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Race to raw 375 T&G bench thread!!!- Race still open!


Tommy J.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Just now, Tommy J. said:

Are you guys giving up?..

No sir.  Should be warm enough in the shed soon.

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1 hour ago, Tommy J. said:

Are you guys giving up?..

Hell no! I’m going to get a gym membership any year now! XD

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7 hours ago, Tommy J. said:

Are you guys giving up?..

I’m still here. Everyone knows there is no quit in me. I have just taken some time off logging. I’m training bench tonight and starting my ramp up phase to attempt a new PR in a couple weeks 

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Enter the ramp up phase of this third cycle. Every rep felt clean and strong. Tonight’s workout:

Flat Barbell Bench Press

5 warm ups 

270 lbs - 5x, 5x, 5x, 5x

320 lbs - smooth single 

290 lbs - 3 doubles with slingshot

305 lbs - double with slingshot 

320 lbs - double with slingshot 

335 lbs - single with slingshot

350 lbs - single with slingshot

Barbell Floor Press  - every rep paused 

230 lbs - 3x

260 lbs - 2x

290 lbs - 1x

Incline Barbell Bench Press

225 lbs - 2x

255 lbs - 2x

285 lbs - 2x

235 lbs - 9x

Machine Pec Deck Flys

250 lbs (Stack) - 4 sets of 10x


Took a break from logging. I kept training just needed the break from logging to clear my head with so personal stuff going on. I’m back now. Let’s go!

 

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  • 5 weeks later...

If I hit 400 raw before someone here hits 375 raw I’ll never let you guys hear the end of it.

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Well my right shoulder finally seems mostly healed but my left rotator cuff decided to (bad word filter) off so I'm still not benching heavy, been over a year and a half.  I did manage to bench 235x5 off 2 boards a few weeks back but I havent benched since.  Grip doesnt hurt so I just stick to that.  Wish I could get healed up and play along

 

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Still going. Just started my 4th cycle....heaviest yet 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I know its not bench press but I am feeling really strong this cycle. Here is the Top set of seated shoulder press DBs from Yesterday with 110lb DBs for 5x. I think I had a 6th if I really went for it. 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

First time back in the shed of pain in over 8 months.  Hip is doing great.  Just moved a little weight to see how everything felt.  I can tell I lost a lot on bench.

Bench: 135 3x10.  Much harder than it should have been.

Yates rows: 135 3x10. Easy peasy.  Kept it light just to see how hip would feel.  All good.

Barbell curls with just the bar to get some blood flowing.  3x10.

Stopped while I was ahead.  Going to keep the reps high and the weights low for awhile to ease back into it.  Felt good to do something.  Felt horrible to be so weak.

Edited by Mike Rinderle
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On 5/1/2021 at 1:18 PM, Mike Rinderle said:

First time back in the shed of pain in over 8 months.  Hip is doing great.  Just moved a little weight to see how everything felt.  I can tell I lost a lot on bench.

Bench: 135 3x10.  Much harder than it should have been.

Yates rows: 135 3x10. Easy peasy.  Kept it light just to see how hip would feel.  All good.

Barbell curls with just the bar to get some blood flowing.  3x10.

Stopped while I was ahead.  Going to keep the reps high and the weights low for awhile to ease back into it.  Felt good to do something.  Felt horrible to be so weak.

In the bold=passing everyone up later. Most try to skip that step for reasons I don’t understand.

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11 hours ago, Tommy J. said:

In the bold=passing everyone up later. Most try to skip that step for reasons I don’t understand.

Yea, usually me.  🤣🤣🤣

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Very similar workout to the other day.  Still just getting the body used to doing something post hip replacement. Upped the sets by 1.  

BP: 135 4x10

Yates rows: 135 4x10 

Lateral raises and EZ bar curls.

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On 2/19/2021 at 1:13 AM, Tommy J. said:

Sorry to carry on here..

but don’t worry. There is info below that both sides will enjoy.

I wanted to also mention something that is 100% overlooked, and apparently completely not even a thought by non users with such strong opinion about the topic.

