Week 5: Chest

Week 5 will be a milestone to remember in this twelve week program, as I have finally broken past my personal best bench press record. Fueled by my success last week with dumbbells on incline press, I was itching to give my 1 rep max a go, and I am so glad I did. Before this week, my personal record was set in 2008, when I benched 325. That was a couple weeks after finally lifting 3 plates and I was on cloud nine. But after several setbacks (mainly quitting lifting for months at a time), I was nowhere near my prime. That all changed this week.

I was determined to break my record, and skipped 325 as I attempted 335. I was solid, composed, and nailed it. That had been my goal for these past 5 weeks! Feeling even more ambitious, I had my partner record my next set, jumping another 10lbs, which I included in this blog post. What I find interesting about all this is that in order to meet other plans, we moved this to a morning workout, from 7:30-8:30am.

This workout strayed from the norm at first, to allot for the 1 rep max, here's what it looked like:

Barbell flat bench:

• 135 x 10
• 135 x 10
• 135 x 10
• 245 x 1
• 275 x 1
• 315 x 1
• 335 x 1 new personal record!
• 345 x 1 newer personal record!

Dumbbell incline bench:

• 70 x 10
• 80 x 10
• 90 x 10
• 95 x 10 +2 reps from last week
• 95 x 9 +2 reps

Machine peck fly:

• 150 x 10
• 180 x 10
• 195 x 10

Abs:

75 crunches

Final thoughts: This program, while customized to an extent and not followed to the letter, has really brought to light a lot of the problems I was bringing myself in the past. My diet, rep count, and especially compound lifts have benefited tremendously so far.