Fitness Update: Strength Gains

Tonight I hit an interim goal; I benchpressed 300 pounds! Three sets of six repetitions to start, but its a start. I want to reach 500 pounds, but I'm not sure if I will be able to.

I also broke a barrier in the crunch. My best effort so far has been 1532 reps with no break. Tonight I did 1550! I'm heading towards 2000. Honestly, I could use weight and do less reps, but I want to see if I can hit 5000 (the major drawback being the time that it takes to complete the set... I may scrap this and just use weight).

I am also seeing some fantastic gains in both the bicep curl and in the dip.

I started doing assisted dips on a machine that uses a counterbalanced platform to sort of take some of your bodyweight off of your arms. I worked past using that to doing unassisted dips. I am now able to do between 30 to 50 dips at a time in one continuous set, or to do three to four sets of 15 to 20 reps. The thing here is that I can't do it consistently... some days I am stronger than others. I will continue working at this until I am consistent, and then I plan on wearing a weight belt and lowering the reps and working back up with weight resistance added.

In the bicep curl, I once managed to work up to using a 45 pound dumbell in the concentration curl exercise. I used this weight for two workouts, had a small layoff, and never was able to work with that weight again. This was when we were still at the YMCA. I dropped back down to 35 pound dumbells, and worked with that until the big layoff which culminated with us switching over to this gym. Since we have been training here, I have passed 45 pound dumbells, and have been working for about the past month with 50 pound dumbells, doing three to four sets of 10-12 reps each. Tonight I 'pre-exhausted' my arms with a set of 15 reps with a 70 pound barbell, followed immediately by a set of 15 reps with a 90 pound barbell, followed immediately with three sets of twelve (per arm) using the 50 pound dumbells. When I can pre-exhaust with three sets of 15-20 using a 100 pound barbell, followed by three clean sets of 15 with the 50 pound dumbells, it will be time to move up to 60 pound dumbells (for some reason, they don't have 55 pound dumbells at this gym... so I have to train up for a 10 pound jump, which is going to kick my ass.....)

In any case, this is my status report. I'm happy with the strength gains, somewhat less happy with the weight loss portion of the program, but, in all honesty, have nobody to blame for that but myself... I need to decide to buckle down in the diet department, and I'm sure I can drop the fat and build even more muscle.

Not too shabby though for a broken down, 46 year old warhorse!