505 - A Good Day Benching

I just wanted to show off since its it’s a first for me this was actually my second single with 505lbs today since my camera guy missed the first one

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Nice bench!

Everybody must must be afraid talk to you with a beard like that!

Thanks, mostly its the asshole attitude and breath that scare them off I think. . . lol

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WHOOOT!!!

Nice job, Stu. All of my advice seems to be paying off. Lol.

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How much do you weigh?

261 this morning

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Thats awesome man. Congrats on the 505 bench!

Thanks.

Is it cool if we talk about it? I don’t know much about 500 benches or lifting in shirts.

For five hundred pounds(!) it seemed to go Up pretty fast! How hard was the lift? Do you feel like you still had a little in the tank?

The descent got a little crooked, but its the gym, so who cares. But is that something to be aware of and work on, or is it nothing to worry about, because that’s what happens?

Where do we go from here? Where does this fit in? Will you train raw for awhile, then “test” in the shirt sometime later? Or keep the shirt on for awhile to practice in it?

Also, how is your back? Does benching big cause you any problems?

No, I refuse to allow any conversation that might in some way result in people telling me my amazing bench press is anything other than the shining light of perfection that it obviously is.

I kid, of course we can talk about it.

It did go up quick, the first single (that the video dude missed) was actually a little better. I definitely had more in me, felt like maybe an 8RPE so I’m thinking 525-550 if things went well.

It did get crooked and it’s definitely something that requires work. However I haven’t put my shirt on with any regularity in almost 6 years so I’m pretty happy. And by with any regularity I literally mean this is the 4th time in a real shirt in 6 years so there’s lot of room for improvement on my technique such as: I need to stay tighter over all, lower body was pretty good but I didn’t drive to launch the bar like I should have. I didn’t squeeze the bar hard enough, nor did I pull it apart enough, nor did I tuck and flair like I should have.

TLDR; technique needs a lot of work.

Where do we go from here? Well most of my training is raw so I’ll keep doing that but with my pec pull I’ll probably be in my training shirt a lot since it takes that stress off the pec. My next real goal is probably 405 raw.

Whether I do a lot more shirted training or move away will depend a lot on whether I’m going to be competing raw or geared. I think I’m moving back to geared lifting and maybe I’ll poke my nose onto the raw side for some masters records here and there but that’s about it. My 40 year old body misses the gear.

Back has zero issues from benching. I do cramp up from arching hard but that fades once I stand up and stretch forward and honestly the cramp is handy during the lift as it keeps me tight. lol

Nice lift man glad to see I’m not the only active guy using gear on these forums.

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