Just wanted to give you all an update on some things I’m doing to improve my bench press. As you may know, the bench press has essentially become the bane of my existence (speaking of Bane, who is as excited as I am for the release of The Dark Knight Rises next month?!).
Within the last six months, I’ve made some good progress on the bench, hitting a gym PR of 300 lbs. this past March. Despite my gains, I had a bad day on the bench in my meet earlier this month, missing twice at 303 lbs. Although this was frustrating, it’s motivated me even more to attack the gym hard and improve upon my numbers. After watching video of my misses and talking with my coach, Tony Gentilcore, we determined that my triceps need to get stronger. Stronger triceps will help me bust through my sticking point and finish off the press. Below are a couple videos from my upper body training session last Saturday that highlight how I’ve been addressing this issue.
On my first upper body day of the week, I’ve been doing bench presses with chains. The accommodating resistance of the chains makes the press harder as I raise the bar from my chest to lockout, as their weight is gradually applied throughout this distance. I have 3 chains on each side of the bar; each chain weighs 15 lbs., so at the top of the movement, the total weight of all the chains is 90 lbs. This is a video of my last set of 3 reps from Saturday. I have 185 lbs. on the bar, plus 6 chains, equaling 275 lbs. at lockout. Also, I’ve been instituting a slightly longer pause during my benches, so that I can keep practicing in “meet conditions.”
Later in this workout, I have 3-Board Presses for sets of 8 reps. The reps are on the higher side so that I can really get at my triceps and make them work. The key with board presses is to stay tight and let the bar “sink” into the board. Here is my last set from Saturday with 235 lbs. on the bar.
So there are just a couple things I’m doing to get my bench numbers up. During my second upper body training session every Wednesday, I’ve been performing barbell overhead presses, close-grip incline barbell presses, as well as some direct triceps work. This is all in conjunction with a focus on pulling strength and overall awesomeness, of course.
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend everybody!
Last Wednesday, my grandmother, Nana “Babs” (short for Barbara), passed away at the age of 84. It’s never easy to see a family member or loved one go, but Nana Babs lived a pretty long life. I consider myself lucky because she was a part of my life for almost 25 years, and many people can’t say that about a grandparent. She got to see me grow up, graduate college, and begin to pursue my career path. I wish she could be around to see more, but I’m happy for the time that I had with her.
Nana Babs was a very special lady. She never got her license or learned to drive a car. Luckily, she worked within walking distance of her apartment and there was a grocery store nearby, as well. Nana Babs worked in the cafeteria at R.J. Grey Junior High School in Acton, Massachusetts for 36 years, from 1967 to 2003. All of the kids at the school loved her; even my mom and her two sisters enjoyed having her work at their school!
I’ve been reflecting a lot lately on Nana Babs, and I have many great memories of her. One of the first memories that comes to mind about her is from my childhood, when I was very young, about elementary school-age at most. When my mom used to bring me to visit my Nana Babs, she would always put out plenty of Andes mints for me and hide dollar bills throughout her apartment for me to find.
I would look forward to this every time I went over, and could always count on leaving Nana Babs’ apartment with a belly full of mints and pockets full of dollar bills.
When I thought about this memory of her, I realized something. I realized that this was just a little thing my grandmother would do when she knew I was coming over. It probably only took her a few minutes to put out some Andes mints and hide some dollar bills. The thing is, it was HUGE to me; I would get so excited to see my Nana Babs, eat a bunch of Andes mints, and scour her apartment for dollar bills. I didn’t realize it at the time, but her doing this meant so much to me, and it has always been one of the first things that I think of when I reminisce about my Nana Babs.
I read a great book a while ago by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, called “Delivering Happiness.” In it, he talks about how he has built Zappos into the widely-admired company that it is today. He goes into detail about the culture he’s created and the qualities in his employees that have helped make Zappos so successful. One thing he talks about are “random acts of kindness.” To really illustrate what a random act of kindness is, Hsieh tells the story of one of his employees who was checking out at the grocery store. As the cashier was scanning his items, another person got in line behind him, only carrying a couple things. The Zappos employee, noticing this, offered to pay for the person’s items. This person, obviously taken aback, agreed, and thus, a random act of kindness was committed. No real rhyme or reason to it, just a completely random, nice thing to do.
