Chest Progress Vid Journal Log (Journey to 315 PR)

[6packfitX]

I have been off and on in the gym in the past 5-7 years, with injuries, night shifts and laziness it was hard to be on a regular schedule. My life time goal was to bench 315, which i have never accomplished, when i was 20 i achieved a 295 PR and that was that and thats when i was in college and weight lifting was one of my classes. Now being 35 i felt like my chances are low of hitting 315 ever, so the motivation was gone and i would just go to the gym when i felt like it. Being married with 2 small kids, working night shift and being on call as a truck driver, always having things to do at home, there was always and excuse to not to go the gym. To top things off i got a herniated lower back disc and every time i wanted to lift the weights that i know i could i would reinjure my lower back and would be out for a month or 2. Excuses after excuses. Well, right by my work there happened to be a gym that is open 24 hours and with my weird schedule i felt like it was perfect. So in June of 2016 it was time to change my mind set, and start all over again with all of my past gains gone. It was no longer about can i lift what i used to lift a few months ago?, its was more about cant i lift today and not reinjure my lower back again?

First thing first, was to test my Chest with lighter weight of 135lbs and see how many reps i can push out. This was i can see where im at and how im moving up.

An example of My Routine is:

Most are 3 or 4 sets 10-15 reps

Day 1: Legs (legs press, lunges, toe raisers, sometimes deadlifts)
Day 2: Chest (incline, bench press, inner pec machine or similar)
Day 3: Back (lats machine or cable, deadlifts, T-bar rows)
Day 4: Arms (scull crushers, tri cables, Curls machine, curls DBs)
Day 5: Shoulders (front raises, side raises, back rows, shrugs, Military P)

Sometimes i go to machines and sometimes to dumbbells, sometimes heavier weight or lighter weight, i try to change things up as i go. I listen to my body and sometimes skip a certain day and go to a routine that i feel more comfortable that day. I dont assign my days to days of the week, because if i skip a week day i try not to skip a workout day, so if monday is Day 1 legs and i dont go to the gym, i try to do day 1 on tuesday and then day 2 etc..


JUNE-8-2016

JUNE-20-2016

[6packfitX]

JUNE-23-2016

JULY-11-2016

[6packfitX]

On chest LV-3 i felt good bumping up the weight to 155lbs for Incline and Bench

JULY-13-2016

JULY-18-2016

[6packfitX]

It was time for a bench test #3 i have decided to move up the test to 185lbs and see it how it feels and see how i progress with that weight.

SEP-15-2016

SEP-22-2016

[6packfitX]

SEP-24-2016

Bench Test #4 with 185lbs felt pretty good and i was able to push out a few more reps from previous test, 12 reps before and at 15 reps now.

SEP-26-2016

[6packfitX]

it was time to change things up a bit because i felt like i hit a wall with my current routine, si i decided to change it to slower negatives instead and see how it helps me

SEP-30-2016

[6packfitX]

I now felt more confident and decided to see how many times i can lift 225, back in the day my best was 10 reps, but this is not back in the day so i wasnt expecting to get much at all, but i was excited to see how 225 feels again and what i can do with it

OCT-22-2016

[6packfitX]

Decided to change a few things up and go on a smith machine. Since a spotter is not needed and you dont have to worry about balancing the weight it would help a bit more with strength building and would give me a little more confidence doing reps with 225 since its a fairly new weight for my body.

NOV-2-2016

[6packfitX]

Rested another week and decided to give 225 another test, i felt a bit stronger with it and was able to push 1 extra rep out, will stick with a smith machine for another 2-3 weeks and keep trying to push out more reps with the 225.

