Tag Archives: Bench press

Health and Fitness

Example of people benching with their butt coming off the bench during their training sessions…

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Guesses on what the best pound-for-pound bencher will do at the Con-cret Pro Bench at the @arnoldsports festival next Saturday??? Post guesses below and with her luck! . . Reposted from @jenthompson132 I was so pissed I missed my 3rd lift, I took every plate off the bar and weighed them on our certified scale. Guess what?? It was actually 327.5. Made me feel better about missing it. 😂 I perform 3 competition lifts every other week. I plot out what my heaviest lift will be at the very beginning of my training cycle. So this has been a planned lift since late December when I started this cycle. The @usapowerlifting @arnoldsports Classic is next weekend. I wanted to hit 325 the week before and set myself up for a 330 on comp day. I hit 3 competition singles in training. The first lift is 85% of the heaviest lift (325 * .85 = 275). The second lift is 95% (325* .95= 310). Then the third is the max out. I keep my competition numbers fairly close to these percentages. I feel like the first one is a smoke show. It didn't take too much energy and I'm showing the judges I got this. Form is good and feeling fine. The second one is a heavy lift and I use it to gauge what I got left in the tank. I know I won't miss it, but it's heavy enough to be a good indicator. If it pops off my chest with great speed, I'll go for something huge. If it felt slow and a little hard I'll go a little more conservative. I'm lifting on the @roguefitness stage in the Expo at 10:00 am next Saturday. Then I'll be at the @sbd booth for a bit. Hope to see you there ! #usapl #usapowerlifting #champion #deadlift #squat #bench #whyicompete #LIFTCLEAN #rpstrength #sbdapparel #titansupportsystems #a7intl #ryrogue #promerasports

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Seriously, why has the “butt coming off the bench” during bench training been accepted by the public? It’s pissing me off really. This is an example of what I’m talking about. People who bench try to go for a pr and then they call it a “pr” when the butt comes off the bench. I’m still standing by my opinion that when you bench for a “pr” and your butt comes off, no lift. Period. End of story. It’s not a “personal record” ’cause the butt coming off the bench is clearly cheating. Plus to me, it looks dangerous and you’re asking for a bad bench press accident sooner or later.

Not only has this been accepted by the public now, it has also been accepted by the powerlifting industry and it’s a shame that “usapowerlifting” re-sharing it on their instagram accounts. Are they encouraging it now? The butt coming off bench maybe illegal during competition but I wouldn’t be surprised they’ll make it legal someday in the future in the usapl.

How much do you want to bet that this lady in this video won’t be able bench 275 if her butt hadn’t came off the bench?

This is becoming more and more common and becoming more accepted. Once in a while, someone calls them out for lifting the butt off but other people wouldn’t care or would help try and defend the lifter for doing it. Other people become defensive when called out for it.

Powerlifting may seem fun and addictive yes but one thing to keep in mind, you’re going to be surrounded by a bunch of huge egos. It is said that powerlifters are humble and down to earth but not from what I’m seeing. You’ll see so many powerlifters who are full of themselves who are too desperate to lift more weight and they’ll do anything it takes that it didn’t matter if it kills themselves doing it. They lift the butt off ’cause it helps them lift more weight.

There is nothing wrong with lifting weights you can handle and makes you comfortable. You don’t have to shoot for 1 rep maxes all the freakin’ time.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Too many powerlifters benching with butt off of the bench becoming more and more common, sad really…

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Yeah, the sport of powerlifting is exploding and becoming more and more mainstream. That means, people in the gym will be doing more of the big three lifts in the gym for their strength training sessions: the bench, the squat and the deadlift.

I love the bench press but too many people in the gym nowadays do it wrong and it’s getting worse too. I see so many people in social media posting videos of themselves bench pressing at the gym, showing off their newest “p.r.’s” (aka, personal record) but they do it with their butt coming off the bench. Is the butt coming off the bench while benching good? No.

The reason it isn’t good is ’cause it’s cheating and they do it as a way to try to push more weight. Another reason, the butt coming off the bench is not good is that you’re asking for an accident and an injury could occur. Those are the few reasons why powerlifting competitions don’t accept the butt coming off the bench.

