Heavy Bench Day at The Press

It was heavy bench training day at The Press this morning. I went in with the mindset of knowing I need to ramp it up with this lift. I wore my Titan F6 training shirt, which is looser, and it actually worked pretty well today.

Bench Presses
45x10
45x5
65x3
85x1
105x1
125x1

Titan shirt on...
145x1

Heavy bench single for today...
155x1

Drop-set with reps...
145x2

Board Presses (2 boards)
165x2

Decline Bench
135x3
145x3

Weighted Decline Crunches (crunches on the decline bench, holding a plate over my chest to add weight to the reps)
25x20x3

Low Ab Crunches (0 = unweighted)
0x20x3

I paused all of my bench and board press reps and found that this works pretty well. It almost seems the pause gives me that one-second of switching gears in my mind where I can focus on the upward motion -- like what I envision at meets.

I choose the number of reps and sets I do, based on how close I am to the end of my training cycle. The closer I am to the end, the fewer the sets and reps, and the heavier the weights. I am doing 3 "mini-cycles" of four weeks each for the bench press, each one peaking progressively. And I never jump ahead of schedule, regardless of my strength level. I pre-planned a single of 155 today and nothing heavier. Next week, it will be 165. The following week, it will either be 170 or 175.

This was how all of my training used to be set-up when I first started full power training; it was based on the Gaugler Routine (Rick Gaugler's). (For the squat and deadlift, I will be doing longer training cycles of 6 weeks.) Rickey Dale Crain had originally set me up with my first powerlifting training routines, back in 2002/2003. Much of it has stayed the same and used the same progressive template, but with various modifications over the years. For example, I used to have many more assistance exercises that would follow the basic lifts, but I have cut them out to save time or the need for recovery.

It felt like a strong day of training for me, although I am still sore from yesterday's volume. Mitch, my son Glen, and I headed out to Jake's in Maplewood for lunch with Mike and Jane Seigler afterwards -- great time talking with them! (If you ever want to have an awesome post-training burger, they have a real good selection on their menu...the Garlic Burger is da bomb.)