Monday was some shirt work to a one-and-a-half board.

My bench has definitely been lagging since the weight loss, so I'm doing what I can to get my top end as strong as possible for the meet next month. To be honest, I'm not anticipating a big performance on bench, but if I lift smart, I think I can bench well enough to keep me on track for a big total.

Here's how it went:

Bar x a bunch

135 x 10

185 x 5

225 x 1

275 x 1

315 x 1

Put shirt on

405 - 3 board

495 - 2 board

545 - 1 1/2 board

585 - 1 1/2 board

635 - 1 1/2 board

655 - 1 1/2 board

The weight moved ok, but I would have liked for it to have been a bit more solid technique-wise. Since dropping the weight, I've been struggling a bit finding the best way to wear my shirt. When I was bigger, I did really well creasing the material behind my triceps, but this doesn't seem to be working as well now. Either that, or it's working great, I just don't have the top end and upper back strength I did when I was bigger.

Either way, the meet is in 5 weeks whether my bench is 100% or not. I'm looking forward to the challenge of pulling my sh*t together in time.

After benching, I did 5 sets on the pullover machine. I scrapped the rows for the day because I badly tore two calluses the day before, and didn't want to aggravate them any further. Need to make sure they're all healed up as fast as possible so they don't affect any more training sessions.

Also did 5 sets on the triceps pushdown machine and 5 sets of rope pushdowns.