A Bench Log, Yes it's Come to This

Training Training Logs
501

Wow. 500 log posts and 25,000 views, that is crazy. Not sure who all is reading but thanks, I hope you either learned something or laughed.

12/12/12 - Should have been accessory lower

Not knowing what was going on with my training, I just wanted to do something fun today. Hopefully Josh does not get too pissed off at me.

Kind of a general warmup.

Power snatch; could not full snatch with my wrist right now, although it does seem better than the last snatch session. Lots of warmups, 80x1,90z1, 100x1, 110x1 - super easy and I think that was a PR? 120x 6 misses. 3 of them were so mother fucking close and I flipped out on one of them. Thankfully I was close to the back door of the gym so I made it outside before going ballistic. I mean, 120, that would have been a major PR and there is just a pit in my stomach for coming so close but not being able to land it.

Snatch balance/overhead squat; 80x3, 80x3, 100x2, 100x2

Weighted back hypers; 2 sets of 10 with 100lbs

Went home and ate my fat face off!

502

12/14 Accessory Upper

Savickas Press: warmups, 155, 4 sets of 3 - This is too easy right now with lower reps
Dead bench superset with reverse fly: 320lbs, 40lbs: 1, 15 reps. 5 sets
Paused tricep ext off pins; 4 sets of 12 with 85lbs
Face Pulls; 90lbs, 3 sets of 15
Dips superset with overhead rope ext: 65lbs, 100lbs. 12, 12 reps, 3 sets
5 total sets ab work

12/15 Heavy Lower. Hungover as hell and no food in me. This workout was powered by caffine and will.

Squat: Lots of warmup sets, 365x2, 405x1, 430x2, 455x2. Very strong today, could have put up alot more.
Squat: 315x3x3
Deadlift: 365x1x6
BB Row: 255x3x5
Shrug: 140x15x3
T-Bar Row: 180x12x3
Pull ups: 3 sets of 10
Weighted Roman Chair: 3 sets of 12 with 25lb plate

12/17 Heavy Upper

Bench; 340: 5,3,3 reps - 340 for 5 has to be a rep PR
Bench; 300: 7,4,2 reps
Incline db press: 60x10, 80x10, 120x4 - I’ve got nothing for these right now after shooting my wad on the flat bench. In any event, as sad as it is 120 for 4 may be a PR for me on that lift.
Wide Grip Bench, paused; 265 for 2 sets of 6
DB Fly: 70’s for 2 sets of 10 superset with
Chins: 3 sets of 5
Incline db curl superset with
Incline hammer curl: 40lb’s, 3 sets, max reps each movement each set
Planks; 3 sets of 1 minute

Feel like it was an okay workout at best, finding it hard to complain though as PR’s are tough to come by. Of of the guys in our crew, Barge, squatted a HUGE 605 for 5 tonight, belt and knee sleeves. Very impressive to see and I’m happy for him.

Next week the goal is 350 for 5, then a deload then max time. No clue where I am at right now but probably less than 405. I’m going to have to bloat like a mofo if I have any shot of hitting it.

503

12/20 - Accessory Lower

Very little warmup

Powerclean; warmup sets, 80x5, 90x3, 100x2, 120x1, 130x1x5. - Very easy, really wanted to put more weight on the bar but I have big day coming on Saturday

Lying Leg Curl; 4 sets of 8, lift with both legs, lower with one. That’s one rep

In and out, was in a hurry today. The x-mas crunch is on in full effect. I am slammed at work, had to finish building a new bed for my wife’s present and do all of my shopping. Yay!

Some good workouts in the past week. I did miss my first workout in 12 weeks so while I am dissapointed this happend, I’m also happy that I only had one miss.

12/22 - Heavy lower

Long, solid warmup.

Deadlifts: warmups, 405x3, 455x1, 485x1, 510x1, 530x1 - very strong today, got video and will try to post them here.

Squat: 3353x3

Deadlift against quad minis: 365 for 6 singles

Pause Squat: 275 for one set of 8

BB Row: 265x5x3

DB Shrug: 140x15x3 - getting heavy now

Weighted abs: 4 sets of 12

12/24 - Heavy upper

Supposed to be a deload. However, I had some good partners today and the gym was rocking with energy. Decided if I felt good I would go for it.

Bench: warmups, 275x2, 315x1 - super fast today, load the bar. 345x1, 370x1 - 5lb lifetime PR and it was FAST. 390xmiss, pressed it back towards my face off my face and lost it, was very close. I stopped here. I think I’m good for the 390 and maybe a bit more on a perfect day, on a not perfect day I think 380 would go pretty easy. A mixed bag for me.

