Bench press my own weight

I’ve never been able to do this.

I have a cheater’s plan: lose weight. I could stand to lose about 10 lbs easy; 15-20 if I get serious, which I won’t.

Then hit the gym, and do pushups and other bodyweight exercises.

I see this goal as a checkpoint on my way to handstand pushups, another goal of mine.

yesterday: 3 reps at 5 lbs. above my weight

today: 4 reps at 5 lbs. below my weight. this may go sooner than expected

after taking the holidays off, got back in the gym. hoping that the 100 pushup goal will help with this one.

today: 6 reps at 15 lbs. below my weight.

i expect the last 15 lbs. will go slowly, so i’m hoping to knock this out by the end of march.

My goal is to do this by the end of 2009

Last night I did 50 push ups, figuring I had a really long way to go to benching my weight. Except I just checked and found out that my push ups are 70% of my total weight. I don’t think I have anything to worry about.

I’ll start doing 3 sets of 10 reps with some random amount of weight, just a little bit, say 50 pounds… haven’t done anything on the bench for months (I’ll warm up first, of course) just to feel where am I bench-pressing-shape-wise. :)

My triceps are going biserk and my pecs are sore at all heads. It’s a great feeling when I bump up the weight. I’m at approximately 85%, if the calculations are correct. I wouldn’t put my faith in them, though. I used to be able to do this on machines a lifetime ago. I’ve since come to despise machines; they lie. All those little stabilizer muscles go unworked. I know I’ll complete this by the due date, although I’ve still got a little ways to go. The tendons in my shoulders are touchy, so I don’t do low reps and sets. Which means it’ll take me a little longer as I’d rather not rip my tendons.

Am I ever going to get serious about trying to achieve this goal? I keep getting these damn reminders and I keep deleting them.

Here’s my dilemma: I am a RUNNER. I do not lift weights. I run.

I weighed 171.6 lbs this morning, which I suppose may be considered heavy by many runners’ standards. Bear in mind that I am 6’1”.

I’d like to weigh around 165 lbs – WAIT, not because I think I’d look sexy – but solely because I think I could run faster.

Can I run a sub-3 marathon weighing 170+? Don’t know. Back to the question at hand…

Will I be able to bench press my weight—THREE REPS?!?

Not today. Not tomorrow. But maybe someday. If pressed (no pun intended), I am thinking that I could put up 3 reps of 145 lbs right now. And THAT’s on a very good day. Bear in mind again, I have not attempted a bench press in, what, like a year??!?

if it happens, it will, but I’m not going to stress out about it. All I got from leg pressing double my weight was damaged knees.