Casual Bench

I skipped Friday's DE squats because I had Navy PRT this past weekend. Maybe, if I was in better shape, I wouldn't have had to worry. My pushups improved to 41 because I used a closer grip, and I almost got 42 but lactic acid stopped me - - - I pushed for 10 seconds, then plopped on the floor in defeat. I had 56 situps, which was decent. But my run was the worst it had ever been at 15:20, which along with bodyfat killed me. I just don't run and it showed. I was run/ walking and had still coveredhalf of the 1.5 mile course in 6.5 minutes, so I knew I was already running it too fast. I walked a lot of the second half just exhausted, then sprinted like hell twice after the 1/4 mile mark, for naught. I'll start training the run very slowly until the spring time - - - enough of just getting by. I should be training that as hard as anything else I do. Shame on me.

Monday, I was paying for it. The sprints left my whole backside sore and tired (surprisingly, my quads weren't as bad.). I decided to just play with some bench ideas for 45 minutes instead. First, I set up the bands for the bench press and grabbed the pseudo two board. I opted to work up to a max using the bands vice sets of 3 or speedwork. Worked up to 215 bar weight. I will probably stay away from boards until this cycle is over, but I'm happy with the increased stability with heavy weight I now have. With the bands, its about 255-265 at the top and 235-245 when it hit the boards. This seems more useful than overloads, where I just hold it, but it's more work. Any ideas?

I worked up to 190 lbs on the Nautilus Bench Press, for the bottom. With my existing setup, the weight barely budges (very barely) and I have to push like hell to get it to go. One thought is to use these instead of the bench press to bring my bottom up. The other in consideration is to use the incline bench press, which really works the chest but I also want to push that lift over the 200 lbs barrier, a great motivator.