Training Update

I feel like I’ve made some decent gains when training my chest over the past few months, but sometimes it’s hard to tell. Because the gym Krissy and I have belonged to didn’t originally have a standard flat bench, I didn’t really know how much I could bench. I knew that I’d been lifting heavier on the Smith machine and with dumbbells, but I never really knew what that translated to. Well, as I’ve mentioned on here before my gym added a few pieces of equipment several months back, and thankfully 2 of those pieces were real bench press stations (a regular flat bench and a power rack). Having not benched in a few years, the 1st few times I trained chest on those stations were definitely a shock to the system. Keeping decent form and trying to balance the weight was a challenge in and of itself, but a few months later I eventually worked myself up to a 1 rep max of 220 lb., which is probably laughable to many (NFL combiners bench 5 lb. more than that for seemingly zillions of reps), but it was 25-30 lb. more than my 1RM was at any other point in my life. I still haven’t been able to truly hit the mythical 225 lb. mark yet…I failed once, and had a really shitty spotter the 2nd time I attempted it. (I got the weight up, but my spotter probably touched the bar too early and assisted me in the bottom portion of the lift…so, I’m not sure if I really "got it" or not.) That was probably 3 or 4 months ago, and I haven’t tried again since. I may try again in a few weeks just to see where I’m at.

Anyway, what 1st made me think to write this is that I think I may be beginning to plateau for the 1st time since I started benching again. Last week in my progressive overload cycle, I was scheduled to bench 3 sets of 5 reps at 200 lb for a total of 15 reps. Instead, I could only do 1 set of 5, then 2 sets of 4, and a final set of 2 just to make 15 reps. (I actually tried it earlier in the week, and after my 1st set of 5 I felt really weak…weak enough that I knew I wasn’t going to be able to muster out 2 more sets of 5. Ironically, I thought I was just having an off day or something, so I pretty much bagged the rest of my workout, only to suffer the same fate at the end of the week as well. With a looming plateau on the horizon, I instinctively looked to the almighty Google for answers…only to be overloaded with information, per usual. My main takeaways are that I need to take lifting legs more seriously, and I need to incorporate some type of dynamic lifts or rack lockout lifts into my chest routine. I normally dread leg day, as I feel my 40-time and dunking potential has probably been reached at this point, but if working my legs will help strengthen other weak points in my body that could be the extra source of motivation I need. Apparently, given the fact that your legs make up basically half of the muscle mass in your body, training them naturally boosts your body’s testosterone levels, which in turn helps strengthen all of your other muscle groups as well. Specifically, squatting is an essential leg exercise because it shocks your entire central nervous system. As for dynamic lifting, it requires the use of chains or bands when you lift. They are supposedly great for working to break through a plateau, but I’m not sure I’m willing to pony-up for them just yet. Floor presses and rack lockouts may be the way to go because both can help you work on pushing past your sticking point, which seems to be my problem (as opposed to the lockout or upper portion of the lift). Anyway, that’s all for now…more progress updates to follow.