After reading this book (which I highly recommend), I was inspired to carry out my own versions of random acts of kindness as often as I could. While I haven’t done anything as cool as paying for someone else’s stuff at the grocery store, I try to seize other opportunities when I see them arise. One of my personal favorites is to hold the door for someone when they’re outside of that “acceptable zone,” if you know what I mean. It’s always nice to hold the door for someone when they’re just a couple steps away, but what about holding the door for somebody when they’re several feet away? More times than not, this will “wow” the person and mean a lot to them. Another little thing I like to do is when I go through a toll booth (yes, I’m probably one of the only people in America that still doesn’t have a Speed Pass…but, I’m old school like that), I always make a point to ask the attendant, “How are you doing today?” How many drivers do you think even say a word to toll booth workers throughout the course of a day? I’m willing to bet that they get a “hello” or a “hi” here and there, but most people probably hand them their money and take off. You might be laughing at me, but sometimes I can really tell how much these attendants appreciate this small gesture.
There’s a quote I love from Mike Boyle that goes, “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” If you’re a trainer or strength and conditioning coach, it’s important to invest in yourself and continuing education, but it’s just as important to invest in your clients. Making sure you know their name is obviously a start, but what else do you know about them? Do you know what they do for work? What their hobbies and interests are? If they have kids? A simple, “How are you doing?” or, “How are you feeling today?” can go a long way. Ask them how they like their program and if there’s anything they might like to see more of in the future. It’s paramount to develop a friendly relationship with your clients, and show them your interest in them as people, and that you truly care.
The things I’ve talked about in this post may seem little or small, but most of the time they make a big difference and mean a lot. Just as my Nana Babs put out Andes mints and hid dollar bills for me, doing little things for other people has the potential to put a smile on their face, brighten up their day, and make their life just a bit better. If everybody did something small, it would eventually add up to something BIG, and undoubtedly make this world a better place.
When I visited my Nana Babs in the hospital, I brought her a box of Andes mints. She was very weak and very tired at the time, but she reached out to grab the box when I presented it to her. Even in her condition, I know she understood the significance of that box of Andes mints. Unfortunately, Nana Babs wasn’t able to eat any that day, but there’s no doubt she’s somewhere up there right now, in heaven, enjoying a few with a smile.
Last Saturday, Chris, Jay, and I headed down to the Holiday Inn in Rockland, Massachusetts to compete in the ADFPF Nationals. We all met up at Dynamic shortly after 7:00am and promptly hit the road. Despite the heavy rain, we made it to Rockland in an hour flat, the same amount of time it took Chris and I to get there for our last meet in December. The playlist this time consisted of Dark New Day and some early Flotsam & Jetsam.
I woke up early Saturday morning feeling good, not great. I was hoping that as the day went on, and as the meet commenced, that I would feel a bit better. Sure enough, once the meet got going, I felt better and was able to turn my focus completely to my performance on the squat, bench press, and deadlift.
Before I begin telling you about the meet, however, I’d like to let you all in on a little “snafu” that took place. As Chris, Jay, and I arrived at the Holiday Inn, we proceeded to go through the typical check-in procedure common at any powerlifting meet. We had to choose our opening lifts, get our rack heights for the squat, weigh-in, and get our equipment checked. After submitting my opening lifts and having my rack height measured, I got in line to get all of my equipment checked. As the gentleman in front of me was going through equipment check, I heard the meet official giving him some grief about his underwear. Apparently, due to ADFPF regulations, no spandex underwear is allowed in a raw meet, since it may provide the lifter with an unfair advantage. How much of an advantage is certainly very questionable, but that’s their rule. Well, somehow I must have glossed over this rule when I signed up for the meet. I was wearing spandex briefs and had not brought any other form of underwear. Standing there next in line, I thought to myself, “Shit…I’m screwed!”
