Strength of a Bull, none of the sh*t

[Get-n-fit]

I'm not going to be updating everyday, most likely just once a week as now I'm putting my focus toward my bench goals so will only update what I do on bench days, Mondays. I'm still hitting everything else hard and getting great gains, but for this journal I want to focus on my Journey to 405. So with that...
 Last Monday  6/17-I felt great before my workout so I thought I'd kill it....but unfortunately the weights were just heavy as heck!!

 Flat BB-
 135x16
 225x6
 275x3
 315x3
 365x1
 dropset-225x8
 -2 weeks prior to this I hit 375 for a triple...no idea what happened today

 Incline-
 135x8
 225x6
 245x4
 275x2
 295x1
 295x1
 225*5

 Cable low flyes:
 40x16
 60x8
 70x6
 80x5
 40x12

 DB slight incline:
 75x4
 75x6
 85x3

 Hammer strength incline:
 225x8
 225x8
 Monster drop set-315x8,225x16,135x16, no plates x 16. no rest between sets other than removing plates

 We'll see what happens next Monday. Really depends on if my spotter is available. If not, I may use the Smith rack---yes I realize it's a lot different and eliminates stabilizer muscles, but I find it helpful in getting used to having that much weight sitting on my hands and when my goal is to hit heavy weights that's very important just to get over the mental fear of the weight with out serious risk to my body.

[Get-n-fit]

Today-
Went Calorie crazy over the weekend, celebrated my daughters bday (it's not until next month, but she is going out of town for a month so we celebrated early)  waay too much carbs, but was hoping it would help fuel todays workout,  carbs will be reduced during the week to help even my macros and calories back down so I'm only at a 200 surplus.  Added creatine back into the game, we'll see how it goes. 
Flat BB Bench:
135x16
225x6
275x3
315x3
345x2
275x3

Was really hoping to hit 375 again but 345 kicked my butt.

Incline BB bench:
135x8
225x4
245x1
275x3
300x1
225x4
135x12

Got a PR with 300, very happy with my incline gains, espeacially considering this is post flat bench.  Once I hit 405 on flat, I'm going to switch and start with Incline so I can focus on that.  I want to press 315 on incline with ease.


DB slight incline:
75x8
85x4
95x4
100x3
100x2

Cable inner chest press:
40x8
50x8
60x6
70x4
80x1
40x8

Hammer Strength decline:
135x20
225x8
275x6
315x6
365x4 /225x8 /135x16 (one big drop set)

Had a great pump after, couldn't even flex...didn't last long, lol.   

[FLEX]

Strong benching in here....

Will be following along.  405 is huge and I know I will never get there; so I will live vicariously....

[Get-n-fit]

Thanks for checking this out Flex, I appreciate the support.


Today- Thursday, had 3 days to rest since Chest day on Monday and wanted to add a little chest work out today...very little.
Flat BB:
135x10
225x10
225x9
225x8
205x8
185x8

Was aiming for 5 sets of 225x10....didn't make it as you can see, still had a little soreness in my chest. Today's normally arm day, so I did my arm workout and then 1 set of 40lbs flys x 20 at the end, nice, light and easy.  Chest feels good, pumped.  I would have liked to have been a little more healed.  We'll see how Monday is, I may swap Friday and Thursday work out to allow an extra day for my chest to heal, before doing a light set.  Or I may just go lighter on Thursday so I can hit my 10 reps.

[Get-n-fit]

7/8
Changing my workout up a bit to accommodate some "supps" I'll be taking.  Trying to get the most out of them along with my diet.  For the time being, higher reps and lower weights, and I'll cycle back to high weight low rep in a month, want to try to up my reps at lower weights and work a little more volume and hypertrophy.  We'll see how it goes. Anywhere you see "/" indicates a drop set...holy hell these are killers!
BB Flat bench:
135x20
185x12 /135x16
225x5/135x10
275x2/135x10

BB incline:
135x8
225x5
245x4
245x4/135x8

DB Bench:
These are super setted with 45 lb Bent arm DB pull overs, VERY light weight, focusing on something I picked up watching Kai,  when reaching back I'm only going until the weight disappears and then coming back up, trying to keep as little work off the back as possible and really focusing on keeping my upper chest flexed the entire time (that gets hard without weight!!, lol) I don't want to lose focus bc of form, that's why the light weight.  I'm trying to re-engineer how my body works, I want my arms to move bc my chest is flexing and pulling my arms into position, not bc I'm using my shoulders, back and arms to move the weight.  That, in a nutshell is how Kai explains it.

100x4 /45x20
100x2/45x16
75x6/45x16

And to end with a super f'in pump-

Cable inner chest press (drop the ego-these are to bring out detail work)-again focusing on using my chest to bring my hands together while using as little shoulder, arms,back and body weight as possible. When done right my chest feels very close to exploding and I'm about to puke! lol

40x12/20x24
40x10/20x20
50x8/20x16

Next week, if I have enough time, I'll continue another 6 sets of Cable chest in reverse order...also depends if I have the energy for it, upping the cals so hopefully I'll have more fuel to burn.
example of reverse order, crazy sets.
20x24/40x12
20x20/40x10
20x16/50x8

This high rep work is hell, but per my trainer, I'll trust him.  He's an actual pro competitor with the body to back it so I'll trust him.
 

[Get-n-fit]

Sorry guys....been slackin on this journal, still stuck at 375 so changing things up.  Was training chest twice a week.  One heavy day and then one high rep day.  My shoulder went straight to shit so I cut that out, but shoulder wasn't healing.  I've cut all decline work out completely and am finally starting to heal.  There's just something about the pressure and position decline puts on my shoulders that kills me.  I've added more incline work, now.  hopefully as the shoulder heals more the lifts will start increasing again.  My leg work is all sky rocketing right now and I'm only putting on about 1/2-1lb a week so I'm on the right track. I'll update again once I start progressing on my chest.  Hopefully it won't be too long from now.

[Get-n-fit]

Shoulder is healed and have been hitting it hard.  I've changed my approach to BB'ing and things are going good.  I was previously on more of a PL'ing set up...low reps.. heavy weights, but want to compete on stage in BB'ing and found a nice mix of both worlds.  To be honest, I found it on youtube via Mike Rashid.  I came across one of his chest workouts one day and decided to try it.  It's basically super high reps on lower weights, work up to heavy, rep till failure and then lower the weight and rep till failure.
With this set up I've bumped my flat bench 275 from 4-6 reps to today's 10 reps, followed with 315 for 4.  There is a lot of heavy work in this program and pretty much always to failure.  The point is to get as much blood and nutrients into your muscles as possible (pumped)  and still do heavy work.  Below is todays' workout.  While I still want to hit 405, right now I'm focusing on getting as big as possible before Jan when the real work comes and contest prep begins.

Flat BB:
 135x20
 135x20
 225x12
 275x10
 315x4
 225x15

 Incline BB:
 225x4
 245x5
 275x1
 225x8
 135x12

 DB slight incline fly:
 50x12
 70x10
 50x6---changed form at this point...another guys was working in and on the upward motion twisted the DB's so the bottoms touched, holy he77 feels like a completely different movement, I can really feel it in the middle lower part of my chest.
 50x4
 50x6

 Machine Fly:
 255x6
 225x6
 180x11
 150x16
 125x30

[Bando]

welcome back

[FLEX]

Mirin bench numbers...315 x 4.....oh lawd....that must feel good.

[Get-n-fit]

Thanks guys....never really took a break, just had to quit a few exercises until I figured out what was killing my shoulder.
Although I was benching higher a few months ago, my reps are much cleaner and stronger now.

[FLEX]

Bump!

[Get-n-fit]

lol,  still working on it
Been focusing on hitting higher reps at heavy weights.
Here's this weeks chest day.
I wanted to hit more reps at 335 so I only doubled at 315.

I had to take a short break from constantly lifting heavy, so for the past 2 months I'm going pretty heavy with high reps (last week hit 315 for 6 reps)
 
Chest day:
 BB Flat:
 135x20
 135x20
 225x6
 315x2
 335x2
 275x10--was happy to press this after 335
 225x14

 BB Incline: (decided to try 21's for a change-went a bit too heavy on 3rd set)
 135-21's
 155-21s
 185-14 ( failed on full rom..d'oh)
 135-21's

 Machine Fly:
 135x20
 165x16
 195x16
 195x16
 240x8

 DB Incline BP:
 60x10
 80x10
 100x2

 DB incline Fly:
 45x10




21's are a bitch!!!  the partial seem easy as fuark and then when I hit full ROM it felt like my chest was going to explode.  When my hands come together on machine flyes my chest was cramping it was flexing so hard.  Felt good. I'm going to finish out this year with heavy weight/high reps and then get back to lifting heavy in Jan.


Also- had to quit DB flyes, they are just murder on my shoulders and it was affecting my lifts (and life in general, but the lifts are all that matter, lol) So instead of Flys I'm doing Db presses.  I did one light set of flyes at the end and immediately felt it in my shoudlers and quit.

[FLEX]

Solid benching man.

Mad jelly.

[Get-n-fit]

Solid benching man.

Mad jelly.

Thanks!  that's how I feel about your Dl's,  I'm going for 500 next week, wish I could rep it like you though.

[Get-n-fit]

Chest day!!!!!

 and my bum training partner couldn't make it, he must have actually had work to do since he missed chest day...he normally skips leg day

 BB Bench:
 135x20
 135x20
 225x12
 274x4
 315x8
 276x6
 225x10

 BB Incline:
 135x16
 185x8
 225x6
 245x3
 275x5
 135x16

 DB Incline BP:
 65x10
 80x6
 85x6

 Machine Fly:
 135x16
 165x12
 195x12
 195x6
 240x14 (got extra reps bc I was spotting a buddy so I had a long break)
 120x30

 Had a great solo workout- busted out 315 x8 on flat and 275x5 on incline, happy happy happy