 

we are still only human.. if you go on, you WILL have uncontrollable and or forgetful missed injections at times. I’ve done that 10 or 15 times in the last 7 months. Most of those times were only by a few days, With the longest 2 stints being about 10 days on one occasion, and over 3 weeks (22 days to be exact!) on the other occasion where I couldn’t get a prescription refilled! Life happens.. you’ll forget once in a while. Or you won’t be able to get in to the dr for script renewal. Or you will run out of rubbing alcohol. Or your Sharps container will be so full of spent syringes that you can’t even do another injection (because you can’t just throw them in the trash!), Or you won’t be able to find any pharmacy stocking the correct size syringes or needles or both. Or the pharmacy will be “out of stock” on the test completely. yeah.. every one of those has happened to me in this 7 months. Again, All that is also something that wouldn’t, and apparently doesn’t even cross the mind of a non user. Hell, it didn’t even cross mine until it happened! There is GONNA be some undesirable gaps between your doses. Be prepared for that stress.

 

“so what’s the important takeaway on that, Tommy?”

the important takeaway is on those occasions you’ll notice that while you may indeed be stressing over it, know that overall performance takes little to no hit within those time frames I mentioned above. I don’t care what a doctor or scientist says about it being out of the system at “xyz” days!.. because the strength never dropped! Which is a factor that will ultimately make you question how much of the meds should even be getting the credit.

when the 22 day gap happened, the ONLY significant changes I saw were in appetite, sleep, bench speed*, and energy. By saying this, I’m not at all trying to imply the meds do nothing for actual strength. Because they do! There is no doubt about that!
just pointing out that if it did work the way they say, then that strength should theoretically have dropped off fast along with the other changes...But it didn’t! So they are either wrong about how fast they work, or how much they benefit, or for how long they benefit, or all 3. OR... all the scientific evidence on half-lives of the drugs is false. 🤷🏼‍♂️Which could then mean all scientific findings on it are false... oh boy.. confusing rabbit hole, huh?! Which is yet another factor that will make you want slap the haters in the mouth when they recite whatever “medical” info they found online they are trying to cram down you’re throat as gospel about it.

 

btw, test cyp is touted as having a half-life of 8 days. This is what makes it the preferred choice for prescription over Enanthate. Which has only an approximate half-life of 4.5 days. I.E. less injections with the cyp. I went almost 3 times the half-life of cyp (which is what my script is for) on my 22 day stint of not having any due not being able to get in to the dr. So that was far beyond it being 100% out of my system. And zero measurable strength loss happened. So is it really out of my system? even though the test level surely dropped, and the minimal detectable amount (via the half life running out) has definitely left my system?... you decide. Because I sort of don’t care. To me those are non important details. But still, details I feel i should pass none the less.

 

any of the professionals care to explain the bold tho? Because I think I can. And you’re not gonna like the answer.. the answer is it doesn’t work even remotely like, or as much as you “say” it does. Once again, proof in numbers in previous posts.

But!... Pay attention here!... this is still good news to the people I’m beating up right now.. Because this means you now have MY first hand knowledge that can support your argument for calling out possible lairs competing in natural and tested orgs. Specifically ones that are actually on frequently, that hide it, and then just stop taking it days or weeks before the tested meet or competition they will be showing up to cheat in. Leave the “how much it helps them” crap out of the debate. It’s a non point anyways in that case. It doesn’t matter by how much they are cheating you. It just matters weather they are or aren’t. And I’m telling you that it CAN be easily done. So if some guy ever hits you with “I passed a drug test” in response to your accusation, tell them “that drug test doesn’t mean shit anyways if you stopped taking it 10 days or so before the meet.”

btw that bit was learned by accident... I never had ANY intentions to miss any doses! I chose to be on it, and by golly I want as much as I can get out of it! So I suppose the above findings were maybe more of a bittersweet surprise? Or a silver lining if you will? Regardless, there it is.

 

guys give some kind of feedback?.. if this interests you, I’ll continue. If not, I won’t.

and if some of you don’t start posting some benches, I’m going to go drink a pot of coffee and return in turbo troll mode. 😬

Hey Tommy (still want to call you mudhutmaster lol), lot of respect for not only what you're doing but also for how open you've been about it.

I think the issue of how much you've improved on the bench doesn't work so well if we look at more than just percentage of bodyweight lifted.  It's pretty non-controversial, speaking as someone significantly lighter than you, that it is easier for a lighter lifter to perform a higher percentage-bodyweight lift than it is for a heavier lifter.  The Wilks coefficient is a tool meant to compare lifts across different bodyweights (and sexes) to take into account this difference.