When I stepped forward, I put all my stuff on the table. Everything passed inspection: belt, wrist wraps, shoes, socks, t-shirt. As the official was inspecting my gear, I hoped he would just forget about checking my underwear. But, of course, the very last thing he asked to see were my underoos. “Are those spandex?” he asked. I was busted. Turns out, only cotton briefs are considered legal. It wasn’t just me, though; many participants were showing up in spandex, and I heard that someone was actually making a Wal-Mart run to pick up a value pack of whitey-tighties. The official turned out to be good about the situation and passed me anyways, so long as I made sure to get a pair of cotton briefs before my first lift.
I should’ve worn my Jockeys!
I weighed-in quickly and made a mayday call to my dad for some underwear. Luckily, I caught him just before he was leaving, and he graciously brought me three pairs of his underwear. He literally saved my ass! More on this later, unfortunately…
For the time being, my dad had saved the day and I was now sporting a comfortable pair of Hanes boxer briefs. There was a sizable field at this meet and it was organized by weight class into four waves, A through D. I was in wave D, so I had plenty of time to relax, foam roll, go through some mobility/activation work, and warm-up before my first squat attempt. My warm-ups on the squat looked like this:
*Note: the weights in the warm-up area during my last meet were in pounds, but this time there were only the actual kilogram plates that were used in the meet itself. Total pain in the ass for trying to convert to pounds for all of my warm-up sets!
Bar x 5
Bar x 5
143 lbs. x 5
188 x 5
232 x 3
298 x 1
331 x 1
353 x 1 w/belt
My warm-up sets felt really solid. I was opening at 386 lbs., and when my name was called, I went out there and nailed it as expected. As I was walking off the platform, the side judge, an older man from the ADFPF clad in a nifty blue blazer, grabbed my arm and began what I perceived to be him staring at my junk. “WTF?” I thought in my head. What happened was that at the bottom of my squat, due to my singlet “riding up” on me, my underwear had poked out ever so slightly. The judge, noticing this, declared it a rules infraction and I was charged with a missed lift. I was obviously a little pissed off, and thought this was a little nit-picky, but I guess rules are rules, and your underwear length cannot exceed the length of your singlet. So now, as if retrieving a pair of cotton underwear wasn’t enough, my underwear was too long (in the grand scheme of things, technically “missing” this lift didn’t really matter, as I was still allowed to go up in weight as I had planned).
Once this debacle was over, I walked back to the warm-up area and stared blankly into Chris’s face.
“Dude, I’m gonna have to go commando.”
As Chris was cracking up at the thought of my nugget pouch popping out during my next squat attempt, Bernie, a Dynamic client with an extensive history in powerlifting who had accompanied us at the meet, blurted out, “Just cut them!” He immediately ran to find a pair of scissors. Back in a flash, Bernie then handed the scissors to Chris, who was thus charged with the duty of cutting a pair of underwear that my dad had supplied. Under Bernie’s instruction, and my watchful eye, Chris shakily made the cut, and this is what resulted:
My first pair of Bernie Briefs!
Chris suggested that I show the side judge my makeshift briefs to ensure that they were legal. As I presented them to him, he laughed and said that they were fine. Crisis averted! I went out back, slid them on, and was able to proceed with the meet and focus on my next squat.
For my 2nd squat attempt, I took 408 lbs., a PR weight, and it flew up! I was psyched, and decided to stick to my plan of achieving a near mid-400’s squat, and went with 435 lbs. for my 3rd and final attempt. Here it is:
After getting 435 up, and after looking at the video, I think I had another 15-20 lbs. in me! I was definitely happy walking away with 435, though, a 33 lb. PR from my last meet.
