 of each..in fact I only got 4-3-3

Incline bench
work set
195x6, 3 sets...got 5-3-3

Decline bench
195x6, 3 sets...got 5-4-4

It's humbling, but it's a start.

I'm still working away. I had a two week slack off in December during finals, but I've been going strong since then.

It's a lovely thing, when you just keep upping weights, hitting all your progression goals every week. It's really coming together and moving along well. The gains are all coming back quickly.

I'm dieting strictly now as well. I'm slowly putting on some lbs (what I intended to do). I'm taking in over 330g of protein per day, while being slightly hypercaloric. I'm supplementing with fish oil, alcar, r-ala, creatine, and a daily vitamin.

At any rate, things are progressing. If things keep going at the rate they are, I believe I'll make my March goal of 300.

The beat goes on with the lifting.

It's just not terribly interesting to post daily updates...

So I've just finished another week of lifting. I do 5 days per week, with two off days.

The lift that is germaine to this thread, the bench, is coming along nicely.
I did chest day, what, five days ago now and it went well enough.
My work sets are now @245. I think I'll have another two to three weeks (2-3 lifting sessions) before I can up it to 255.

It's still right on track for Spring Break/March. I believe that I'll be doing sets at 255, perhaps even 265 at that point, which would put me at pushing 300 fairly easily.

Damn damn damn damn damn

It's not an injury. . .but it sucks. I'm sick.

I've got strep throat. ..and the damn anti-biotics aren't working.

Something like this almost always happens when I have a good upward curve going in training.

Whaaaa

So been a while.

I got sick, AGAIN...strep, AGAIN...

But I've kept lifting for the most part, even with graduation from school and all the distractions that entails.

So last week I put up 295, after doing all my work sets on the bench. This week I put 305 on. First I did the following
185x10
205x8
215x6
235x4
then work sets of 255x6, 255x6, and 255x6

I then put on 305. Now last week I got 295 after benching. The thing is, with that much weight, I'm just not used to it. I take it down too slowly and loose my explosiveness. I think when I did 295 I literally took it down on a 4 or 5 count and took at least a 5 count to push it up. I never got to a point where I didn't think I would push it, but it was just heavy.

With 305, I took it down too slowly again, and dropped it :( My 'power rack' saved me, so no worries there. The left shoulder complained some, but was ok to finish off the rest of the chest routine.

I KNOW I can push 300+, I just haven't yet. If I sacrificied a work out and started scaling up using the same warm-up I do now, then adding 20lbs for 1 rep at a time, I'm sure I could do 300+. At this point, I'm unwilling to sacrifice the work out though.

I finished off with a couple sets of incline @225 and decline @245. All weights will be increased next week. I will not, however, do the quasi-max again for another two to three weeks. I sort of scared myself tonight with the potential shoulder injury, and I'd just rather not blow a couple weeks of lifting for that. With another two to three weeks under the bar, I'm sure it'll be an easy push.