Bench Day

Posted By elissa on Jan 4, 2009 | 1 comment

Otherwise known as “a date with my husband.”

Yep, that’s what we’ve been doing for the last month or so, every Saturday afternoon. We often hit the gym together, although we typically go our separate ways. But this is the one thing we’ve agreed to do together.

This is nice for me, as John is a fully trained spotter…he knows not to snatch the damned bar out of my hands or “over help” if I get stuck. It’s been a while since I’ve had a spotter like that – most guys in the gym are willing to be helpful, but that’s precisely the problem…they can be too helpful. And when I ask some random guy for a spot, it’s not like I can chew his a** off for not letting me try to complete a rep I think I can push out.

So I owe John one, for helping me out with the process. I owe Paul one too, for helping me think of a goal. It’s “one dumbbell.” One of HIS dumbbells, to be specific.

Let me explain that…

Paul is a pretty big (and solid!) guy. During my visit to the Great White North last Fall, we hit the gym together. In between my own sets, I watched him do dumbbell bench presses, with a 125 pound dumbbell in each hand. That’s not a sight I see every day – even in my own gym. Just one of those weights equals one of me.

It also equals my current 5 RM.

Yesterday, we had a brief chat session, where he mentioned he managed 6 reps with 138 pounds in each hand. So – on a whim – I rounded that up to the nearest ten and decided that would be my new goal…140 lbs. for 6 reps.

Can I add 15 pounds to my bench? Well, we’ll see…I expect it will take a while, and I may need to add some (body) weight to manage it. But I’ve given myself a year to do it, so I think it’s a fair bet.