Next was the bench press. As I mentioned in my meet preview, I finally hit 300 lbs. on the bench press at the end of March. I was happy with the progress I had made on the bench in 5 months of training for the meet, and I felt confident that 303 lbs. was a lock. Unfortunately, on Saturday, this turned out not to be the case. Here were my warm-ups:
Bar x 5
Bar x 5
99 lbs. x 5
143 x 5
187 x 3
232 x 1
254 x 1 w/wraps
My first attempt was at 287 lbs. My best bench in the last meet was 281, so it was encouraging to already be opening with more than my max bench from last time. Take a look at 287 below:
As you might have noticed, and as Bernie pointed out to me, I began to decelerate the bar even more as it approached my chest. The goal is to lower it evenly, and I probably expended a little more energy than I had to in getting the bar to my chest. The lift felt heavier than I expected, but nevertheless, I decided to go with my meet goal of 303 for my 2nd attempt. Here’s how it went:
F***!!! It felt like I was waiting forever for the press command on this lift. The “competition pause” can be absolutely killer. Regardless, the weight on the bench press just felt plain heavy on this particular day. Once you attempt a certain weight, you’re not allowed to go down for a subsequent attempt, so I had no choice but to go for 303 again. I ended up missing on my 3rd attempt as well. I was definitely a little bummed, but I had no time to feel sorry for myself; the meet wasn’t over, and my favorite lift, the deadlift, was up next.
There’s a little saying in powerlifting that goes, “The meet doesn’t start until the bar hits the floor.” I had to get my mind right after missing twice on the bench, but that wasn’t too hard, since I love deadlifting and naturally, it’s my best lift. I was determined to take out my anger on the iron and pull something very heavy. At this point in the meet, I began feeling a little fatigued, so I used the ample time between lifts to rest and relax. With that in mind, I made sure to limit my warm-up sets and pick them carefully. They looked like this:
165 lbs. x 5
221 x 3
276 x 1
342 x 1
419 x 1 w/belt
My opener on the deadlift was 502 lbs. It felt awesome, so that was a good sign. My 2nd attempt was at a PR weight of 535 lbs. This, too, went up just fine. For my 3rd attempt, I chose to go with 551 lbs. Check it out below:
Like the squat, I feel like I might have had another 15-20 lbs. in me on the deadlift, too! My best deadlift at my last meet was 524, so I’ll definitely take a 27 lb. PR.
All in all, it was a great meet across the board for Chris, Jay, and I. Chris went a perfect 9 for 9, with PR’s on each lift, and came in 1st in his weight class and 1st in his division. Jay went 8 for 9, only missing an attempt on the bench press, and came in 1st in his weight class and 1st in his division. Because of the underwear incident, I ended up going 6 for 9 (although, in my mind, I was 7 for 9) and placing 4th in my weight class and 2nd in my division. My final total was 1273, a 66 lb. increase from the 1207 that I posted last December. Of course, I was pretty happy about this, and it’s something I’m excited to keep building upon.
Big congrats goes out to Chris and Jay on an outstanding meet. Not only are they two of the strongest guys for their size that I know, but they are also two of the hardest workers in the weight room that I know. Also, big thanks to my dad, Angela, Bernie, Boule, Kelly, Kris, Mike, Rich, Kyle, and Kristen for attending the meet to cheer us on. Thank you as well to Tony, Chris, Greg and all the staff and clients at Cressey Performance, my family, my girlfriend and her family, my friends, and all the staff and clients at Dynamic for the support and encouragement. Everybody’s support was truly overwhelming and it meant so much to me. I can’t express my thanks enough!
I’ve been taking this past week off from training to give myself a bit of a mental and physical break. I’m excited to get back in the gym this weekend and begin preparing for my next meet, though! Right now, I’m not sure exactly when my next meet will be. If I apply for and am accepted onto Team USA for the ADFPF World meet this October, I will participate in that, but if not, I’ll plan on doing another meet by this December at the latest. Tony Gentilcore will continue to program for me, and the primary goal of my training will still be to increase my bench press. Also, I’m hoping to hit a 600 lb. deadlift and 500 lb. squat in the near future. Based on my numbers, a 600 lb. deadlift should come first, but hopefully a 500 lb. squat isn’t too far behind! Time to hit the iron hard again and get stronger!
By the way, be sure to CLICK HERE and check out Chris’s excellent meet recap.