NOV-17-2016

[6packfitX]

Back on the smith machine at LV-9 i was able to do more reps, Incline 4x8 and Bench 3x8 with the 225, compared to LV-8 when i was doing 5 reps on incline and bench. So was things are going well and the progress continues

NOV-19-2016

[6packfitX]

Its been a while since i did 135 for max reps, 2 months ago did about 30 reps, so i figured ill try it again with 135 and got 35 reps this time, i might be able to reach 40 reps, but at this point it comes down to muscle endurance. Regardless, i think about half a year ago i could barely get to 20 reps lol

NOV-24-2016

Back on the smith machine, maybe one more week ill work on it and then go back to free weights and see how it helped me out. My goal Is to reach 10 reps with 225 on bench free weight not on smith machine before 2017!! maybe even bench 315 before 315?? but thats a long shot, but ill try to push it, wish me luck

NOV-30-2016

Attempted the 225lbs for reps, it was my goal by 2017, reached it a bit earlier, time to get that 315 under the belt!!

DEC-15-2016

[6packfitX]

Tried the 315 on a smith machine, barely got 315 up, i dont think i can do it on free weight just yet, smith prob takes off about 15lbs or so. I still got a little time before 2017 hits, that 315 PR 1RM is coming tho, i just hope i dont hurt myself like before by pushing myself to hard to fast lol

After i tried the 315 I decided to get a last good workout in on the smith machine, The reason i went to the smith machine int he first place is to see if it will help with my shoulder pain and to continue pushing heavy weight during workouts, i tried the dumbbells but that actually put more strain on my shoulder. Now after about 3-4 weeks on the smith i dont have the shoulder pain anymore so i suppose it helped. Will be going back to free bench for now and see how it goes.

Decided to do another Bench test with a 225lbs to see if i can get more than 10 reps from the previous bench test. I was able to get 11 this time and i think i could have gotten 12 reps if i had a spotter or was in a cage just in case.

[6packfitX]

Ordered the sling shot last week, tried it out on incline and bench, dumbbells as well, i like it, i see it helping get the weight up a little from the bottom and then less so on the lock out. I will likely do it mostly on flat bench for the 3-5 reps heavy weight overload, but was just curious if in fact it would work on incline and dumbbells.

[6packfitX]

Wanted to give 275 a shot, got it for 2 reps, that puts me at wround 295 1RM, at 3-4 reps i think that would put me at 315 1RM, so close!! 2017 is around the corner!!

had a test run at my 15 year old PR (295), tried 275 for 1 rep, felt pretty good, went for 295 barely got that, Was hoping it would feel a bit lighter but im glad at least i matched my previous PR lol

[6packfitX]

had a 16 sets workout to get the most out of my time left.

45lbs x 20
135lbs x 10
135lbs x 8
175lbs x 5
205lbs x 3
235lbs x 1
265lbs x 1
295lbs x 3 (slingshot)
295lbs x 2 (slingshot)
315lbs x 2 (slingshot)
315lbs x 1 (slingshot)
275lbs x 2
275lbs x 1
250lbs x 4
225lbs x 8
225lbs x 7

[6packfitX]

The 315 failed attempt got me down mentally, was trying to jump from 295 to 315, that was a big mistake, it might not seem like a lot but even just 5lbs is a lot in PR world, this failure got me down, but it sure got me to work harder, but it still haunts me in the back of my mind that "i cant ever get 315" i dont know why, but 15 years ago i got stuck on 295 and could not reach 3 plates, and now 15 years later having the sme problem, but i think im more motivated this time and more stubborn lol

[6packfitX]

one of my favorite sideways machine chest routines to get the inside of the chest more activated. Sometimes i do this with lighter weight before i do bench or incline, then it feel like im hitting the chest harder during the workouts.

[Simple Simon]

videos need much louder music....

[6packfitX]

Changed up my chest day routine. Will be doing chest 2 times a week now, will be doing this routine for a month then attempting a bench max going for 315PR. Here is my current bench routine:

-12 sets
45lbs X 20 reps
95lbs X 15 reps
135lbs X 10 reps
185lbs X 8 reps
225lbs X 5 reps
250lbs X 3 reps
265lbs X 2 reps
275lbs X 1 reps
275lbs X 1 reps
250lbs X 2 reps
225lbs X 4 reps
225lbs X 6 reps

I wanted to do add 2 more sets of slingshot at the end with a heavier weight, but the squat cage was taken and u didn't want to do slingshot 315 and 295 without a cage.