When lifters show videos of themselves benching and you see their butt coming off the bench, someone calls them out for it and this lifter can get very defensive. This happens every fucking time. It’s really quite funny.

I am sick of this, though. Benching with the butt coming off the bench is becoming more and more popular. They probably see others do it and delude themselves into thinking, “Hmmmm, that could work for me”. In my opinion, going for a “pr” on bench with butt coming off of it is not a “pr”. When you bench with your butt coming off the bench, you get lesser range of motion and that’s why you are able to lift more weight doing that. When your butt comes off the bench, you’re not really doing a flat bench. It turns into a different workout when you do that… excessive arching or butt coming off the bench, you’re doing a decline bench really. Not a real overall chest workout.

Not only do I see so many lifters on social media benching with butt coming off the bench, I see too many guys at my local gym benching that way too. In my opinion, it looks very dangerous and it’s very silly benching that way. I’m waiting for the day someone kills themselves in the gym ’cause he/she benched with the butt coming off the bench. Not only guys bench that way, women do it too.

Although, this is not an attack and no hating on women but women bench with butt coming off the bench more than the guys do. I’m beginning to see that women are more egotistical in powerlifting than the men are.

Maybe it’s okay to bench with the butt partly on the bench, that’s fine but with the butt completely off is pretty stupid.

I’ve been benching full time for a little over a year now and I’ve never lifted my butt off the bench once during my bench sessions. I don’t do excessive arching either. I can’t arch anyways due to my scoliosis so I have no choice but to bench with a flat back. I like flat back benching anyways ’cause of more range of motion and more power.

Benching with butt off the bench… stupid, dumb, idiotic. Why are benchers doing it more when they shouldn’t?

Kev

Health and Fitness

Watch me smash a 165 lb. bench at the gym… on the road to 200 lb. bench…

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Here’s me smashing a 165 lb. bench which seemed pretty easy. If I’m able to smash an easy 165 lb. bench press then my estimated personal record could be either 170 lbs. or 175 lbs… maybe even 180 if I’m lucky enough!

As you can see I’m getting real close to 200 lb. bench pr… and I could probably get there at the end of this year or maybe even sooner. That’s the goal. My goal is to be able to smash a 200 lb. bench pr.

I got to really bring my numbers up for upcoming powerlifting meet at Albany Strength.

As far as my left leg injury goes, it seems to be perfectly fine now. I don’t feel any pain standing for a long time now which is a good thing so I might be good to get back to heavy lifting on the lower body this week. The injury didn’t really come back after I pulled that 290 lb. deadlift, it just made my legs wicked sore for a few days. That’s what happens when you settle down for a few weeks which I did. Now the leg injury is gone completely, I think, I’m pretty sure it is. We’ll see on leg day this week.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Powerlifting training is really helping my physique and getting more muscle gains… so glad I got into it…

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Man… doing all this powerlifting training which I have been doing for about a year now has been really paying off. I’ve noticed that I’ve gotten some major chest gains since I’ve gotten into bench pressing full time. For flat bench, I do strength training for like 1 – 5 reps on each set but I do hypertrophy training for like 8 – 12 reps on incline bench and cable crossovers for muscle gains. If you’re going to train for strength, I figure it’s important to build muscle too. Building muscle helps get you stronger, believe it or not.

I’m getting some major gains on the lower body ’cause I do a lot more lower body stuff than the upper body. My quads feel like they’re getting bigger. My calves are finally developing too. Although I train the calves with standing and seated calves, I also train the calves with all the barbell squatting and deadlifting that I do too. Doing barbell squats and deadlifting, they both work the calves too. My calves are getting slightly bigger finally.

I always knew that getting into powerlifting training full time would help my physique even more and it’s happening. I’m soon going to be posing for bodybuilding pics so you can see what I’m talking about.

Powerlifting training really can give you muscle gains. Heavy lifting can really help. I’m proud to get into strength training finally and I’m definitely getting stronger on the big three lifts too. It’s going to take some more time for me to get to the bigger numbers but I’ll get there soon.

