A Bench Log, Yes it's Come to This

Training Training Logs
201

12/7 M/E bench

Very short warmup today.

Reverse band (green) bench: warmups, 315x5, 365x3, 405x3, 435x3, 375x11 I think?

JM press; 100x8, 120x8, 140x8

Kroc row; 60x10, 100x10, 135x10, 170x10

Seated face pull with d-ring handle; 75x10 high, x10 low, 125x10 high, x10 low, 125x10 high, x 10. With this I pulled as high as I could for 10, the pulled 10 to my throat

Roman chair abs; 2 sets of 12

I know I have done a reverse green band bench sometime in the last year but couldn’t find the lift. Still, I think that is a PR.

Monopoly

202

12/9/09 lower body

Long warmup

Reverse band (green) LOW foam box squat; 135x8, 135x8, 225x5, add bands, 315x5, 405x3x3, take bands and box away, 225x11 oly style. Good squat day for me. Pain was minimal and the bar moved well. We used a super low box and it worked neglected areas hard.

Bulgarian split squat; 3 sets of 5 reps per leg w/30lb db’s

Hypers; 3 sets

Had to get out of the gym. The last guy in our crew attempted his max dead on this night. His previous best was around 425 or so. He had already hit PR’s of 465 and 485 in this training cycle. He really wanted to pull 500, but he missed it twice tonight. The first attempt was very close, if he would have kept pulling he had a good shot to finish it.

Monopoly

203

12/12

I was dragging ass today. Had wife’s x-mas party the night before.

Short warmup. Mostly involved hauling a shitload of equipment and plates outside into the sun.

Farmers walk (HIGH pickup); 200/handx60ft, 290/handx60ft, 340/handx60ft. That is probably a PR.

Dragged everything back inside. Other guys were doing yoke so we had the farmers, yoke and about 1000lbs in plates.

Seated shoulder press machine superset with bb bicep curls, 3 rounds.

Standing db shoulder press superset with db bicep curls, 3 rounds.

Some back work.

That was it, was totally shot after just the farmers. I am beyond sore today. My traps, neck, shoulders, hands, etc are fried. Think I could hang onto more weight. If my back keeps progressing I’d like to try 400/hand for 50ft.

Monopoly

204

10/14 M/E Bench

Dragging today. No real motivation to train and I was on my own. Still managed to make it in. I think I may finally be catching my wife’s cold.

Half ass warmup

CG incline bench; 135x8, 135x5, 185x5, add 1 board, 225x3, 245x3, 275x2, 225x12, take board off and went ultra wide grip, 155x14

Skullcrushers off floor; 60x10, 110x10, 110x8

DB row; 60x10, 100x10, 135x10

Scarecrows; tried something different on these today and did not like it, jacked up my left shoulder in the process. Going back to the old way.

Monopoly

205

12/15

Very light upper body recovery stuff, stretching

12/18 Speed bench
Long warmup

Bench with doubled mini’s’; 135x3, 155x3, 185x3x6-these felt really strong. Was more than the % I should have used but I wanted to try it out. I put ALOT of effort into these sets.

Bench (off foam roller); 275x3, 315x3-easy but sloppy, 345xmiss. I have no idea what happened here. Lot of contributing factors but it’s still shitty.

Was pissed off after this, hit some upper back and tricep stuff and then went home pouting.

12/19 Punishment for previous day

Wanted to do something different. Was thinking of crossfit’s king kong but then when I was watching some video’s online Friday night I saw the old Marunde video where he hits a 120lb db overhead for 120 reps. The first time I saw that several years ago I thought it was one of the coolest thing I ever saw and wanted to try it. I knew I couldn’t hit 120x120 but thought maybe I could do 100x100.

DB overhead; 100lb dumbell for 100 reps. Probably a 25 minute set. Just went back and forth with left and right arms. Got video of most of it but didn’t get the first set and think they missed one halfway through. At 65 reps or so I didn’t think I was going to make it. Sunday and today EVERYthing is sore on me, wrists, calves, triceps, delts, etc. My front delts are bruised and scabbing over, along with looking like I site injected the shit out of them. Still, I’m proud to have done this. Sledge went with me and smoked a 75lb db for the 100 reps. He finished at least 5 minutes before I did. One of the hardest thing’s I’ve ever done in the gym. Not much in the tank now.

Lat pull downs; 3 sets of 10

Seated face pulls; 3 sets of 10

Sled drag; 4 trips of 100 ft or so

Scarecrows; 4 sets of 10

I will not be doing any heavy pressing today.

Monopoly

206

I must be reading wrong because it sure looks like this says NOT doing heavy pressing tonight!

207

[quote]sledge2 wrote:
I must be reading wrong because it sure looks like this says NOT doing heavy pressing tonight![/quote]

Wanna fight about it?

