ME Upper: Reverse Mini Band Bench Press [PR!] (w/VIDEO)

After an abysmal showing at APF Equipped Nationals, I'm now in an off season mode of training. Currently, I am in a strength block building up strength and weaknesses to prepare me for a meet prep cycle for WPC World's in November.

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Sunday's bench press training was a LONG one. We had a PR with how many people we had training, with 10 people training out of the tiny ass garage. The usual crew of guys plus three Purdue Barbell members drove down to begin prepping for their fall semester meet (and to get some coaching and help). It was a great atmosphere and a ton of fun, but the training dragged on so long. With me split between coaching, training, loading and spotting, I was exhausted.

I managed to PR on my reverse band work, but really I wasn't all that happy with how I did. There were just too many technical flaws on my part with my 325 set. You live and learn, but I need to really address some of this moving forward. I've hit 315x3 with the reverse micro bands, so I was hoping to hit at least 10 pounds more given the extra band assistance. I tried to get a gauge of how much was really taken off in the bottom, but it was hard to determine. It was definitely less than 30 pounds as I hung a 15 pound DB from the bands, and it was well below the safety pins. So I'm just guessing it was 25 pounds off to be safe. I seem to be missing much higher than normal, and I think this is due to the increased ROM without the arch, so I'll really need to some more board work and heavier tricep work as my supplemental work moving forward into meet prep in less than two weeks. At least I'm seeing things now, and I can put together my plan of attack for World's beginning next week.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXqAOTOBeHs]

Items Used in this Training Session Sabertooth Bench Bar Mini Bands Light Bands

Warm Up Cats & Camels - 10 Quadraped T-Spine Ext - 10 each Band Dislocations - 10 Alternating Band Dislocations - 10 each Band Pressdowns - 15 Band Straight Arm Lat Pulldowns - 15 Band Face Pulls - 15 Single Arm Band Fly - 15 each Band Rows - 15 Band Curls - 15

A1) Reverse Mini Band Bench Press 55x10 145x5 - add bands 195x5 235x3 285x3 305x3 315x3 - PR 325x2 - PR (missed 3rd) 290x2x4

B1) Close Grip Bench Press 235x4x6

C1) Close Grip Pin Press (#25) vs Doubled Mini and Light Bands 3x10

D1) Incline Tate Press 3x12

E1) Band Pressdowns 200 total reps

F1) Band Pull Aparts 150 total reps

G1) DB Side Bends 4x20 per side