After coming off my best meet performance of my career, I am now officially a beat up powerlifter. I'm having some minor low back issues that I'm working on mending up, and then I'll begin to find a competitive option. My goals for 2017 are to compete in a bodybuilding show and also get back to the platform 100% healthy.

For programming and coaching inquires, please email SmitleyPerformanceSystems@gmail.com or visit brandonsmitley.com

Sunday I got to have a little bit of fun, and jumped in the Metal Jack bench shirt. I pretty much have decided that I'm going to compete bench only at the APF Illinois State Meet, and qualify for AAPF Nationals in May. The grand scheme is going to be to cut down to 132 in May and again in September at AWPC World's. There is a lot that needs to be done, but it's a pretty good plan it looks like, and it will still let me chase some of my goals while I'm focusing on rehab and letting the back do it's thing. The biggest goal of this training session was to just get back in the shirt and see how it was feeling and if I would have any low back pain - which I'm happy to report that I had absolutely zero. I still trained raw for basically the majority of the training session, but it's about time I start programming out my training cycles to get me to AAPF Nationals in one piece. I now remeber why I didn't do more than one meet in this shirt, too...

Items Used in this Training Session
Sabertooth Bar
Light Bands
Metal Jack Bench Shirt
Mini Band
Blast Straps

Warm Up
Cats & Camels - 10
Quadraped T-Spine Ext - 10 each
Band Dislocations - 10
Alternating Band Dislocations - 10 each
Band Pressdowns - 15
Band Straight Arm Lat Pulldowns - 15
Band Face Pulls - 15
Single Arm Band Fly - 15 each
Band Rows - 15
Band Curls - 15

A1) Reverse Light Band Bench Press
55x10
55x5
105x5
145x5
195x5 - add bands
235x5
285x3
305x3
330x3 - PR
345x3 - PR

B1) Bench Press - In Multiply Metal Jack
325x3
345x3
365x3
385x3
*Was nowhere near touching at all today, just nothing but air board reps to work on the groove of the shirt*

C1) Close Grip Spoto Press
235x4x6

D1) DB Skull Crushers
4x12

E1) Overhead Cable Tricep Extensions
4x15

F1) Cross Body Band Tricep Extensions
3x20

G1) Blast Strap Y + T
3x10+x10
G2) Band Rotations
3x20 per side