12/21 upper body

Had a meeting with a neurosurgeon today. He wants me to get a procedure called a diskogram done, then depending on the results, a fusion at L5-S1. I did like the guy allot but I don’t know if I’m at the point of getting cut on yet. Still, a bunch of what he said made sense.

Shallow decline bench (off light foam); 135x10, 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x5, 365x2 - second rep got out of line but still pressed it. There is more here I think as the first rep was smokin fast.

Floor lockouts; worked up to 315x5 I think. Was killing my delts so I stopped.

Machine upper back row superset with machine fly; 3 rounds with a dropset on the last one.

Considering the workout on Saturday I was happy with this. Used half a bottle of blue heat to get warm but it felt good. Was nice to do some direct chest work!

208

12/26 Random stuff

Still feeling the effects of cold today, caused me to miss Wendsdays session. Even today, Monday, I am still off.

Cleans; up to 225 for 2. Felt sloppy, slow and weak

Log one motion; 180x10

Timed farmer holds out of rack; 350/hand for 30 seconds

Other random grip work

Deficit RDL; 135x5, 225x6, 315x6, 405x3

Reverse hypers, abs, band stretching

Hope everyone had a great weekend.

Monopoly

209

12/28 Upper

Still sick, lacking energy. Long warmup.

Shallow decline bench; 135x8, 185x6, 225x5, add light foam, 315x2, 365x1 - slower than last week, should have done more work here, 405xcrushing miss. Totally stupid, I should know better than this kind of shit. 275x11 off foam, 225x10 to chest ultra wide

Hammer strength incline press; 1 plate x 15, 2 plates x 15, 2 plates/quarter x 12

Hammer strength pulldown superset with pullover machine; 3 sets of high reps. Got a major pump and was just drained at this point.

Kinda bored right now. Shoulder seems to be nagging me again, bicep is not 100% and back is just refusing to do much of anything. May be time to work on something else for a while. I have been training for strength/strongman a long time now and think things have gotten stagnent. Will be thinking about it this week for sure.

Monopoly

210

12/30 Squat night

Long warmup. Foam roller, band traction/stretches, pull throughs, reverse hypers, single leg leg curl, barbell hip thrusts

Free squats oly style; 135x10, 135x5, 225x5, 225x3, 225x3, 225x20, 275x3, 315x10. Used a rehband and light wraps on most sets. It’s been over 2 months since I did any free squatting and it had been EONS since I did a workout of just free squats. This is something I am going to work on for a while. Everything felt pretty good during the workout, not so much today. I am sore in places I forgot I had places.

Front squat to super low box; 225x3, 225x3 - just tried a new setup and didn’t like it.

Barbell hip thrusts; 135x8, 225x8, 225x8

Swinging reverse hypers with hanging ab crunch.

211

12/31 Random/recovery

Foam roller, band work, light reverse hyper

Seated lat pulldown superset with rear delt machine; 4 sets of 12

Chest supported bent over row; 3 sets of 10

Overhead db tricep superset with seated bicep curls; 3 sets of 12

Machine preacher curl superset with rope pressdowns; 3 sets of 12

Very light today. Kept everything under tension and super strict. My legs are still so fucked from the other night.

Monopoly

212

Good work Reggie! I hope you and the Armbrust Crew had a very Safe and Happy Holidays.

213

[quote]biggjames wrote:
Good work Reggie! I hope you and the Armbrust Crew had a very Safe and Happy Holidays.[/quote]

Thanks BJ. I think everyone had a great holiday season, thanks for the words and same to you. How is married life treating you?

12/2 More random

Long warmup. Legs feel like jello.

Axle clean/press; TONS of sets here. Worked up to 230x2 strict press, then 270 cont clean and push press. Prob have another 20lbs in that lift right now.

Axle dead against double purple bands; Worked up to 395 for an easy single, then 455 for a crushing miss. Pass out x 1 that we didn’t catch on camera. Figure 150lbs at the top in band tension. One of the guys had a massive PR today that was easy for him as well, very cool to see.

Tons of random grip work. Don’t feel too bad today but I don’t feel good either.

Monopoly

214

[quote]Monopoly19 wrote:
12/7 M/E bench

Very short warmup today.

Reverse band (green) bench: warmups, 315x5, 365x3, 405x3, 435x3, 375x11 I think?

JM press; 100x8, 120x8, 140x8

Kroc row; 60x10, 100x10, 135x10, 170x10

Seated face pull with d-ring handle; 75x10 high, x10 low, 125x10 high, x10 low, 125x10 high, x 10. With this I pulled as high as I could for 10, the pulled 10 to my throat

Roman chair abs; 2 sets of 12

I know I have done a reverse green band bench sometime in the last year but couldn’t find the lift. Still, I think that is a PR.

