Please excuse typo's, spelling errors and other mistakes. My grammar was bad to begin with and now that I can post these from my phone...well... it's not going to improve.
As I walked in the gym today I was met with a few weird stares.
I soon realized it was because of my double stack...
I was holding my red AMP drink on top of a large black coffee. While this is part of my normal morning I can see how it might look excessive to some. Good thing they didn't see the three cups of coffee I had with breakfast.
The last couple weeks I have started with Reverse Band Presses and have made decent progress each week so I decided to do the same today. We set the bands up so around 115-135 would be de-loaded at the bottom of the movement. With MANY warm up sets worked I worked up to 2 sets of 8 reps with 4 plates per side. I think I can milk one more week out of these before my I stall out or my technique starts to look too much like a Powerlifter. By this I mean -- I try to not bench like a Powerlifter for two reasons.
1) It forces me to use less weight thus less stress on my joints.
2) I can create more tension on my chest reduce the work done by the triceps. Throughout the years of competing, multiple pec tears and surgeries I learned how to press using as little pec as I could - not that it would have helped that much with them both being torn apart.
I also use the shoulder saver pad any time I bench. My shoulders can't handle the bar being taken to my chest.
The second movement of the day was something we call The Spoon Press. I did 5 work sets of 10-15 reps (to failure).
The last chest movement was cable flies using the comfort grip handles. We have been testing these handles for the past month of so and I love the way they feel. They are thicker than a regular handle and have some flexibility to them. They worked out great for this movement as it allowed me to use a thumbless grip allowing for more stress on the chest and less on the shoulders. I did 4 sets of 10-15 reps (to failure)
Fat Rope Pushdowns - This is one of my favorite attachments to use for pushdowns. The fatter grip seems to provide more tricep activation while taking away any elbow pain. I did 6 sets of 12-20 reps with 5-10 reps left at the end of the set.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itejlfUedz0]