Reverse band bench (strong band): 315x5, 405x5, 465x3x2, 495x2

Decline Hammer Strength bench: 3 plates/side, 4 sets of 15 superset with
Tricep Pushdown: 4 sets 15 x stack

Giant Set: Preacher bench, machine preacher bench, dip machine; 4 rounds of around 10 reps at each station

Overall a good workout

12/26 - Deload lower

Not much worth reporting on this one other than I did 5 minutes on the rower to start the workout, it damn near killed me. My cardio SUCKS right now and I’m going to have to work on it

504

Been really sick and have not had any motivation to post.

Re tested for my bench max, ended up nailing a really nice 395. No video, but below is a video of the 370.

Squat and deadlift went great. Hit a 525 squat for a 25lb lifetime PR. Went right into pulling and worked up to a solid 605, tried 625 and missed, I was gassed.

I would have to say it was another great 12 weeks with Josh. I am going to take a one week break and go right into another 12 weeks with him. We are going to switch up the training to more oly stuff so I can start working on my throwing. Will post more later.

505

Came down really sick Saturday night, have been unable to do much of anything. I did go in last night just do to SOMETHING, will try to go later today as well. Feel like I am getting better but don’t really want to spread germs around either.

506

Finally feeling better, still not 100% though. Decided to do another 12 weeks with Josh and that will be starting next week.

1/14/13 - Upper body

No warm up other than 3 minutes on the foam roller

Military press; up to 185 for 2
Push jerk: 100kgx3, 120kgx2, 140kgx1, 150kgx1, 100kgx3x3

Decline bench: 3 sets 10 @ 225

DB floor press; 75x15x3 superset with
DB hammer curl; 40x15x3

Simple and easy tonight. I think 150 is a PR on push jerk, have split jerked more than that but it felt WAY off tonight so just decided to work on the push jerk. Take a look…

507

Start of second 12 week training cycle with Josh Bryant

1/22 - Upper Body

Bench: Work up to 345x3 - felt solid, but slow
Speed Bench: 6 sets of 4 @ 300
Floor Press: 300x3, 300x3, 300x7
Dead Bench: 300x1x8
DB Fly: 60x3x12 (supposed to be cable fly but could not get on)
Chest Supported Incline Rows: 80x15x3
Zottman Curl superset with tricep pushdowns: 30/120, 3x12
Planks: 3 sets of 1 minute

This workout was tough, 6 sets of 4 wrecked me from the start. I challange anyone to try this and come back with a report of what they thought. Nagging injuries popped back up tonight. Back feeling dodgy and my right elbow/forearm is pissed off again. Treatment time!

508

Ugg, getting behind on my log. Last week was the hardest week of training I’ve ever had, just brutal. The scary thing is I actually pay somebody to beat the shit out of me.

My eating has been poor as well, I have been fighting some kind of stomach bug for close to a month. Just an upset stomach with no appetite, whatever I eat gets shit right back out like water. It gets better then it comes back, really strange. Going to have to break down and go to the doc if it does not clear up.

1/23 Accessory lower

Long warm up combined with the box jumps

Box Jumps: 23 singles to 32"
Split Jerk: 6 singles @ 200lbs
Dip Belt Squats: 3x12 with 200lbs
Single leg leg press: 3x12 with 180lbs
one leg split squat: 3 sets 8 - BW
Barbell curls superset with 1 arm cable pushdowns: 4 sets of 15 each
Land mines: 8x4 with 25lbs
GHR: 3x8

1/25 - “Accessory” upper - I say “accessory” because this workout was balls hard

Split Jerk: 275x3
Split Jerk: 245, 6 sets of 4, 1 minute rest between sets
Strict press against mini bands: up to 80kg
Dips superset with reverse fly: 4 sets of 8
French press: 4x15 with 90lbs
Face pulls: 3x15 with 90lbs

1/26 - Lower

Deadlift: 500x3
Speed deads: 455x3x4
Squat: 320x5x2
Pause squat: 275x8x1
Meadows row: 135x8x3
One arm bb shrug; 3 sets 12
Spud ab strap pulldowns; 6 or 7 sets

1/28 - Upper

Bench: Work up to 350x3 - rough today, no handoffs and no partners
Speed Bench: 8 sets of 4 @ 300
Floor Press: 300x3, 300x3, 300x3
Dead Bench: 315x1x6
Cable Fly: 60x3x12
Chest Supported Incline Rows: 80x15x3
Hammer Curl superset with tricep pushdowns: 30/120, 4x12
Planks: 3 sets of 1 minute

509

1/30 Accessory lower

Not enough of a warmup today, foam rolling, cobras and some free squattting was all I did

Box Jumps: 15 singles to 36"
Split Jerk: 6 singles @ 200lbs
Dip Belt Squats: 3x12 with 200lbs
Single leg leg press: 3x12 with 205lbs
one leg split squat: 3 sets 8 - BW
Land mines: 8x4 with 25lbs
GHR: 3x9 with 5lbs

Damn dip belt squats take forever to set up and brake down. I’m LOVING the single leg leg press. This is a very good accessory day, it’s hard but it does not beat the crap outta me. We took out the arm work from last week to try and heal up this elbow/bicep issue.

