Personal best on bench last night

[SS Junk]

Also been focusing more on incline here lately and going heavier. Working pretty well despite the little pain in my shoulder when doing them on the smith machine.

My shoulders are messed up because of doing heavy barbell incline presses. Moved to either light weight for barbell just for the reps. Only do heavy incline with dumbells. Has made a world of difference.

This reads like you have no experience with lifting heavy, and/or forced reps, with a good spotter.

I've only ever had two good spotters. One was a champion power lifter. He never thought it was necessary to force reps with ORM weight. Was able to gain an incredible amount of strength in the 6 months we worked out together, but only if we would've forced reps, just think of the possibilities...

[BERT]

My shoulders are messed up because of doing heavy barbell incline presses. Moved to either light weight for barbell just for the reps. Only do heavy incline with dumbells. Has made a world of difference.

Yeah with dumbbells there is no issue. Usually we do barbell when the dumbbells are being used. Damn people

[SS Junk]

Damn people

LOL. Exactly.

[Big A]

My shoulders are messed up because of doing heavy barbell incline presses. Moved to either light weight for barbell just for the reps. Only do heavy incline with dumbells. Has made a world of difference.

I've only ever had two good spotters. One was a champion power lifter. He never thought it was necessary to force reps with ORM weight. Was able to gain an incredible amount of strength in the 6 months we worked out together, but only if we would've forced reps, just think of the possibilities...

Just because one guy you know doesn't do forced reps, doesn't make them dangerous or ineffective. People like him will generally gain strength easier, regardless of what they are doing, as long as they are training hard. Those of us that aren't so genetically blessed need all the tricks and techniques we can to make progress.

I'd also be interested to know where this guy was at in his own regimen. Guys at the top of their game generally find it really difficult to make gains. I'm not discounting his accolades, but once near our genetic limit, we all make gains at a slower pace. I'm betting there's more to it than him simply having some miraculous growth spurt. After an extended layoff I was adding 10-30lbs per lift when getting back into it for the first few months, but I'm not going to tout myself as some freak of nature that doesn't have to work hard to grow. It was simply muscle memory.

That aside, I've heard of quite a few people having trouble with barbell incline, so definitely be careful. I've never gone heavier than 225 on it, and do the heavier sets on the hammer strength machine and barbells.

[SS Junk]

I never said they were ineffective. I just think they're dangerous. Out of all the spotters I've had I'd only trust the two mentioned to do this at over 300lbs. As far as an incredible amount of strength I was meaning I gained it while lifting with my last spotter. Some of it was technique, a lot of it was psychological and the rest was strength. When we would lift heavy we would always do "forced reps" with weight we could get up 3 to four times clean and then go from there. We also went heavy with boards. Every little bit of it helped. What we did worked for both of us.

[BERT]

Took last week off, it was time and I was going to be out of town for two days. Plus my shoulder started hurting. It's probably going to take more than a weeks worth of rest for the shoulder to start feeling better but i'm kind of scared to take too much time off. It only hurts doing certain exercises, so I just try and take it easy during those. Stupid old baseball injuries

[SS Junk]

Light light weight. Do it for reps and not for weight. It'll help with muscle memory as well. Once your shoulder heals then start to gradually increase weight. It's quite possible you'll be fighting some sort of shoulder pain from here on out.

[BERT]

Got lazy during the holidays and only went to the gym twice. Back at it hard this week though. Lost my workout partner since my bro moved to tyler so I'm just doing dumbbells for bench for now. The last time I did DB's I could barely do the 100lbers, the other day on my last set I was able to do the 100lbers 8 times. Shoulder is still bothering me so I'm having to take it easy on certain things but I'm getting it done.

[Big A]

Got lazy during the holidays and only went to the gym twice. Back at it hard this week though. Lost my workout partner since my bro moved to tyler so I'm just doing dumbbells for bench for now. The last time I did DB's I could barely do the 100lbers, the other day on my last set I was able to do the 100lbers 8 times. Shoulder is still bothering me so I'm having to take it easy on certain things but I'm getting it done.

Due to travelling and the flu I was away from the gym for almost 3 weeks during the holidays, which turned out to be a good thing. My joints appreciated the time off, as did my lower back, and this first week back I am lifting for 8 what I was pushing up for 6 before the break. Rest is important, remember, you don't grow or get stronger while you are at the gym, that happens when you're resting.

Not having a training partner is no excuse to drop your intensity, just be smart about how and what you lift (like switching to dumbells), and you most certainly can still grow. Strict form is your friend when lifting without a spot.

[BERT]

Due to travelling and the flu I was away from the gym for almost 3 weeks during the holidays, which turned out to be a good thing. My joints appreciated the time off, as did my lower back, and this first week back I am lifting for 8 what I was pushing up for 6 before the break. Rest is important, remember, you don't grow or get stronger while you are at the gym, that happens when you're resting.

Not having a training partner is no excuse to drop your intensity, just be smart about how and what you lift (like switching to dumbells), and you most certainly can still grow. Strict form is your friend when lifting without a spot.

When I'm there, I still work out. I have a problem with not taking enough time in between sets though. My brother always set the pace and I'm always wanting to blow through my workouts.

[BERT]

Last night I did the most I've ever done on dumbbell press. On my last set I put up the 110lbers 6 times.

Went:
90x10
100x8
110x6

Had a hard time doing dumbbell incline after that lol

[SS Junk]

Nice. Completely random entry, but I've never tried paused sets before, but did so last night and loved it. Will be doing more.

[stangin4lyfe]

Nice. Completely random entry, but I've never tried paused sets before, but did so last night and loved it. Will be doing more.

I agree, I've been hooked as well.
One of the best pumps you will feel!
Love doing the 120's(as large as they go, ) x 15 paused for 2 secs at bottom.
Sometimes, I'll just beast out and do 20 reps with no pause, but I do not get quite the pump from it like I do the paused sets.

[stangin4lyfe]

Last night I did the most I've ever done on dumbbell press. On my last set I put up the 110lbers 6 times.

Went:
90x10
100x8
110x6

Had a hard time doing dumbbell incline after that lol

Glad to see you off the barbell.
Keep it up, just make sure you are doing full reps with the DB's as well.

[BERT]

I agree, I've been hooked as well.
One of the best pumps you will feel!
Love doing the 120's(as large as they go, ) x 15 paused for 2 secs at bottom.
Sometimes, I'll just beast out and do 20 reps with no pause, but I do not get quite the pump from it like I do the paused sets.

I do these sometimes, not always on purpose either lol