This should have been Saturday but actually happened Monday. Felt OK. Benched real easy – 2×10 at 175 lbs. As usual, my second bench day of the week is a lightweight “muscle flushing” routine at about 60% maximum. During these light sets I put my feet up on the bench to protect my back. Next was a couple light sets of dumbbell flys, then on to arms. I did skull-crushers, starting light for 2 sets and finishing with a third set of 8 with 35 lbs on each side of the EZ curl bar (whatever that weights). Then I did 2 sets of 20 dips and went climbing for 45 minutes.
This whole 12 week bench cycle is borrowed from Ed Coan, here: http://www.impulseadventure.com/weights/bench-coan.html
A lot of dudes have a lot of bench press advice. Since my bench isn’t shattering any world records most could probably teach me something. But I believe this cycle from Ed Coan is unique. The 3 times I’ve gone through this cycle I’ve increased my maximum lift nearly 10%. There is no doubt in my mind – if I concentrate on being explosive early in the cycle, take care of my shoulders and motivate for big, clean lifts toward the end, I can add 20 to 30 lbs to my bench. My last big lift was about 3 months ago with 295 lbs., but I feel my best day was 5 weeks ago with a set of 3 at 275.