Bench Press 300 Pounds

I just want to know if I have the ability to stick with this. I can only lief 175 pounds so I have a long way to go.

I’m not very strong. I’d like to be strong.

so far. My next goal is 405

I can do 225 now, so…. 75 more to go.

Today I bench pressed 245 pounds on a smith machine! Basically that is as difficult as benching 245 on a regular bench. I continue to inch closer, and I suspect I’ll be at 265 by month’s end. Yes I’m a man of ambition. And also, I’ve switched to a much higher quality protein powder which is already working miracles.

Well, ever since I started eating meat, my bench has been going up and up. I haven’t even touched the bar, either. I’ve only been doing free weights—a few sets of 65 to 70 pounds in each hand maybe 10 to 15 times. Soon I’ll be doing them with 80 in each hand.

Most fitness gurus prefer free weights because the lift hits different muscles every time you do it, and works the stabilizing muscles more than just a bar, so you create more effective, applicable to “real life” strength.

Well, when I finally did touch a bar, I did a few sets of decline and I finished by repping 225 3three times! That’s more than I’ve ever tried lifting before.

I had a guy spot me just to be safe, and I thought for sure he was helping me lift it. When I asked him how much he was helping me, he said, “not at all, it was all you!”

Weightlifting really is all mental. And somehow, I’ve broken my boundaries. The strength cat is out of the bag, and everything’s going up, up up!

I have always been freakishly strong in the legs. I started walking when I was 8 months old. My mom calls them tree trunks. I can squat 135 pounds over 70 times in one set. They just don’t quit.

My arms and chest, however, are very average. I would much rather have strong legs than a strong uppper body, because I think that’s more functional, but I think an individual should be balanced. So I have to work extra hard at working out my upper body. And as everyone knows, the bench press is the key benchmark of upper body strength.

Why is 300 pounds my goal? Because in high school, that is as high as the football team’s chart went. Only one person a year could ever max out at 300 pounds. I hated maxing out. I got strong enough to do 135 25 times, but I could barely max out at 200 one time. And that was when I was 250 pounds(!). It is very clear to me that I have what sports doctors refer to as “Fast Twitch” muscles in the legs (the kind of muscles geared fore explosive strength) and “slow twitch” muscle fibers in the upper body (the kind designed for activities of endurance) Now I am 200 pounds and almost able to bench my body’s weight. But I want to push myself. Increasing my max by 33% qualifies as pushing myself, I think.

The compromise approach would be to take up rowing as a sport. That would be ideally suited for my upper body’s muscle composition. I am the undisputed master of the rowing machine at my university’s rec center, but I’ve never actually tried the real thing. Weird huh?