Ate a lot preworkout, some ribs, 4 eggs, roasted potatoes and carrots, a slice of German chocolate cake, 50/50 pro/waxy maze shake.
Did some mobility I can’t recall, but I did do a lot of soft tissue work to the anterior shoulder before benching.
Benched 245lbs x 4, 3, paused, was attempting a second set of 4 but stalled on the way up … I thought it was going to go at the time, roommate felt that it was going to come back down so gave upwards pressure. Bar was drifting towards my head, i.e. my elbows were flaring towards the top, he interpreted that as losing control of the bar + press was failing. I dunno. I’d say 40/60 it was gonna go at this point, I just felt like the bar had slowed by a lot but was still inching up. However, I don’t want to sound like a fucking typical wannabe powerlifters who makes excuses for missing reps so fuck it.
Front squat 335lbs x 4, 320lbs x 5, 4. Kind of an improvement. Felt pretty good up to rep 3, 4 was a grinder, 5 never got out of the hole.
Did some close-grip benching after this, 215lbs x 6, then 215lbs x 5, which felt pretty good, but I should prob shoot for more reps here.
Not sure how I’m going to program my fucking press with all this shit, I want to do some close-grip benching pretty regularly because I want to improve my lockout and I want bigger tris.
Guy was warming up on his bench from bar, 135, 225, 275, 315 <– out of everyone else in the gym, he walks across the free weight area to me and asks for a spot. Sad affair when the person who seems most reliable to spot you for your bench is a fuck head Asian wannabe. Beginning at 225 he was driving his belly up towards the bar to shorten his stroke – not just merely his ass coming off his bench but deliberately thrusting his entire torso up to meet the bar. He spoke little English, and what English he did speak "excuse me can you give me a spot" was heavily accented, Eastern European, which should have meant he benched with at least loose adherence to IPF standards but I guess he never got the memo. Was wearing a 13mm belt from EFS or Inzer and those typical wrist wraps that powerlifters don when benching.
Douche frat guy asked me if my back hurt after I racked my last set of front squats. I said nah man I'm good. He said you sure bro that shit was bouncing on your shoulders. I said you get used to it dude, not a big deal. He said damn that's crazy. I said roger that, HONEY BADGER OUT.
Elbows flaring on the bench is internal rotation, which is a mechanically disadvantageous position and makes you look like a faggot.
That’s why fuck heads say the lats are helping the bar go up on the bench — they obviously fucking aren’t since they extend the shoulder, but they are internal rotators. If you are externally rotated in the shoulder, then the external rotators are contracted and the internal rotators are stretched. That “stretching” is analogous to the hamstrings stretching on the descent of a squat.
Are you still pausing all the reps too?