Two of my friends just competed in a bench meet, and their training, planning, and results were very different. Inspired by my longtime appreciation of the children’s magazine, Highlights, and their cartoon “Goofus and Gallant,” I’m going to compare and contrast our two geniuses so that hopefully you can avoid the same mistakes and use some of their wiser moves.

Names have been changed to barely disguise the less than innocent. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the cartoon, Wikipedia describes it as follows: “First appearing in Highlights in 1948, Goofus & Gallant is a regular cartoon feature drawn by Anni Matsick depicting the difference between “good” and “bad” behavior. The strip features two contrasting boys, Goofus and Gallant. In each cartoon, it is shown how each boy would respond to the same situation. Goofus invariably chooses a selfish or irresponsible response while Gallant always responds with kindness and generosity. Goofus and Gallant’s primary function is to teach children basic social skills.”

You get the idea. If you want to check this out, see the images at this site. I would cut and paste some of the better ones, but there is that whole copyright infringement thing and that wouldn’t be “Gallant.” So here goes…

Goofus doesn’t decide to enter his first meet until a few weeks out. Gallant picks the meet and commits to training for it far enough out to get the heavy work in so that he can deload and peak. Goofus does lots of heavy raw singles to make sure that his strength is still there and never gets his shirt dialed in. Gallant knows exactly what touches in each of his shirts at his meet body weight and considers raw work as just assistance for meet shirt benching.

Goofus does many bodybuilding movements and volume right up to meet week. He has no taper. Gallant works almost exclusively on the specific movements and technique that improve his meet bench and addresses weaknesses. Then, he tapers with straight weight speed work.

Goofus lays awake the night before the meet rethinking and changing his meet plan over and over. Gallant wraps up his meet plan as he starts his taper and falls asleep early watching “CSI Miami” reruns.

Goofus, under the weight class limit, eats a big breakfast despite his nervousness. Then he goes for the Skoal for the drive to the meet in complete silence. Gallant, also under the class limit, has a little coffee and a banana as he starts to feel a little nervous. He blocks it out of his mind for the drive and cranks the CD player to avoid thinking about the meet.

Goofus wears his warm-ups to the meet, paces around after weigh in, marvels at every huge dude who walks by, can’t eat, and blows chow three times before warm up, which he wings and overdoes. Gallant weighs in, eats, then chills out in the web chair he brings with him until he changes into his gear and warms up as planned for his flight.

Goofus has a hard time touching his opener and then doesn’t wait for the press command. He has a meltdown because he has benched more than his opener raw. Goofus feels that he is in trouble but wants to go up. Gallant has a hard time touching and then loses the bar back over his face on the press. He asks for a repeat and adjusts his shirt collar up a bit. Gallant knows what he did wrong and corrects it.

Goofus goes up for his second attempt and locks it out. However, he gets three reds for lifting his ass off of the bench…like he did in training. Gallant smokes his second attempt.

Goofus wants to go up again but Gallant tells him to shut up and get his head out of his ass. Gallant tells him that all he needs in order to win is to make his attempt. Goofus can’t decide so Gallant does and gives expediter a repeat.

Gallant changes shirts as planned after the opening attempt weight. He chooses his planned second attempt PR for his third. Goofus decides to go up to his planned third attempt. Gallant tells Goofus to get of the bomb shelter before giving advice and to keep his ass down on the bench.

Goofus makes his third attempt 2–1. It’s ugly, but two whites are all that you need. Goofus realizes he has a lot of work to do. Gallant lowers the bar smoothly to the chest faster than he is comfortable with, blasts the weight off of his chest, drives the weight through the sticking point, rolls the elbows, and squeezes it to lockout just like he practiced and worked on at every workout. Gallant realizes he has lots of work to do. Both Goofus and Gallant get swords for trophies and give them to their sons.