There’s a lot of great benefits in powerlifting, it’s quite a ride really. I’m having a blast doing it.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Gonna stop doing bent over barbell rows and will swap it with t-bar rows instead, I think…

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For a long while now, I’ve been doing bent over barbell rows ’cause I’ve read that it’s the best workout to really help deadlift strength. I think I’m going to stop doing those for good simply ’cause I don’t feel safe doing them. I’m noticing that it’s messing up my left hip a little bit and hurting my left glute a little bit. Not sure why it is. Maybe my form was off a little bit and maybe you don’t need to lift superheavy weights on that one, I don’t know but I’m gonna stop doing bent over rows for something else. The pain wasn’t that bad and I’m completely okay now. I just don’t feel comfortable doing bent over rows for barbell and it’s not my favorite workout.

I think I’m going to swap it with t-bar rows ’cause they are better, I think. I haven’t done t-bar rows in a long while and I think I’m going to get back to it.

To lift really heavy deadlifts off the floor, you gotta have a really strong back all around. I’m trying to find back exercises that would help. I think the t-bar row will be better ’cause the t-bar row works your entire back… the bent over row for barbell only works your middle back and lats.

I’ll continue to do lat pull downs and seated cable rows ’cause they’ll be good to work the back. I’ve always done those two workouts.

If you want to have a big deadlift, you also got to work on your grip and I found that farmer’s walk will help grip strength. I’ve been doing farmer’s walk more and more.

The deadlift works the entire body so you also have to have pretty strong legs as well ’cause the deadlift is kind of like the leg press too. I’ve been doing exercises for the legs and all that. Getting back into using the leg press again, doing leg ext. and hamstring curl machines on leg days.

Working to get my 300 lb. deadlift back and doing all I can to get there but I want to get there without hurting myself with the other exercises so I’m going to ditch the bent over barbell row for something else.

When you want to get into powerlifting for the bench, squat and deadlift… you still gotta train like a bodybuilder on the other workouts. Even in powerlifting, you still gotta build muscle ’cause building muscle helps get you stronger too. Powerlifters will never admit that. They seem to focus on the big three only and I disagree. You can’t neglect the power of hypertrophy training ’cause I still do that.

Back to the bent over row, I’m just not a big fan of that anymore and swapping that with the t-bar row sounds good to me. I’m hoping to get my 300 lb. deadlift back in time before the Aug. 30th push/pull meet in Albany and I want to be completely injury free at this one.

I’m hoping to do 300 lbs. for more reps this year if I’m lucky enough and I will get there. Just gotta stay consistent. Losing my 300 lb. deadlift was my fault, though. The reason that happened is ’cause I stopped the heavy deadlifting too early before a powerlifting meet and I’ll never do that again. I’ll get it back soon enough. Just you wait.

I’ve also saw a video on youtube where a guy says you shouldn’t have to worry about de-loading after 4 – 6 weeks when strength training. This youtuber says the only time you should take a week off of strength training is when you get injured or get sick. You don’t de-load or take a week break too often at all. If you want to get strong and stay strong, gotta stay consistent on a weekly basis. I think de-loading will make you weaker and I’ll have a post on that soon.

I love powerlifting. I gotta do it right and do it smart.

Kev

Health and Fitness

The reality of plateauing in strength training & powerlifting, I’m not plateauing at all… it’s just that strength takes time…

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Ya know, after thinking about it a long while, I’m not plateauing at all. I did a lot of research on how to “bust plateaus” and most information I see through the weightlifting industry is really all a joke. I mean, a couple of weeks ago I deadlifted a 280 lbs. for a double and did a 285 lbs. as a heavy single. If I’ve been doing that, I’m not getting weaker at all and getting stronger every time. I gotta stop worrying about hitting 300 lbs. deadlift and keep doing what I’m doing. Before you know it, I’ll be deadlifting over 300 lbs. for more reps pretty soon so I gotta keep at it and strength will come in time.

All these guys in the fitness world worrying about losing strength, well, I don’t think they lost any at all. Strength gain is a slow process that’s the thing, ya know? I look at all these info on blogs and powerlifting websites and they give you all these “magical” programs that promises to break through plateaus. It’s all just a bunch of click bait bullshit that does nothing but help trying to promote their sites so don’t believe everything you see on the internet when it comes to weightlifting info.

