Bench Press Day

Decided to give my back a rest today and lay on the flat bench with a series of heavy benches, in hopes of reaching a 1RM PR.

I started off with the warm-up as usual - skipping the pull-ups because someone was using the pulley devices at the pull-up station. So my warm-up went as follows:

1/2 mile run: 4:31
20 sit-ups
20 push-ups
20 squats
10 dips
10x135# bench press

I then moved into the main event - starting at 205#. I decided to start here and do an amount of reps that didn't bring me to failure, but gave me a good workout on each weight that I completed.

At 205# I did 5 repetitions.
I followed this by hanging off the chin-up bar to stretch my back muscles and decided to do a pull-up. I decided after each set on the bench I would do pull-ups - more than the previous set, but certainly not to failure.

I moved the bar to 225# and completed 3 repetitions, followed by 2 pull-ups.

I moved up to 245# - unsure whether I would be able to do 2 repetitions, as I had never done 2 reps at this weight before. But I pushed it out, feeling pretty confident after the first rep. I followed this with 3 pull-ups.

I decided to make a daring jump to above my 1RM PR of 260 and jumped to 265#. Of course, I didn't have a spotter, as usual and I was using a free weight bar, so I knew I had to be careful.

I pushed the bar off the rack and extended my arms all the way. I could tell pushing it off the rack that this would be a challenge. I brought the weight down and must admit that I changed my mind before getting all the way down - I probably had between 1-2 inches of clearance on my chest before I started pushing the bar up. Other than the less than full range of motion, I did get this repetition out. Next time around I'll working on getting my chest before pushing off. Until then, I think I will start doing some supplemental bench work after the WOD - perhaps in the 185-225 range, depending on how drained the WOD has made me.

After my 265, I did 5 pull-ups and then un-racked all but 135# and did 10 thrusters to finish off the workout.