I was not feeling it today, I came into the day with a sore throat, headache, and pain in my back near my kidneys… super awesome. I am behind on my program already due to feeling ill last friday and skipping out on my training that day, so I said to myself today… “ah fuck it” and went in the gym to give it all I had today.

It took me some time to get warmed up, and feel mobile, in fact I didn’t really feel mobile until about my third set in as I was building up towards my 1RM on Deadlift. I completed my general warm-up, then my specific, and still felt… about 75% mobile. I threw in some triggerpoint work, and some superbands in between my first three sets, and that really helped.

I pulled 355# on the DL today, I’ll take it. I’m hoping to get near 405# by summer. I think it is possible, for sure, but I will not do it with bad form, that is something I am going to focus on heavily. The goal here is not just to pull heavy weight, but to do it properly, and safely. Again, this will create a better quality lift that I can be proud of, rather than a quantity I can puff my chest up about.

Although I started feeling more mobile during the DL, I never really felt “good” during it, almost lethargic, kind of how I imagine people who spend their day in wal-mart feel from the lighting. So, when I finished the DL I was not excited to start bench, especially because I have a bad attitude about it.

I started out with my warm up sets…

1×10 @ 135#

1×5 @ 185#

1×3 @ 205#

1×2 @ 215#

So, at 215# I felt like I was already hitting the wall, which was not a good feeling, in fact, it sucked. I last tested my 1RM on bench… shit I don’t even know when it was, last year maybe? I do however remember I last pushed 235# off my chest. Something to be somewhat proud of, considering I rarely lay my ass down on the bench.

225# I got a spot, just incase, little did I know, I didn’t need it at all. Coach Weidman was spotting me, and after I racked the weight he said, “Dude, that was easy, bump to 245#.” Now mind you, that is ten pounds above my previous 1RM, I never train bench, and I feel like taking a nap at this point, but… fuck it. I obliged, I’m a guy, of course I obliged. 245# went up pretty “easy” as well, obviously easy in this case does not mean I grabbed the bar, dropped it to my chest and launched it through the air like a baton (I feel like I have zero clue how to spell that) twirler in a marching band. What I mean by this is, Weidman did not have to give me any sort of assistance to push this weight off of my chest.

265# was next. Again, I was thinking this would be it. 265#, it has been about eight years since I’ve pushed anything near this, or above this. So, I set myself down on the bench, threw in my headphones, counted to three… and what do you know, I pushed it up off my chest without assistance, not explosive, but not with any real struggle, just a good even push to lock out.

I conferred with Coach Weidman, and we decided, why not, why not move up to 285#, what’s it going to hurt? I have a spot, and I seem to be on a roll. Fuck it.

285#, my PR on bench is 315#, I was 20 years old, 192lbs, and 6% body fat. I benched a couple days a week, and was in the gym busting my ass constantly, but, only in two planes of motion, and with one goal, get big and get bad. I guess that could be two goals…. semantics.

So, I figured, shit, here goes nothing. If you can imagine it… picture the moment like this…

I laid down on the bench, put my head phones in and the Black keys began playing in my ears…

I kind of spaced out a little, (not a rare event for me, but usually when I workout I stay focused) as I grabbed the bar I felt… strong, good almost… for once today, finally. I started to picture myself actually pushing the bar up off my chest with this weight, I didn’t allow it to beat me down. So, I grabbed the bar, counted it off, and next thing I know I’m in the middle of the lift on the eccentric phase, I kind of went somewhere else, almost outside my body, I have never really had that experience when lifting before. It was what I imagine euphoria to feel like.

(This is supposed to represent how I felt relaxed… its the Oregon Coast… who wouldn’t be relaxed)

The push was slow, very slow, but my body never gave in, and my mind seemed to be fighting to focus and yet relax all at the same time, it was gnarly.

Sure, maybe this is a lot for a blog post about a 1RM bench press, but shit man, I’m just trying to tell it how it is. Kind of. Ha

I don’t know why it is… that today I added 50# to my 1RM on bench. I can’t tell you why I not only pushed the weight up, but felt like a new man afterwards, and not because I pushed a heavy weight (heavy for me), I literally had energy like a fourth grader who was just fed a six pack of jolt and a family sized bag of skittles. I was bouncing off the walls, and I no longer felt lethargic, or sick, my headache was gone, and my throat didn’t hurt. Crazy.

Gains shall be made, and my limits will be pushed. I am excited for this program. I am excited for life in general. I am out of ramblings now. So I hope you have a good night, and an awesome friday. Tractor tires are going to be added to the shop gym this weekend. It’s a great time to be alive.

Don’t forget to sign up for our Fitness competition and Strongman event that is taking place June 1st, 2013. Pre-registration starts soon, I will link to it as soon as it is up. For now, like us on Facebook, and start getting ready. Also be looking for a flyer that looks like this (with the changes for this year)…

Check out mobilityWOD and get your ass movin’ right- http://www.mobilitywod.com/

And check out Barbell shrugged also, these guys kick ass-

Now for the song of the day… “Beggars Guild” by a band named… Road Kill Ghost Choir… This song is badass, I recently, well within the last four months or so found out about these guys, this dudes voice rocks the fuck out, the song takes a bit to pick up, but man, once it does, I dunno why, but I just get hooked. Something about good music, it just draws you in. If it’s good music, I can usually drift off thinking r day dreaming about what the song is talking about… and this is definitely one of those songs.