APF State meet December 15, 2019
Training
Talk about a change of pace! The 45-degree angle of the football bar and this bar in the past always gave me extremely trouble. Specifically, the past 2 years and I believe this is why. Since early in my powerlifting career and my understanding of bench I never wanted clients or myself to touch "lower". Ironically this was prior to me having a better understanding of mechanics. Unfortunately as the years crept by and my bench started to get better I was locked into one way of benching and then I ran into, "the wall" which is an entire article post for a later time. My bench was stuck for 2 entire years before having any type of progress. The latter end of this 2 years specialty bars started hurting my shoulder WHICH MAKES NO SENSE. Turns out:
1- due to not wanting to touch lower, I instantly held the weight on my shoulders so the angled handles and where I was holding it was REALLY not beneficial. Fast forward till now allowing the bar to touch lower evenly distributes the load and allows me to stabilize the load not just in one area
2- number 1 lead to 2 which was a massive amount of bicep pain (tendinitis or whatever elbow term you and your PT want to call it) due to squatting AND benching. We approached both elbow position on squat AND where I touched on the bench allowing for the pain to be alleviated.
These are the 2 reasons I hated benching with swiss bar and football bars but now that I have figured out this issue we are in a much better place after a 1.2lb lifetime bench PR at my last meet which I plan to keep adding to this round
Workout
*Floor Press (american cambered bar?) + Chains Max 1: 300
*Drop weight 25% KEEP CHAINS then 3x5 + 3 second pause: 225
*Bent Over Rows 3x8: 225
*Narrow Grip Neutral pull-downs 3x10: 140
*A1) Rolling Tricep Extensions 3x10: 45
*A2) Cable Face Pulls 3x15: #9,10,10
*Single Arm DB rows 3x10:
*American Cambered Bar Push-ups (chest to deficit) 3x20: