So i've hit a few PR's lately, and i figured, WTF i'll make a thread about it even though they arent that great.
So here's the deal.. when i was about 19 i had a repeated shoulder injury. Tore something in my right shoulder a few times badly enough that i couldnt even lift my arm up over my head. I rehabbed it myself, and at this point it's at about 90-95%. Considering that i also have long skinny arms, and a small chest cavity, i'm not particularly suited for pressing. So anyway, these are my excuses. LOL.
Well no more excuses. I decided to up the pressing, and in the last month or so i've hit the following:
BW = 210 lbs
Pushup: BW + 70 x 8
Dip: BW + 50 X 4 (after 2 sets of 3)
And just yesterday i decided (since i forget my vest for dipping) that i would do the good old bench press for the first time in about 6 months, and lo and behold i hit a fucking PR:
Bench: 225 X 2
Finally up to two plates on that bastard of an exercise (always been really hard for me) and i hadn't even gone near the flat bench in a very long time. Considering that, i fully plan on hitting three plates for reps before the year is done.
For a non-pressing PR, i did a one arm thick grip row (with the end of a barbell, as though i were doing a t-bar row, but NEXT to the bar with one hand on the sleeve) for the following:
1 handed, sleeve grip row: 120 (at the bottom) X 12 (with my LEFT arm!)
Needless to say i started out at a bodyweight of 190, and now i'm 210. Christ....
I think i can hit dips + 90 in a few weeks, which will put the weight on my hands at 300 lbs. Hopefully from there i'll switch to some pushups maybe.. try to hit BW + 100 or 120 (might be too hard to actually get the weight on me) and then i should be closing in on my 315 lb bench :)
you know what, I thought I could do the same thing with weighted dips (BW + 70lbs). I knocked off like 12 of these easy a few months ago. I thought it would cross over to my bench, so I could do a massive 260lbs, lol!
Didn't work. Still stuck at 230lbs. :(I'm on a different program now though, so I'm looking to hit 240lbs. in another month or so.
You might have more luck with the weighted pushups though.
I recently hit a clean chin-up with around 139 lbs (63kg) added to 183 lbs BW, that's 75% added, wich I have never done before. I'm on the one-arm-pullup-mission.
I also did a strict military-press with 176 lbs recently, never did that before and never practiced the military-press with a bar, only the one-arm kettlebell-version.
Mixing the pure strength-moves with kettlebells, interval-running, tabatas etc I've noticed that focusing on endurance really kills my max-strength (and fast!) but focusing on max-strength actually improves my endurance if anything, definatly doesn't hurt it. Weird.
No PR's no. I'm working on correcting my pelvic tilt, which any real squatting will probably exacerbate. I have, however, been working on my pistol, and the form on the deep squats (hence the thread about 8 inch box squats).
SquatDog,
How is what possible?
You did 8 dips with 110lbs (50kgs)?? That's a strong dip!!
Androushka,
Nice pullup! I've done BW + 90lbs X 2 when i was about 170 lbs. Not quite as impressive, but i think i'll get back up there now that i'm working hard at it :)
I'm glad to see you're making good progress with your rehabilitation! I'm hoping for the same.
2 years ago I was in the best shape of my life; while I still had some shoulder/rotator problems on my left arm and hip stemming from a hit-and-run accident I had when I was 14, and minor nerve impingements, I was still doing impressive numbers on major lifts and movements, my not only did I feel strong but my endurance was up and overall health was great.
I've endured a cascade of injuries since then, first with a spine extensor tear, then the flu and pneumonia, and the greatest one occuring spring of last year; second degree burns over most of my body, which caused my body to SEVERELY atrophy within the span of a month rendering me down to a skinny-flabby 125lbs. (formerly being 165lbs at single-digit BF%)
Needless to say I was distrought over this and was overly eager to get back in the gym and regain my health. After a 2 month layoff I started up again, and retained a surprising degree of strength/neuromuscular efficiency. However because of this and my ambition, I started pushing weights that were too heavy, and greatly exacerbated my preexisting injuries, and discovered new ones. For awhile, I couldn't perform a single pushup, nor do pullups, nor pick up more than 45lbs without causing severe back, shoulder, elbow and wrist pain. I was forced to take another extended break... since then I have been making steady progress. I went to several different chiropractors before finding one that really made a difference and restored much of my shoulder mobility, and improved my ulnar nerve impingements. I'm now back up to 155, allbeit with higher %bf. I still can't do any pullups due to shoulder pain, and I can lat pull about 50lbs before causing significant shoulder pain, but I have been able to deadlift again for the past 3 months. Right now I'm deadlifting less than half of what I used to, and I'm benching 50% less than what I used to. Slowly but steadily I am making progress, and hope my shoulder and other skeletal injuries will improve enough to where I can perform other pulling movements again and at least approach my former numbers. Of course, matching or exceeding them would be awesome...
I've relearned things I had forgotten since then what it's like starting out (I have been lifting and working out since the age of 8) and have been learning a lot about rehabilitation and working around injuries since then.
I am right there with you brother. The bench has always sucked for me. I can remember being happy with triples with 225. My all time best is about 250 for 3-5 at a body weight near 190.
I honestly am not sure I could bench 185 at the moment.
Hey Xen, thanks for the input. I've always been good with endurance and limited by weak max-strength so I'm digging deep into pure strength-training right now and have been doing some good gains (mostly in the pull-up). I was prepared to let the endurance drop a bit to up my strength but I don't seem to loose much of it.
Taku and Doug: Is the bench-press an important lift for athletes in your opinion?