Using us as examples, my best calculated 1 RM bench (before some nagging injuries😞

bodyweight: 158 lbs

weight: 264 lbs (242 lbs x 4)

percent lifted: 167%

Wilks coeff: 88.2

Yours before:

bodyweight: 230 lbs

weight: 340 lbs

percent lifted: 148%

Wilks coeff: 92.4

Yours now:

bodyweight: 250 lbs

weight lifted: 375 lbs

percent lifted: 150%

Wilks coeff: 99.2

Based on just percentage bodyweight, my best bench is better than your best.  But if use the Wilks coefficent to take into account your higher bodyweight, your bench at 230 lbs bw was significantly better than mine, and your bench at 250 lbs is significantly better than that.  It shows a much bigger improvement than is obvious if you only look at percentage bodyweight improvement.  Wilks isn't perfect, either, but offers a bit more nuance than just percent bodyweight. 

A second point relates to missing doses.  Looking at half-lives of drugs, it's usually pretty standard to require 4-5 half lives to consider a drug to be cleared from your system (or at least not having an effect).  Going by your 8 day half-life number for test cyp, then we're looking at 6.25% left in your system after 32 days (4 half-lives), and 3.125% left 40 days (5 half-lives).  Twenty two days isn't quite a multiple of 8, but if you had been off it for two more days, you would be expected to still have 12.5% left of the original dose in your system.

I guess the big question to answer is figuring out how much of the benefit of supplemental test comes from it helping with performance directly vs. helping with recovery.  Anecdotally, it seems to do both. 

Improved appetite and sleep means that your performance at any given moment will be better.  You'd lose that improvement as the test clears out of your system. 

But to the extent that test improves recovery, the structural improvements (hypertrophy, decreased body fat) would take much longer than 3 half-lives to go away.

Happy to keep on reading about your journey if you're willing to keep on sharing.

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On 5/7/2021 at 11:35 AM, bdckr said:

Hey Tommy (still want to call you mudhutmaster lol), lot of respect for not only what you're doing but also for how open you've been about it.

I think the issue of how much you've improved on the bench doesn't work so well if we look at more than just percentage of bodyweight lifted.  It's pretty non-controversial, speaking as someone significantly lighter than you, that it is easier for a lighter lifter to perform a higher percentage-bodyweight lift than it is for a heavier lifter.  The Wilks coefficient is a tool meant to compare lifts across different bodyweights (and sexes) to take into account this difference.

Using us as examples, my best calculated 1 RM bench (before some nagging injuries😞

bodyweight: 158 lbs

weight: 264 lbs (242 lbs x 4)

percent lifted: 167%

Wilks coeff: 88.2

Yours before:

bodyweight: 230 lbs

weight: 340 lbs

percent lifted: 148%

Wilks coeff: 92.4

Yours now:

bodyweight: 250 lbs

weight lifted: 375 lbs

percent lifted: 150%

Wilks coeff: 99.2

Based on just percentage bodyweight, my best bench is better than your best.  But if use the Wilks coefficent to take into account your higher bodyweight, your bench at 230 lbs bw was significantly better than mine, and your bench at 250 lbs is significantly better than that.  It shows a much bigger improvement than is obvious if you only look at percentage bodyweight improvement.  Wilks isn't perfect, either, but offers a bit more nuance than just percent bodyweight. 

A second point relates to missing doses.  Looking at half-lives of drugs, it's usually pretty standard to require 4-5 half lives to consider a drug to be cleared from your system (or at least not having an effect).  Going by your 8 day half-life number for test cyp, then we're looking at 6.25% left in your system after 32 days (4 half-lives), and 3.125% left 40 days (5 half-lives).  Twenty two days isn't quite a multiple of 8, but if you had been off it for two more days, you would be expected to still have 12.5% left of the original dose in your system.

I guess the big question to answer is figuring out how much of the benefit of supplemental test comes from it helping with performance directly vs. helping with recovery.  Anecdotally, it seems to do both. 

Improved appetite and sleep means that your performance at any given moment will be better.  You'd lose that improvement as the test clears out of your system. 

But to the extent that test improves recovery, the structural improvements (hypertrophy, decreased body fat) would take much longer than 3 half-lives to go away.

Happy to keep on reading about your journey if you're willing to keep on sharing.

Oh shit! Wud up Howard?! How ya been homie?!

 

thank you for the kind words and taking the time to do those calculations! I admit that while it is interesting to see the Wilks thing at play, I still feel I must stick to my guns on my previous sentiments on formulas... I’ve always been one to scoff at them (formulas), even if one or more of them favors me.

I know I tend to oversimplify things.. but to me the double BW bench is still the king dingaling of measuring sticks when determining who’s an elite bencher and who isn’t.

although I do believe one can still be a good bencher, or a great bencher.

in pecking order it goes:

bad bencher

not bad bencher

decent bencher

good bencher

great bencher

elite bencher

world record bench presser

 

So while I do tend to take the self loathing route in moments where I swear I’m a bad bencher... I’d honestly score myself between a good bencher and a great bencher. Being a tad closer to good than great.

