I spoke with Dave more in depth about retraining my bench and he believes at this point in my recovery I need to be doing "max effort" work. That max effort work needs to be done at to a max 3 or 5 and needs to be at about 1/2 tempo. This will replace the volume work with higher rep ranges and the reduced rep speed with keep the weights in a range that my tendon can handle while retraining and rebuilding the muscles affected by the injury and the surgery.

 

Reverse band barbell bench with red shoulder saver pad - mini bands used and 65 pounds was zero at chest.

65 for 5 reps

85 for 5 reps

95 for 5 reps

135 for 2 sets of 5 reps

185 for 5 reps

225 for 5 reps

245 for 5 reps

265 for 5 reps

275 for 5 reps

295 for 5 reps

305 for 5 reps

 

dumbbell press

25's for 10 reps

35's for 10 reps

40's for 10 reps

 

 

standing military press with angle bar

bar for 10 reps

65 for 10 reps

85 for 10 reps

95 for 3 sets of 10 reps

 

low pulley cable rows

130 for 3 sets of 15 reps

 

chin-ups

3 sets of 3 reps

 

I was really surprised how the bench went today. I just felt my way through it and and no issues. I stopped at 305 because I didn't want to push it any more today. I never came out of groove, felt in control of the weight and kept the reps slow.