Quest for the One Arm/Hand Chin-up

I’ve fallen behind on my training updates – so let’s hit it:

Sunday – five miler outside on some hilly, snowy, and icy trails (tough).

Monday – Bench workout – minute sets of 175 – 5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,5,4,4

Tuesday – 4 miler at 7:30 pace

Thursday – Bench workout – minute sets of 175, 6,6,6,6,6,6,6,4,4,3
4 miler at 7:30, 7:19, 7:19 and 7:09 – miles 2 and 3 up slight grade

Ran a five miler at 7:19 pace. Was a little tired through the fourth mile but overall I was fairly comfortable.

Bench Press training tomorrow.

Do a search on the internet and you’ll find more information than you care to on achieving your one rep max in the bench press. Try to find information on doing as many reps of your body weight as you can on the bench press and you’ll find next to nothing. So I turned to some weight training forums and got some good ideas for training for maximum repetitions on the bench.

Someone offered up a post on density training. Not sure why it’s called density training but it goes like this -

1 – Have your body weight equivalent on the bench press – in my case – 175 lbs.
2 – Your goal is 60 reps.
3 – Have a watch nearby.
4 – Start with 4 reps per set.
5 – At the top of each minute, do a set.
6 – At 4 reps per set, you’ll need 15 sets to get 60 reps.
7 – Do each set on the minute so that it takes you approximately 15 minutes to do all 60 reps.

When you accomplish this, do 5 reps per set the next time. When you hit 60 reps doing 5 reps per set, move up to 6 reps per set. Keep doing this until you can do 60 reps at 8 reps per set and in approximately 8 minutes.

I tried this for the first time today and got 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 4, 3, 3. The last 4-5 sets were rough. I can see why this works. It likes interval training for bench press.

I’m going to work this in and make it a regular part of my workouts.

Did another 5 miler today at 7:30 pace the entire way. Sunday I ran five miles in 35:50 – see my mile splits below. Today, I did it in 37:30 and felt great the whole way – honestly, my legs felt a little heavy after 4.5 miles but overall I felt great. That’s a plug for even-paced running. After wanting to quit at mile 4 on Sunday, I ran slightly slower today and felt fantastic.

After my five miler, I did 20 reps of 175 on the bench. I need to start bustin’ into the low 20s for reps of 175.

I checked out the one rep max calculator at calculatorslive.com/Bench-Press-Calculator.aspx. It calculates that I since I can do 20 reps of 175 that I should be able to bench press a maximum of 371 pounds one time. That sure sounds nice but reality is probably 50-70 pounds less than the one rep max calculator predicts. It does say that I should go with something I can do 10 times. Ok, let’s try 225. Now it drops to 299.25 which is probably more in line with reality.

I tried the Sense of Balance Calculator, and cranked out 124 seconds – 4x the national average. They have a bunch of cool calculators there.

Great article on training for maximum number of reps here although it deals with 225 lbs.

I’ve been focusing on the running more this year for the 2009 Arnold Pump and Run.

Today I did a five miler with following splits:

mile 1 – 7:30
mile 2 – 6:58
mile 3 – 6:31
mile 4 – 7:30
mile 5 – 7:20

I was pretty happy with this training run. Breaking 36 minutes for five miles felt good and let me know that I’m on the right track although I used to run 5 miles almost 11 minutes faster. The third mile at 6:30 nearly broke me though. It took me a mile and a half at a slower pace to get back on form. I have 47 days to bring that time down. I’d be really happy if I could run a five miler at a 6:30 pace the entire way. I’ll try another five mile time trial in about a month and see where I stand.

My goal is to run 18:30 or better for the 3.1 mile race in March. I think I may try a 3.1 mile time trial next weekend to see where I stand. I need to be 19:30 or better – that’s a 6:18 pace.

Hopefully, I’m cutting some weight as well. Stay tuned.