Monopoly[/quote]
the pulling as high as you can for 10 then to the throat for 10 is awesome tried those the other day, really felt that in the shoulder rotator probably going to be something i use often as a light filler

215

Married life is great! School is rocking, now I just need to pull my head out of my ass and get in the gym.

216

Glad you like that Nate. It is a ton of rotation for sure.

1/4/10 Benchy benchy

Short warmup

Incline; 135x6, 135x5, 225x3, 245x3, 265x3, back down to 185x12 wide, 225x8 wide, 225x6 wide

3 board; 275x3, 315x3, 315x3

Light foam, feet out in front supported, ultra wide; 225x12, 225x10

Overhead rope ext; 4 sets of all over the place

Rear delt machine; 4 sets of 12-15

Shoulder feels like shit, no desire to be in the gym. Still got some work in so I guess that’s good.

Monopoly

217

1/6 Lower

VERY long warmup. Band traction, foam roller, hypers, single leg leg curl, 5 min cardio

Oly squats; 135x8, 135x8, 135x3, 225x3, 225x3, 275x2, 315x1, 365x1. Fuck. For as long and good as the warm up was the squats felt horrid. Tried pushing through it but 365 was just shit. We’ll see how the next week goes and decide what to do then.

Leg ext/leg curl superset; 4 sets of 10

Powersquat (deep); up to 6 plates a side for 6 reps

Chalk up another shitty workout. I’m over this!!!

Monopoly

218

Trying to catch up here. Had this written out last week and then the computer crashed on me.

1/7 Accessory

chest supported db row; 40x12, 60x12, 80x10 dropset 60x12 x 2

lat pulldown; 4 sets of 10-15, vary wide, narrow, over/underhand grips

standing one arm db strict press; 40x10, 60x6, 70x6, 80x6, 90x5 (slight leg drive on left arm) 60x10

Does not look like much but it was a good workout. Had another meeting with a different surgeon on my back this day as well. He looked at the same MRI that I had done in January of last year. Based on that MRI he thinks I have a strong bulge in L4-L5 and that as a result of that bulge L5 has shifted back and to the left. This was a year ago so who the hell knows how bad it is now. Of course, the DR that looked at this last year said I was fine, fucking idiot asshat. So, I’ve been training with this for over a year. He thinks with some rest and a GOOD P/T that we may be able to get it back to “normal”. I finally got some pain medication and he referred me to the guy that works with most of the Nugget and Avalanch players. Hopefully he has some ideas to get this fixed. I’ll give it another 8 weeks or so and if it’s not better then fuck it I’m gonna get the bitch fused so I can move on.

After watching World’s Strongest Man recently I have realized that if I want to do anything serious in competitive athletics I need to get my ass in gear NOW. Most of the guys in that show are between 23 and 29, it’s just sick. I have a great gym and fantastic partners. I know I don’t have the genetics of an elite guy but I have a ton of room for improvement. The last thing I want to do is be that guy that says “I could have done this or that”. I want to fucking do those things and at 28 the clock is ticking. The first thing to do is get this back issue resolved but in the main time I’m really going to work on eating again. I have slacked hard on that since the comp in October.

1/9 Events

Long warmup, band traction, stretching, hypers, foam roll.

Sled drag; 8 or 9 trips of ligher weight and longer runs. Everyone else was doing yoke and I didn’t really think that was a good idea.

Stones; 240x3, 240x2, 330x2 one motion, 240 shoulder, 330 shoulder (PR), 330 load to 68-70" (PR). NO FUCKING CLUE where that came from. I’ve missed 330 to lower heights before. No video as we all had tack on our hands but I’m happy at that. Did not seem to bother the back too much.

I have no clue what I am going to do for events and lower body stuff right now. Meeting with the P/T tomorrow and we’ll see what he wants me to do.

Monopoly

219

1/11 Upper body

Short warmup but good.

DB Bench; 40x12, 60x6, 70x6, 80x6, 100x6, 110x6, 120x5, 70x10, 55x14?

Seated military press; 135x8, 135x10

DB floor press; 70x10, 90x10, 110x8?

Seated row with rope attachment; worked up to stack for 15 then dropset of another 15.

Machine pullovers; 4 sets of low weight big squeeze

Standing cable crunch; 3 sets of 25. Going to start working on getting at least 100 reps of core work, see if that helps over the lower rep stuff.

Monopoly

220

1/12 Doctor appt

Met with yet another doc yesterday, this one was a DO. He is 80% that most of my glute pain is coming from bursitis in my left hip. Gave me a shot or cortisone and lydocane and told me not to do shit for a week. Pretty cool guy, he actually said “don’t do shit”. I am both skeptical and curious to see if this actually helps some on my problems. The only thing I know right now is that he put the shot like right on my hip bone and today it feels like I’ve been beaten with a baseball bat. Right arm!