Thursday, December 4, 2008

Bench Press PR?

Not quite.

I was doing my wave loading sets of bench presses and barbell rows last night. On the fourth set, a single rep at the highest weight for the workout, I decided to try 160#. I need to keep increasing the weight if I'm going to catch up to Pres-elect Obama and his 200# bench press. (Yeah, I know that bench pressing is not likely to help, and might even hurt my running. But, I'll back off on upper body strength stuff as running season really gets going. I talked to Nikki Kimball about this at WS last year, and after XC ski season, which really builds her arm muscles, she just backs off on arm training as running races get closer.)

I asked one of the doctors I work with to spot me on the one rep at 160 last night. He was in the midst of doing BP sets at 245 or so, so my 160 seemed pretty puny. I got about halfway up and I just kind of locked up. I was pushing and pushing, but the bar wasn't moving. Finally, my spotter put his hand on the bar and gave me just a little nudge. He said "All you", which is the most repeated lie in gyms around the world. I knew he'd helped me and I can't claim I did the lift myself. Next week maybe.

I did get a new PR on the barbell row, and then had some good sets of lat pulldowns and DB presses. After some lower body Russian twists, I was done.

Today's weather forecast is kind of nasty, so I'm going to have to find a way to get in a run. It's above freezing right now and the temperature is going up. It's also drizzling right now. Later, the drizzle will turn to rain, the temps will start to drop, and the rain will turn to sleet and then snow. Then, the roads will start freezing up. And, I'm working 60+ miles from home today.

I may leave work early before things start to freeze, run indoors in the late afternoon, and then work into the evening. Somehow, I'll get a run in, unless the weather really gets bad.

Tomorrow, I'm scheduled to have a day of skiing with the other trainers at the ski mountain, but I'm not sure I want to use a vacation day for another training day. So, I might work and then lift at night. This weekend, I'll be doing some training for other instructors who are my closest co-workers during the season.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just so's you'll know, I'm currently doing supersets of 20 reps with 155 lbs (alternated with sets of 20, rowing with 200 lbs)

...this morning, however, I wasn't able to finish my second set. I think it might have something to do with the cold and sinus infection; or it may just be advanced age.

Yeah, it's boasting, but not nearly as much "boasting" as "Yeah, I reckon my buddies 'n' I'll head over to the Bush for some free skiing..." :)

Damon said...

I have to admit that I wouldn't trade my skiing days for your bench press reps.

But, you could still be living in Utah and doing both of those things.

Just sayin'...

Anonymous said...

Surely there are some flies that you could be pulling the wings off of, right? :)

(yes, I know. But "some flies off of whom you could be puling the wings" loses something...)