Dufisthenics

I am pretty sure in the past I have talked about another annoying phenomenon at the gym, the octopus.  This is the inconsiderate individual that thinks they gym is his own personal kingdom thus there is no problem if he ties up multiple pieces of equipment simultaneously.  Today there was a young guy in there doing exactly that, going between the squat rack, squat press and smith machine.  Luckily I was doing chest today so it didn’t impede my work but an old guy did ask the kid how long he intended to tie up multiple things.  If there is only one of a certain type of plate loaded equipment at a gym, leaving it loaded as you jump between other things just is a dick move, sorry.

So I resumed running over the weekend doing a two mile test run at the track Sunday.  I could tell my body had fallen out of running shape from the roughly two month layoff so doing two miles felt nearly the equivalent of the 4+ mile runs I was doing previously.  The important thing is since the run my IT band has been pretty stable and no limp has returned to my stride.  I hope to keep building on the progress slowly.

Today during decline bench press day there was something really, really weird going on.  For some reason I had significantly more strength, endurance and power than I have felt at the gym in 6 months or more.  I went all the way up to 235 pounds and did a a lot more reps on the way up to it.  In addition all the reps were slow and controlled with none of the chest bounce that will sometime accompany tackling higher weights.  I have no idea what the magic sauce is that made me feel so good today but I hope I can put it in a bottle.  As you can see from the numbers, it’s a huge jump from anything I have posted recently.

Today’s Workout 

5 minutes cardio/stretching

Decline barbell bench press – 135lbs x 10, 185lbs x 5, 205lbs x 3, 215lbs x 2, 225lbs x 1, 235lbs x 1, 225lbs x 2, 205lbs x 5, 185lbs x 9, 135lbs x 15

Pec dec – 130lbs x 10, 170lbs x 10