Personal best on bench last night

[SS Junk]

(Ronnie Coleman)
LIGHTWEIGHT, BABY!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
(/Ronnie Coleman)

Congrats.

[BERT]

Make sure that you do a forced rep or two on every set, make use of that spotter. Needing help is a good thing, give your chest reason to get stronger.

Will do. That's what I did after getting 300 up.


and thanks again for all the advice

[Big A]

Make sure that you do a forced rep or two on every set, make use of that spotter. Needing help is a good thing, give your chest reason to get stronger.

[BERT]

Rock on dude, it always feels good to hit a milestone. 3 plates is a measly 15lbs away, I'd say that after a good few days of rest, warm up with just 135 slow and controlled, and only a set, maybe two of no more than 12 reps. This is just to loosen your joints and get a little blood flowing, you don't want to tap into your ATP stores. Then get under 315, and your brother will have to help very little if at all.

I'll give that a try. Was thinking about for the next two weeks just working out with 275 instead of 225. Then on the 28th try for 3 plates. I have a feeling that won't happen though. 15lbs doesn't sound like much but we all know that's a lot lol

[Big A]

Rock on dude, it always feels good to hit a milestone. 3 plates is a measly 15lbs away, I'd say that after a good few days of rest, warm up with just 135 slow and controlled, and only a set, maybe two of no more than 12 reps. This is just to loosen your joints and get a little blood flowing, you don't want to tap into your ATP stores. Then get under 315, and your brother will have to help very little if at all.

[BERT]

Was going to take Aaron's advice and start doing to 275 sets and skip the 225 sets, but decided to put it off 'til next week. I wanted to try and get 300 up before doing that. Figured if I could get 275 up twice with no help, I SHOULD be able to get 300 up once.

So just to see how I felt last night after warming up (cause my shoulder ALWAYS hurts when warming up but never after that) I did a set of 3 at 225 and felt just fine. Next was 300 and it wasn't easy but I got the fucker up with out any help. Told my brother, you better not touch this bar until you see it going back down towards my chest lol It didn't go up as fast as I wanted it to but it went up. And I was able to bring it down nice and slow.

After that I told my brother I wanted to get 275 up 4 times and he'll probably have to help me with the last two. No, he had to help me with the last 3 lol Damn, 275 never felt so heavy after getting the 300 up. Finished my sets just repping out 225 8 times just to get some work in.

I'm pretty happy with that. I think I told myself (i'll have to go back through here and check) that I wanted to get 300 up before November so at least I did that

[BERT]

So start now...better than not starting at all.

Yes I know. Need to just put my big girl panties on and do it

[stangin4lyfe]

Nothing has changed in that aspect. I do kind of wonder every now and then what I would look like had I stuck with the plan of starting cardio back in April

So start now...better than not starting at all.

[BERT]

You said that a few months ago...

Nothing has changed in that aspect. I do kind of wonder every now and then what I would look like had I stuck with the plan of starting cardio back in April

[stangin4lyfe]

but I don't wanna

You said that a few months ago...

[BERT]

Time to focus on that cardio.

but I don't wanna

[Big A]

We're usually pretty good about doing different things each week so we don't get bored.

It'll be interesting after this month though. He's moving to Tyler and my gym membership runs out on Nov. 1. Plus i'm trying to move to Dallas. So this will be a real test for me to see if I can keep going at it. This is the longest I've ever stayed at it working out before.

Time to focus on that cardio.

[BERT]

Another key is to constantly change up your routine, including specific exercises and rep ranges. Commit to doing the low rep stuff for 2 to 3 weeks, then switch to sets of 12 for 2 to 3 weeks, and again back to 8 reps. By the end of each cycle you probably won't get all that sore post workout, and after the first day on the new rep range, you won't want to move your arms.

It's also a lot less boring than trying to increase reps of 225 a rep at a time, for example. Give your body a reason to grow.

We're usually pretty good about doing different things each week so we don't get bored.

It'll be interesting after this month though. He's moving to Tyler and my gym membership runs out on Nov. 1. Plus i'm trying to move to Dallas. So this will be a real test for me to see if I can keep going at it. This is the longest I've ever stayed at it working out before.

[Big A]

come to think of it, I've always done this for incline and decline. So I got that going for me lol

Another key is to constantly change up your routine, including specific exercises and rep ranges. Commit to doing the low rep stuff for 2 to 3 weeks, then switch to sets of 12 for 2 to 3 weeks, and again back to 8 reps. By the end of each cycle you probably won't get all that sore post workout, and after the first day on the new rep range, you won't want to move your arms.

It's also a lot less boring than trying to increase reps of 225 a rep at a time, for example. Give your body a reason to grow.

[BERT]

Seems to me like you should be getting 275 up more than twice, if you can rep 225 for 3 sets like that. I'd say take 3-4 days off from chest, and after a warmup with 135, rep out 275 as many times as you can with 1 or 2 forced reps (assuming you still have a spotter) for 4 sets, and do it again in another 3-4 days. You have to lift heavier if you want to get stronger, adding reps to 225 isn't gong to get it.

Do the same for lower and upper chest as well.

come to think of it, I've always done this for incline and decline. So I got that going for me lol