Oh, and one more thing…if you watched the videos, you may have noticed that I was donning a well-styled Mohawk at the meet. This was my first-ever Mohawk, and I’ve been wondering whether I should get rid of it or let it rage…what do you think? I kind of like it, to be honest…
Tomorrow morning, I will be competing in my second-ever powerlifting meet, the ADFPF Nationals in Rockland, MA. My buddy and coworker, Chris Martin, will be competing with me again, as well as our friend and Dynamic client, Jay, who is participating in his first powerlifting meet. All three of us have been training our asses off and working hard to get stronger in preparation for this day. I think I can speak for all of us in saying that we’re ready to get on the platform and lift some heavy weight. That being said, I wanted to briefly share a few thoughts and goals for the meet tomorrow morning.
I decided not to drop weight and will remain in the 242-275 lb. weight class. Tomorrow’s meet is a qualifier for a world meet being held, by chance, in Massachusetts this October. If you reach a certain total for your three lifts, you can apply to be on Team USA for the world meet this fall. I learned of this opportunity at my meet last winter and was immediately intrigued at the possibility of trying to qualify. My total in my first meet was just shy of the required total to qualify in the 220-242 lb. class, so I figured I might drop down a class and give it a shot. While I love training and have found a great, new hobby in powerlifting, I have several other important priorities outside of the gym, too. Considering that fact, even though I am much closer to the 242 lb. end of the scale, I elected not to stress about making weight, but rather focus my attention on training hard and getting stronger. If I go into the meet tomorrow and simply meet or exceed my goals, I will be very happy!
Speaking of goals, I’m going to be much more aggressive with my approach this time around. In December at my first meet, I was pretty conservative. I set goals of a minimum 400 lb. squat, 300 lb. bench press, and 500 lb. deadlift. While I came up just short on the bench press, I felt that I might have been able to push the weight a little more on the squat and deadlift. I walked away with a 402 lb. squat, 281 lb. bench press, and 524 lb. deadlift that day, which I thought was a good first showing, but I wasn’t satisfied and have been determined to improve upon those numbers. In talking with Tony Gentilcore, who has been programming for me in preparation for the meet, my attempts are going to look like this:
1st attempt: For my opener, I’m going to do a relatively “easy” weight that I know I can get. On the squat, I plan to open with around 380 lbs. For the bench press, about 285 lbs., and deadlift, 500 lbs. Part of my training sessions in the last two weeks were to hit each of my openers. On Monday, May 21, I squatted 375 lbs. and deadlifted 475 lbs., each for a solid single. They both felt good, but in talks with Tony, I feel that I can be a bit more aggressive on the deadlift and open with 500 lbs. Last Saturday, following the excellent “begin, press, rack” commands of Greg Robins, I did a single on the bench at 285 lbs. with the “competition pause.” That pause can be a killer, but the lift went up well.
2nd attempt: For my second attempt, I’m going to go for a PR on each lift. Seeing how I feel on my opening lift will help me gage exactly what weight I go for on this attempt, but right now, I’m thinking of around 420 lbs. for the squat, 303 lbs. for the bench press (which I missed on my third attempt at my last meet), and about 535 lbs. on the deadlift. I’ll be especially pumped if I nail 303 lbs. on the bench. The primary goal of my training for this meet was to reach a 300 lb. bench press, and back in March, I finally put it up in the gym. I’m hoping 303 goes as well as that 300 went in March!
3rd attempt: For my third attempt, assuming I hit all my previous lifts, I’m simply going to go for broke and try to get an all-out PR. Like I said, the numbers for my 3rd attempt will be largely dependent on my 2nd attempt and also on how I’m feeling tomorrow, but a mid-400’s squat, 310 or so bench press, and mid 500’s or so deadlift would be very nice.
I’ve been feeling good this week and have just been doing foam rolling and mobility/activation work since Tuesday. I got a thorough ART treatment on Tuesday afternoon and have been trying to get plenty of rest at night, along with good nutrition and hydration. I’m really excited for this meet, as I’ve been training for it since Christmastime; I’ve put in lots of dedicated work and gotten excellent programming from Tony, so I’m ready to get out there and set some new PR’s. I’m confident that Chris, Jay, and I will do well and have a blast.
Check back next week for some videos from the meet, as well as my meet recap. In the meantime, have a great weekend everyone!
