Bench press Thursday

For many people the bench press comes easy. It's the primary movement on which most of their effort is focused. When someone wants to know how strong a guy is, they'll ask how much they can bench. The bench press is easily the most overrated weight lifting movement. Far too much emphasis is placed on it.

And it doesn't come easy to me. It seems I've always struggled with it. From time to time I've made good strides, but very seldom have I ever felt confident that I could beat personal records.

Today was another of those days it just didn't come easy. You would think that the OHP and bench press would go hand-in-hand, at least to some extent. Doing 8 reps at 115 on the OHP was easy the other day. Today, doing five at 195 on the bench was not. I might've been able to do six or seven reps, but I was expecting to be able to do 8 or even 10. I was really thinking 8. It was the number I had in mind from the start of the workout.

The bar just seemed to have my number today. But I'm only in my second cycle of 5/3/1, so the PRs may yet come. Did I lift the weight at or above the rep total the plan calls for? Yes, but it was just more difficult than I expected. I did an extra set of dumbbell bench press and Kroc rows to try to make up for the disappointing bench press numbers. As with the squats, I often feel I'm just not doing enough on the bench press sometimes.

In the next cycle of 5/3/1 I expect I will be seriously pushing the envelope on my limits. I'll have to wait and see how it works out. The PRs on the bench press are still several months down the road. On the deadlift, squat and overhead press, they're just around the corner.

Yes, it's logged on Fitocracy.