22 Apr Dan Dalenberg | Off season wk 4 | Bench

I recently lifted at the Arnold Classic XPC meet where I totaled 1955, benched 500 raw and pulled a PR deadlift. Off season training has started after a nice long deload. I’m going back to what has worked the absolute best for me, having Brian Carroll handle writing my programming. 

Same thing as on the squat, idea for this night was to beat week 1 handily without exceeding RPE 7.5.

1. Floor Press- Top set of 5

Decided to use a swiss bar here. Straight bar floor pressing has felt like it is putting a ton of pressure on my pecs, in an awful way, so I picked this bar to prevent that.

Worked up through 315, which ties the weight from week 1. The swiss bar is a considerably more difficult bar though, so I would say I beat week 1.

2. Speed Bench- Doubles

My descent speed has been a struggle for years. I have been very inconsistent so what I am working on is being fast every single rep and getting it right. So what I do is doubles until I get 3 in a row perfect. Maybe that’s the first three, maybe that’s the last of 12.

2 weeks in a row it has been the first 3! Big win for me. I feel faster on my floor pressing as well so I think I am seeing some carry over to other pressing movements.

225 x 3 x 2 with a mini band.*

3. Incline- 3 x 15

4. Dips- 3 x 8

I am really liking this. For a long time I couldn’t do dips due to pain. That pain was the result of me being lazy and not having the shoulder mobility to do them. Working at these consistently and slowly increasing the range of motion has got me back to doing dips easy.

5. Stir the pot

*Band Tension (this applies to chain weight too.)

I don’t really care the exact amount of tension I am adding, reverse band or lifting against bands. Same is true for chain weight. It’s all relative to me and since it varies so much anyways from band to band and set up to set up I just don’t care. For the banded benching, I want a little extra tension at the top, so I use a mini band. Maybe it adds 25-50 pounds, who knows? Doesn’t matter really.

There’s just so much variability in the band set ups that without measuring every single set up, I don’t think you can accurately know how much tension is there. I’d rather just think of it in terms of a little, a moderate amount or a lot of band tension and pick the right band based on that.

It’s not rocket science here. We are just lifting weights. Don’t worry so much about the exact tension.

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Daniel Dalenberg

Dan Dalenberg is a pro level raw and equipped powerlifter with elite totals in the 220, 242 and 275 class. Best official raw meet lifts include an 804 squat, 507 bench press, 715 dead lift and 2006 total. Best equipped lifts include an 950 squat, 715 bench, 735 deadlift and 2400 total at 242. Dan has been training under Brian's guidance using the 10/20/Life methodology since late 2010.

Latest posts by Daniel Dalenberg (see all)

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