Bench Me

 
Today, well, besides being insanely hot/humid, was a pretty damn good day.  Had an off the cuff visit up to Albany late last night, then back to the grind in the am with a pretty good slew of athletes.  Clients throughout the day, and a great session myself.  The meathead lift: bench press.

This was the last lift on phase two of the 5/3/1 program (Wednesday marks the first lift where I actually go 5/3/1!), and I have been feeling really good with the progress thus far.  We mixed in two sets of 30 seconds on a plank hold as our active recovery between sets, and went after the 3's.  I was able to get 230# for 9 reps, and felt very comfortable with the weight.  Happy about that.  Then, with the ridiculous heat and sweltering humidity closing in, I attacked this:

3 rounds of:
10 KB swings 62#
9 push ups
8 frog crunches (each leg)
7 burpees
6 push ups
500 meter run

I had a goal of around 6 minutes on this one, and I am 100% convinced I can get it.  The humidity, and the fact I went barefoot on an in-construction, paved street, slowed my runs down a little bit.  I got 7:45, and was spent.  Like, literally gasping for air.

Later on in the evening, my good friend JP came over to lift, and I worked on my handstand push ups, and then some weighted good mornings.  The HPSU's felt bad, very weak, am re-committing myself to working a little on them every day.  The good mornings felt very good.  My hamstrings, low back and stomach were very happy with that work, and I think I need to throw those in the mix a little more often.  I got a great idea from trainer, owner of Balance Gym, and friend Graham King (also finished a solid 6th at the Courage Games!) the other day.  He is getting into CrossFit now, and has decided to commit his Friday workout to all his weaknesses.  I really like this idea.  I always tend to throw them into metcons, work on them on the side, and get to them while goofing off with workout partners.  But the idea of, still doing all that, then, committing one days main workout to nothing but weak moves, great idea.  I think having one to two serious "weak work" sessions a week is something to mix into the programming.

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage