Workout – 22 December

2008 December 22

By Matt

Upper Body/Bench session today.

Bench Lockouts (pin 7), some warmups, 120 (264) x4, 130 (286) x2, 142.5 (314) x2 (negatives)
2-board press, 110 (242) / 2×5, 100 (220) x10
DB row, 110lbs / 2×6
Bicep machine, 2×8
Face pulls, 3×10

I’m wanting to try a new strategy with my heavy/max-effort lifts. Working with heavy singles even on the 2-boards and floor press just isn’t cutting it; I’m pushing the lifts up the hard way. I want to start getting some heavier weights in my hand to start pulling my regular lifts upwards, if that makes any sense.

I haven’t fleshed out a lot of details yet. I’m thinking of leaning this towards something like Alexeyev’s progressive-ROM training, lowering the pins every workout or so until I’m hitting a full range (or near it) with the target weight. Today ended up being negatives due to biting off more than I can chew; I get impatient with the bench because it’s lagging too far behind where it should ideally be. Even though it’s really not my fault, it’s still annoying.

I’m going to have to be very careful with the pressing, due to the shoulder problems. I’ve finally got the damn thing working right again; screwing it up is the last thing I want. I doubt I’ll take this below 2-board height, a couple inches off the chest. Unless I’m in a bench shirt, I don’t plan on ever doing a full-ROM bench press max ever again.

What’s going to be really fun is trying it with squats tomorrow.