510

2/1 accessory upper

Split Jerk: 290x3
Split Jerk: 245, 8 sets of 4, 1 minute rest between sets
Strict press against mini bands: 70kg 3x2
French press: 4x15 with 100lbs
Face pulls: 3x15 with 90lbs
Hammer curl/dbell trice ext superset: 25/25lbs, 4 sets of 20/20
5 total sets ab work

2/2 Heavy lower

Squat: warmups, top set 475x3
Pause squat with ssb: 335, 3x3
Speed pulls: 365, 3x3
Meadows row: 145, 3x8
One arm bb shrug: 135, 3x12
Spud ab strap: 8 sets of varying reps, drop sets, weights

Very, VERY hard two days of training. Elbow doing better. Form on split jerks is terrible, front foot is not moving at ALL. Squat felt very heavy and hard one day after all those split jerks. In any event I got all the work in and hit my goals for the week.

511

2/4 Heavy upper

Bench: Warmups, top set 360x3 - first two strong, 3rd got out of the groove
Speed Bench: 10 sets of 4 @ 300 - fucking 10 sets, what an asshole
Floor Press: 315x3, 315x3, 315x3
Dead Bench: 325x1x2, 315x1x2
Cable Fly: 60x3x12
Chest Supported Incline Rows: 85x12x3
Hammer Curl superset with tricep pushdowns: 30/120, 3x12
Planks: 3 sets of 1 minute

Every time I don’t think he can make this any harder without getting through it. Then he makes it harder and I manage to finish. From the time I started warming up until I was done I had spent 1 hour benching. F…U…C…K

2/6 Accessory Lower

Box Jumps: 16 singles to 40"
Split Jerk: 6 singles @ 205lbs
Dip Belt Squats: 3x12 with 220lbs
Single leg leg press: 3x12 with 225lbs
Land mines: 8x4 with 25lbs
GHR: 3x6 with 10lbs

I can tell that I’m overtrained and not doing enough recovery work. This should be an easy workout and it took everything I had to finish. Everything felt hard and heavy. Thankfully I think next week is a deload!

512

2/8 Upper

Split Jerk - Much better today, form was stronger and the lifts were better. For as shitty as I felt a day prior, I felt pretty good today

2/9/13 Max lower

Today was a bad day. Lower back re-injury. Happened on my 4 rep with 540 on deads. Today is one day post and it does not look good. Had to bust out the percs to get through the day. So, the title of this log now fits my training again for the forseable future. Actually, I should have named it; Bench and Rehab, a log in futility.

513


Well I am pleased to say the injury is not as bad as I thought. While things are still not good, it is a vast improvement over the past 10 days. I was able to train upper body very light 2 days and yesterday did some bodyweight squatting and overhead squats with a broomstick.

During this time I also FINALLY got my jerk blocks done. Overall, they came out okay. Not professional grade by any stretch but I think they will hold up just fine to the pounding that’s coming. Sadly, I can’t use the fucking things right now so that is really pissing me off.

514

Things are still progressing. I have not posted any workouts because for the most part they have been lame or rehab stuff. I am pretty much pain free and was able to squat last week.

We did get some new dumbbells in the gym so had to play around with them on Monday. They are really nice and go up to 150, so I thought, why not go to 150? Ended up hitting them for a set of 5 on flat db bench, pretty happy with that as I ate like shit and did not really want to train going into the workout.

Will be testing out some light deadlifts and overhead tomorrow. If that goes well then I will get a bit more aggressive with my rehab.

515

To put it nicely, I don’t give a fuck about lifting weights right now. Felt this coming last week and it hit hard on Saturday/Monday.

Coming to the realization that I will not be able to compete again until later this year and it pisses me off.

516

3/22

Talking with Josh again. Once again, the title of this log will fit my training for awhile. Back to a focus on bench and upper body size. Lower body will be rehab and light bodybuilding. Had to retest my max on the 22nd.