 

zero qualms about continuing to update you guys on my status quo with the vitamins and lifts. I know I haven’t updated my log in a long time. But do have my workouts written down and do plan to update my log here.

 

been slacking a bit as of late. Took a couple weeks off the bench recently. Nothing pressing (no pun intended). It just seemed like a good idea to take a hiatus. Put up 385 in sleeves recently despite the laziness though!

 

When I’m back in routine I still go every 5th day on the bench. No changes in vitamins atm.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have been laying low on the board guys. I haven’t posted much lately. Lot of stuff going on in my personal life but I am still training just not logging and posting like I usually do last nights bench session was just amazing so I feel I am close to busting through a plateau this cycle. not going to the post the whole workout but here are the bench working sets with my notes 

Flat Bench

warm ups 

280 lbs - 2x, 3x, 2x, 2x - all effortless. Starting with lower reps this cycle to save myself more for the heavy fifth set fatigued single 

315 lbs - 1x....absolutely smoke it. It felt totally effortless. Yes, I have been consistently benching 315 fifth set fatigued in this program but this is honestly the lighted 315 has ever felt like even fresh. I was talking shit to my training partner as soon as the press started cause it felt that good. I actually looked back at the weight to make sure we didn’t misload lol. I should have went for a second or third rep but I usually like to stick to the plan for the day and it’s a long workout 

220 lbs reps - 15x. The first 8 was crazy fast and explosive. The bar has some slack with the plates and it was moving so fast during those reps you could hear it. My triceps just had crazy pop and explosiveness tonight 

 

I then went on to paused floor press With chains, incline bench and machine Pec deck flies and felt strong AF on everything. Looking forward to next session....I may not be posting regularly but I am still in this 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 6/4/2021 at 5:58 AM, Tommy J. said:

Where y’all at?

I broke through a major volume plateau this week:

Bench Working sets 

280 lbs - 4 triples 

330 lbs - been failing this for my 5th set fatigued single and I absolutely smoked it.

235 lbs - 13 reps 

I got a vid of the 330 I will post later 

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Keep killin it Chez! I’m rooting for you to win the bottle! Because this ain’t over!

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7 hours ago, Tommy J. said:

Keep killin it Chez! I’m rooting for you to win the bottle! Because this ain’t over!

You know me tommy....I never quit. I felt like crap today but I was still able to turn it around and hit every planned bench press rep......till the end 

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6 hours ago, Chez said:

You know me tommy....I never quit. I felt like crap today but I was still able to turn it around and hit every planned bench press rep......till the end 

Yessir!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Getting my bench press strength back - Following James Strickland's (672 raw bencher) standard 16-week bench program 

Paused Bench Press.

Week 7: 295 x 4, 290 x 5, 290 x 5

Week 8: 300x4, 295 x5, 295 x 5

Week 9: 305 x 6, 305 x 6, 305 x 4 

Hope to get all 18 paused reps with 310 in Week 10 and will go into a deload week after.

2021 goal is to hit 408 injury-free

current weight: 191.5

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9 hours ago, ChimpGrip said:

Getting my bench press strength back - Following James Strickland's (672 raw bencher) standard 16-week bench program 

Paused Bench Press.

Week 7: 295 x 4, 290 x 5, 290 x 5

Week 8: 300x4, 295 x5, 295 x 5

Week 9: 305 x 6, 305 x 6, 305 x 4 

Hope to get all 18 paused reps with 310 in Week 10 and will go into a deload week after.

2021 goal is to hit 408 injury-free

current weight: 191.5

Pausing the weight I highlighted for 6 reps = a paused single at over 355lbs That is excellent for under 200lbs! And  if your doing that raw you are obviously built to bench. Hell, you’re not far off 375 for a paused rep right now.

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You all are killing it - way to go!  I did my first straight bar bench press in maybe a decade last week - 135- 145- 155# x 5 - all super easy to just see how my shoulders respond.  So far so good.  I've been using higher reps Dumbbells for bench for a while now as turning my hands (changing angle) makes a world of difference to my shoulders.  Hoping to just do a straight bar BW Bench Press on my birthday (August) and then go back to my DBs for higher reps.  I think I can do 200# (BW) right now but want to work up slowly - I hate injuries any more.  Bench press number has no real meaning to me - a sort of strength endurance and shoulders that don't hurt all the time are more important at this point in my life.

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