Another great bench night. Tonight we had Jamie Seguin and Ryan come from Cornwall, Carmine, BIG LEO, Cheryl, Shawna and me.

Shawna spent the first half hour going through a mini bench seminar with Jamie and Ryan. Lucky guys, they are learning the MMM technique from Shawna one of the best shirt technique lifters on the planet. No, I am not biased, Shawna, Cheryl and Shany have the best bench shirt technique of anyone I have seen bench.

Warm up with the bar practicing pushing with the legs

135 x about 10 practicing leg drive and bar path backwards

225 x 5

315 x 1

put shirt on

405 x 1

455 x 1

475 miss

475 x 1

500 miss

So, no pr tonight, just didn't feel the strength or energy. Got some good advice from Joffrey on getting my strength back, so I will focus on eating more than I have. This just isn't working for me, so I have to do something different. I will start counting calories and making sure I get about 3500 per day. I have three training weeks left to do something and that has to start by eating more. I usually train by how I feel, but lately I have just been pushing maxes every training session except on the squat. Went to the dentist Thurs - I cracked one tooth bad and it has to be pulled and a pillar has to be drilled into the jaw bone to replace the tooth, plus a the tooth behind it is cracked too. Dentist said a bridge won't work for me, because I chew too hard, ha. But, now I have to postpone pulling the tooth until after the Dec 11 meet, so I will try now to up my calories with shakes with food blended in.

Interesting, all five guys warmed up raw to 315 lbs and more. BIG LEO worked on driving with his legs, he will get at least 20 lbs more on his raw bench when he does this, then later we will work on a bar path that goes more backwards and less straight up, but it will take time. Jamie did great for someone in a bench shirt the first time. He did 315, 405, and 455 easy thinking it was a heavy 405 and then was shocked to learn we loaded 455. He tried 500 three times then back down to 475 and missed all of them on technique, it was a bit much for him for the first day in a shirt but he has a great attitude, just load it up and he will go for it, no excuses, no complaints. Shawna amazed me again with her form and getting 215, 225, 235 and just a hair off 245, I love her attitude. Cheryl came in charging again, went 225, 265, 295 and did a pretty good job getting 315 part way up. Carmine got all fired up and had great form on the lower weights, then started to push straight up on the heavier weights, he finished off with a victorious pr of 405 for 3 really easy looking reps. The girls did pin presses and everyone did some accessory work except me, my triceps were fried. Ryan got a raw bench pr of 335 lbs and then after a lot more work came back and got 3 great reps with 315 another pr.