Yeah, you will see your numbers stay the same and lose some and so many powerlifters and bodybuilders gets pissed when they notice that stuff happening. They shouldn’t get upset and not get so worked up over it ’cause every weightlifter out there goes through it. If you keep doing what you’re doing, strength gain will come on its own. It just comes whenever it wants to. Don’t believe all these magical tricks that you see online, ya know what I’m talking about? Blogs that are titled, “5 ways to never hit a plateau again” and blah blah blah blah. That’s what I’m talking about.

While I find most of that stuff a bunch of bullshit… I do agree with a few things here and there. One thing that I agree with what they say is that I need to sleep more ’cause I admit, I’ve been hitting the gym first thing early in the morning. That’s what I do during the Spring/Summer is hit the gym early in the morning as soon as I wake up. That’s not good and I gotta stop that. You need more sleep if you want to smash the big weights.

I also agree that I need to do less cardio and stop cutting weight. I don’t want to eat too many calories ’cause I don’t want to become a fat powerlifter but I’m definitely gonna eat more though instead of less. I need to educate myself on calorie deficit and all that stuff.

I also agree with them on taking deload weeks more often which I just started doing and that already seems to be helping I’m noticing. Take a week off or a deload week. I’m planning to take a week off from the gym completely pretty soon ’cause I’m going on vacation on the first week of Aug.

There’s no such thing as a “plateau” when it comes to strength training. It’s just a silly myth. I see so many new powerlifters online getting so mad when they notice that their numbers stay the same or dropping. Too many newbie powerlifters want to rush the big numbers and that’s what I don’t want. I don’t want to get too ahead of myself and I’m gonna take my time.

I’ll just continue to do what I do. Just train for strength on the big three for like 1 – 5 reps for 5 sets each. Just gotta be patient, ya know? Of course, a lot of lifters don’t know what the word “patience” means anymore.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Found a great video by Alan Thrall on how to break plateau’s on the big three lifts… I got to learn how to do volume training which sounds like a good idea…

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Ever since I’ve gotten into powerlifting training full time, I’ve noticed that I’ve been plateauing a bit. I’ve plateaued on the bench in the past before but doing great on bench again. I’m plateauing on deadlift now and trying to come up with a plan on how to break through and overcome it.

I think I’ve came up with a plan. I think I need to start learning “volume training” which I will read more into it this weekend so I can start “volume training” right away next week. I want to get stronger faster and go up in numbers each time I hit the gym.

I’m not gonna lie that it is kind of frustrating seeing my numbers staying the same or going down. “Volume Training” sounds like a good idea and I’m gonna be looking into that.

I don’t have a powerlifting coach and doing this all by myself so I have no choice but to teach myself.

This is a great video and Alan Thrall is one of my favorite weightlifting youtube channels.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Not doing so good on squats and deadlift lately but killing it on bench… wonder why that is??? Am I plateauing? I could be, not gonna lie…

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I tried maxing out on the big three lifts this week but wasn’t very good again. I’m killing it on bench. My bench numbers are going up as I just smashed a whopping 165 lbs. pr. on bench this week. Not quite at 170 lb. bench yet but I’ll get there in a few weeks. I’m on the road to a 200 lb. bench. Looks like I won’t get to 200 lbs. in time before the Aug. 30th push/pull meet at Albany Strength but I’m still gonna try to get there.

As for squat and deadlift… the squats, I had to go do lighter weights so I can get the correct depth that the USAPL asks for. The right depth for the USAPL is that the upper leg area and crease of the hip needs to be lower than the top of the knee. I hit that depth and it’s very tough. I couldn’t smash a 150 or a 140 lb. squat when I tried so my estimated pr on squats right now is about 135 lbs. I’m gonna take my time and really bring up my squat numbers this summer.

The same goes for deadlift. I still can’t get over 300 lbs. again. I did it once in the past but can’t seem to do it now. I think I’m plateauing on deadlift and I’m going to figure out a way to bust through it. Maybe I keep deadlifting the same weights every week ’cause you don’t want to do that. I gotta keep adding more weight everyweek and mix it up and I will start doing that from now on.

