Benching at 7800 S. Redwood

This morning I talked Cathi into letting me go to meet with Steve at the Gold's Gym at 7800 S. Redwood at 8 am. I met Kyle (Moosie) and Mike Cordova, and Manny(sp?) who was the veteran of the group.

All very nice guys and gave lots of tips and encouragement. The few biggest things I took away from the session was all about setup:

1) Shoulders tight! - When I lay down my arms used to be outstretched with my shoulders blades relaxed. Instead I learned to squeeze my shoulder blades together before I take the lift off.

2) Once I get the lift off and I'm at the top I need twist my elbows inwards towards my body, get a massive breatch of air and come down with my arms down instead of flared out to my side.

3) When I hit the bottom and do the pause, I EXPLODE!!!!!! popping the weight up (and down towards my feet). Since my form before has been so bad, I need to change my groove lower. It is higher than it should be because of the lack of getting my arms in. With my shoulders tight and my arms in (along with keeping my feet solid on the ground) it should force my back to get the arch that I keep hearing about and have never been able to get.

The equipment is also better. The bench at Tomax is too high and not wide enough. Brandon's bench is much better so I will for sure be doing my ME days at Brandon's and my DE days at Tomax.

Stump also traded me bench shirts. He had a 50 Fury (called the grape because of the purple back) which was much tighter and felt better than my 52 Fury. I gave him my 54 as a trade which I was glad to do as 54 is like a seatshirt anymore.

I was most impressed with Kyle's workout. He was putting up 580 (4 boards). Here is what I did:

Bench (4 boards with shirt): 8 x 315, 3 x 365, 3 x 385, 3 x 385, 1 x 405, 1 x 425, 1 x 425

On a couple of these my body was so far up to the pins and I'd sometime brush against them on the way up, or get stuck underneath them and had to get my spotter to push me out away from them so I could get them up. Some of that was that I was setup too high, and some because I did get my elbows in enough and my groove was higher. Kyle said to make sure that when I push, to push the bar towards my feet instead of up above my head. I'm really hoping that over the next few weeks that I get all these techniques down and go down for another session early September.

Mike is going to the Elko WABDL meet and I know David Edgell is going. I'd like to ask about a mock meet that David Edmundson could judge to get some good feedback before I go to a real thing. My goal is to really push my bench and deadlift so that next year when they have a meet that I'm fully prepared with enough confidence to get what I'm capable of with the amount of experience that I have (Which is still relatively small).

What an enjoyable morning! I noticed that I was thinking about the shoulder blades and the tightness involved that I was driving home with my back against the seat with my shoulder's and upper back all tight as if I was getting ready for a big lift. What an awesome experience it was today. I'm looking forward to next time.