Wmachine’s BodyBlog

I’ve started doing Crossfit workouts and they are great and punishing.  If you haven’t heard of crossfit yet you should check out the website crossfit.com.  It’s a great concept, short, high intensity workouts that bring you to your knees, give you a great pump and totaly challenge you.  They don’t take much in the way of equipment. 

I’m back on a regular work-out schedule now.  Six days a week.  I’m going to be working on increasing strength and especially my bench max.  My goal is still 300. 

It’s been a rough month as far as time goes.  I haven’t been able to work out regularly due to many other obligations and the inconvenience of there only being 24 hours in a day.  Sometimes I manage to get a workout in as late as 10:30pm or 11 and then have to get up at 5am the next morning.  As long as I work out three or four times a week I’ll maintain my strength and when things settle down I’ll get back to a regular schedule and start making ngains again.

Maria VonTrap might have liked whiskers on kittens and crap like that but here’s what I like.  After a hard upper body workout you go to take your t-shirt off and it gets stuck on your mega pumped lats.  And then after that struggle you get the sleeves snagged on your upper arms.  Or your arms and shoulders are so pumped you find it difficult to wash your hair.  Yeah, I can’t put it to music but those are definitely some of my favorite things. 

So there I was thinking I had 310 lbs on the bar going for my third repetition of deadlift, and I’m thinking to myself ‘Ho Chi Minh!! this is heavy!’. But I gutted it out and got 4 reps.  With pen and paper in hand I quickly redid the math and came up with 325 lbs.  Yes, I did feel stupid but I also felt stronger.  So even though I go through life pushing on doors that are clearly marked ‘pull’ I refuse to let that get me down because someday I’ll be able to pull those doors off their hinges and they won’t need those ridiculous, demeaning signs anymore

Well, I’ve started the new routine.  I was stuck around the 265 - 270 range on my bench press so I did the weightlifting equivalent to dropping back and punting.  Except I not giving up the ball, I’m going to keep the ball and run it in from another angle.  I did three sets of ten at 210 pounds tonight.  The weight was just right because the last two reps of the last two sets were killer!  I’ll spend a few weeks at 3 X 10’s then go down to 3 X 8’s while increasing the weight and so on until I get down into the 5 rep range then I’ll increase the sets to 4 or 5.  I believe that should get me past the plateau.  I will get 300!

I’m still working on getting 300 on the bench press.  I like lifting heavy but I think I may have to go a little lighter for a few weeks to work on form and just to change things up.  I’m to the point now where I can get 265 regularly and I can dip 125 lbs 6 times.  I’m going to start doing decline dumbell bench.  The place I usually work out doesnt have a decline bench so I’ll have to rig something up or go somewhere else on bench day.  One way or another I am going to bench 300 pounds.

I’m sitting here eating egg whites and oatmeal and thinking about yesterdays chest workout.  I tried to get 270 lbs.  I didn’t get it on my own but my partner helped me push it up 3 times.  It’s great to have a good partner or it’s hard to make any gains (and it gets dangerous too).  I’ll try 270 again next week but I will move my second tricep workout to an earlier day so they will be well rested on bench day.

I love dips.  I did 2 sets of 125lbs for 5 reps yesterday.  I did a few more after that.  My goal is to dip my weight.  I think I will get in a month or two.  Seeing as how I can do so much in dips it must be my chest that’s weak and not letting me bench 300 lbs and not my triceps. 

Today was good.  I did deadlifts 315 x 3, 320 x 3, then 330 x 1.   That’s my best deadlift in a while.  I went straight from deadlifts to pull-ups and then bent-rows and I felt a little light headed so I went harder and it felt great to be pushing myself that hard.  It’s a good workout if you feel like puking but it’s a great workout if you actually do puke!