6/22/06 - Thursday

Today we decided we were going to see where we were with our bench shirts. We haven't put them on since our meet at the end of March. I think I benched 362 or something in the meet and missed 380 something. Over the past month we've done more with board presses, and lockouts (pin presses) in the cage. This I think is the only thing different we've done to our training since the meet.

Bench - warm up barx10, 95x10, 135x8, 135x4, 225x5, 255x2, 295x1, then I put on my bench shirt. I had 345 on the bar to start, and that weight flew off my chest. I had so much pop behind it. Then I had 375 on the bar. That went up easy too, nice smooth, one motion through the lift. Now, I knew before my 345 attempt that I was doing 345. After that I don't want to know the weight because it fucks with my head. I didn't know what my second lift was. I do nothing, just sit on the end of the bench and my partners load it. So after the lift I asked "what was that?" 375. Sweet, let's do another.. same thing.. i'm sitting on the end of the bench, I have no idea what their loading. I'm listening to Disturbed in my mp3 player. I'm ready, the weight is covered by a couple of tshirts, so I can't see it while I set up with the shirt. I got my lift off and it was heavy, but not much different from the last lift. I pulled it in, touched, paused and pushed it up... again smooth lift... "what was that?" "take a look brother... 405!" I was psyched. I broke through that barrier. And this is at a weight of about 162. I had mental blocks to dead over 400. once i did it, i kept going up. now i'm in the 500's. same with the squat. 500 was a barrier for me... once i did it, now my opener is around 525. seeing that i broke 400 w the bench, that is probably going to be my second attempt in a meet. everything seems to be progressing nicely and i have some time before november to tweak everything.