I have been lifting for about 10 months now and seen some serious gains in everything. But the craziest thing happened to me the other day! here is my Bench Press Max dates... oh im 5"8 roughly 165-170lbs I max to see what i can do but im really strong with high reps
155 11/27/07
165 12/5/07
175 12/10/07
180 12/19/07
185 12/25/07
195 02/08/08
200 02/09/08
205 02/11/08
210 3/3/08
215 3/7/08
220 5/5/08
225 8/27/08
230 9/5/08
235, 245 9/15/08
notice the bold and look at the times.. now here is the story this past week was like any other week and i decided to try and max because i felt fresh and wanted to hit 235 so i warmed up and went to max hoping that my peak had been broken at 225 with only a 10lb gain in over 5 months... well to my surprise not only did i max 235 but i did I lifted it like it was a joke. My friends and i were so surprised that we had to check the weight to make sure it was right... and it was! so then im wondering what the heck should i do... so i threw on 245 and again the same exact thing happened... no struggle what so ever it seemed like a dream... well then i decided what the heck lets throw on 255 even though i just maxed two times.. this clearly was 25lbs over my last max but to my surprise i had the weight half way up but not enough to rack it... but it didnt matter i had just raised my max 15lbs?????? what did i do... i felt like it was the scene from the movie "unbreakable" loading on weight time after time... well here is what i feel made the difference in order of importance...
1. Body Rest- 2 of my lifting partners had been on vacation for 8 days so i lifted conservatively and rested up for the most part.
2. Research... I was posed with the question of where the best placement of my hands would be in a bench press... and stumbled upon some very important information..here is the site (
http://www.timinvermont.com/fitness/powerben.htm)
3. 3 days before I did great reverse bence workout of heavy and light weights both high and low reps. I had just started the reverse bench exercise about 1 month before this occurance with maxing.
4. I had been doing a pyramid of low weight low squats a few weeks prior
5. I have started to record every workout and every rep for the past 2 months...
hopefully one of these tips will help you like they helped me... because I still can't get over the quick gain that i could have never dreamed of... I have scheduled my lifting carefully this week so i will be in top condition this monday in order to bench press 255... a weight that is no longer intimidating after this recent experience...
best of luck to all who try this... let me know if you notice anything in your lifts... Especially the form that the website suggests...