When I train for strength in powerlifting, I do 5 sets of everything on the big three and started training for 1 – 5 reps. I used to start with 8 – 10 reps and go 1 – 5 later in the sets but from now on, I’ve been doing 1 – 5 reps for each set. I feel that I’m getting pretty close to 300 again ’cause a few weeks ago, I smashed a 280 lb. for a double and a 285 lb. for a heavy single. Someday I want to start doing 300 lbs. for more reps and I’m gonna take my time to get there. I can get there this summer if I’m lucky enough. Just gotta find a way to break out of this plateau and I’ll be back on fire before you know it.

Every powerlifter goes through plateaus, even the greatest powerlifters of all time go through ’em. We all have our bad days in the gym and at the powerlifting meets so I’m not mad about it. I’ll find a way to get back on track on deadlift so I can fucking kill it at the push/pull meet in August. At the push/pull meet in August, I’m hoping to smash over 300 lb. so I’m gonna take my time and come up with a plan.

When you “plateau” in the gym, it means you notice a decrease in strength like staying the same or going down. You don’t want that in powerlifting. I want to become a great deadlifter and don’t wanna mess it up.

Kev

Health and Fitness

Getting stronger on bench and feeling real good too… on the road to 200 lb. bench…

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I know I’m getting stronger on bench ’cause I just did a 145 lbs. for a triple and 150 lbs. for a double today which is something I’ve never done before. I’m going to work really hard on bench press this summer in hopes of making it to 200 lb. bench in time before the push/pull powerlifting meet in August. I believe I can get there before then, we’ll see. Felt great about today’s bench press session, though.

De-load week is over so back to strength training. Tomorrow is leg day so we’ll see how I do on squats.

Kev

Health and Fitness

My powerlifting videos keeps getting positive feedback everywhere… I just gotta stop listening to the negativity and haters, ya know???

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Powerlifting really is my calling. It’s what I was meant to to do and man, wished I discovered powerlifting years ago. Ya know something, when I first started bodybuilding 10 years ago, I actually experimented with both bench press and deadlift for a little bit but I stopped for a long while. Wished I never stopped benching and deadlifting ’cause I would have been great at both by now. I’m back to benching and deadlifting full time and it feels really good. Glad I’ve gotten into squats, benching and deadlifting ’cause I’m feeling stronger at all 3 the more I do it and I’m feeling big too.

Arnold Schwarzenegger was right that bench press is the best workout for the chest as my chest has gotten some major improvement ’cause of benching.

There are gonna be some critics and haters with my powerlifting yes but I gotta stop listening to them and I will. It seems that lots of other people like what I do. Each time I do a powerlifting meet, I get good feedback at my lifting.

Even if I missed the 300 lb. deadlift, people are still saying that it’s an impressive lift ’cause I could only get it up halfway. I would have gotten that 300 lb. deadlift… I think the problem was that I opened my first attempt a bit heavy. If I opened a lot lighter than 285 lbs., I definitely would have smashed that 300 easily. That’s why at powerlifting meets you need to open up real light so you can save some in the tank for your big 3rd attempt, ya know? This is why powerlifters miss a lot of lifts ’cause they open up too heavy and I don’t want to do that.

People may like what I do now but I’m just getting started. I’m going to really work my way up to the big lifts like lift anywhere from 300 lbs. – 500 lbs. on the big three but it’s gonna take some more time for me to get to the big ones. I’ll get there, though. Just gotta stay consistent and I will.

Some people may think that at a bodyweight that I’m at now would be impossible to lift 500 lbs. on the big three but it is possible. How? Really bone strength and muscular development is key to lifting the big ones. That is why a lot of skinny people are able to lift the big ones ’cause they have really strong bones.

I’m not gonna stay skinny for long ’cause I’m gonna do all I can to get bigger in size without getting fat. I’ve boosted my calorie intake ’cause that’ll help. I’m actually thinking about doing the bulking and cutting method which might actually be useful.

I really want to become a great powerlifter someday. I’ll never be the next Ed Coan but I would like to be a powerlifter where everybody would look up to and it’s already happening a little bit. Like I said, I’m just getting started and still have lots of work to do. Admittedly, I do want to win and kick ass on powerlifting meets. Someday, I’m gonna win the best “overall male lifter” award and that’s my goal that I want to achieve. It’s gonna take some more years to get there but I will. Trust me.

Kev