First off, bodyweight was back down to 262. No real shocker here after one month of cutting out all heavy training and lowering my calories back down to normal. I didn’t really want to train today, had no partners, slept bad the night before, ate poorly day of, etc, etc. Still managed a solid rep at 375, so down 20lbs from the last time I maxed. Overall, I was okay with this. We’ll see how things go, will start posting regular logs again next Monday.

517

So a quick look at weekend training.

3/29 - made a stupid decision to try and snatch. Felt good up until then end then a small tweak. Yes, I am mentally retarded.

4/30 - work up to 320 power jerk from back. felt really heavy, last week I was rolling with these and should have worked up to a max. Today it felt off, slow and heavy.

One of my buddies is thinking of trying The Clydesdale Games put on by T-Nations own, Mike Jenkins.

He did three runs of the yoke event with partial weights and reps. I did one run as well, it smoked me. Consisted of the following;

Yoke: 500lbs for 50 ft, into
Double Unders: 25 reps, into
Wallball: 16lbs for 30 reps

Actual event is 750 yoke for 75ft, 50 double unders and 50 wallball reps with a 30lb ball. BRUTAL.

4/1 - First day starting with Josh again

Bench: Warmups. 300lbs for 8, rest 20 seconds, for 3, rest 20 seconds, for 2

Flat db bench: 110 for 10

Incline cable fly: 140 for 8, 12, 15

Banded skullcrushers: 80lb bar, 5 sets of 12, could not finish all reps on sets 3-5

Lat Pulldown: 4 sets of 12

Band Pushdowns: 5 sets of 20

Ab work - planks and hanging leg raises

Overall a solid workout. Did not feel like I did that much on bench but I am sore today. Had a monster tricep pump.

518

Lack of posts, once I stop, I just stop. Still logging workouts from Josh. Back not improving much. Training is good otherwise.

I did a highland games clinic day with Sean Betz several weeks back. Very productive day and I learned ALOT. Sean’s advice to me was to compete, not practice. With a baby due in early July this is going to be tough but I want to try and do 3-4 games this season. The training day did not bother my back to much so this was positive.

Also for some insane reason I want to do another strongman show. There are 2 local ones I’m eyeing but don’t think I can get really ready in time. Will be testing out some things just to see how it all feels.

519

Last week was a deload. I wanted to rip someone’s head off. This went from my own, my wife’s, customers, vendors, etc. The longer the week went on the more I realized this had to do with the fact that I had not gotten any aggression out at the gym.

5/6 - Upper

Good warmup.

Flat bench; warmups. 335x6,2,2. Max out, rest 20 seconds, max, repeat.

Incline bench; 225x5, 265x3,2,2. Same as above

Decline bench: 225x10, 295x10,3,3. Same as above. Triceps were FRIED

DB Fly: 3 sets of 15 with 45’s

Barbell tricep ext off floor with chains; 80lb bar, 40lb chains; 5 sets of 10

Lat pulldown; 3 sets of 15

Band pushdowns; 5 sets of 20

Ab work

Very strong workout. Felt TERRIBLE going into this session. Anger can do wonderful things if you harness it. Once I started getting heavier on my bench warmups I knew it was going to be a good night.

520

Training the rest of last week sucked. Not only did I get sick but I slept wrong on my neck awhile back and it’s been bothering me for a couple of weeks.

5/10

Strict press: Warmups, 170x6,6,5 - done in rest pause fashion
CG Bench: 285x2x6
Upright DB Row: 30lbs, 3x12
Cable Lateral Raise
Face Pulls
Overhead dicks press
Plate Twists

5/11

Sled Drag: 250lbs, 3 sets forward, 3 sets backwards, approx. 100ft each trip
Axle Deadlift: 255, 2 sets 10
Axle High pulls: 155 for 5 sets of 4
Chest supported t-bar row; 3 sets 12

Sled drags still all I can really do for legs. Back not improving very much. I have an appt right now to get in and see my guy but he is booked way out. I am on the cancel list and just waiting to get in.

5/14 - Upper

Foam roll, back rehab, less than 5 minutes

Bench; warmups, 275x2, 315x1, 340x6x2x2 - same as prior weeks. The 340 for 6 was hard, 6th rep was a true max. If 341 was on the bar it would not have gone up.

Bench with reverse double minis; I had 3 attempts to max but not miss here. I did not take big enough jumps; 405x1, 455x1, 495x1, all really easy. I think 540-570 is there.

Incline bench; 270x4,2,2

Decline bench; 315x9x2x2

Cable fly; 3 sets 12

Skullcrushers (laying on floor) 80lb bar weight, 40lb chain; 5 sets of 10

Lat pulldowns; 3 sets 12

Band pushdowns; 5 sets 20

Planks; 2 sets 60 seconds