7 week master plan

Disclosure: This has absolutely nothing to do with poker.

Ok, so there are bazillion things I want to do. I want to do a real olympic distance triathlon... and I want to do the Vegas half. Considering that I have no desire to immerse myself in training for either, but since running tends to come more naturally for me, I am guessing that this year, I don't think I will be able to do a tri... I might find another duathlon or a sprint tri but no real distance tri for me... at least not in '09. And to answer Peaker's comment from the other day, it's just that I don't like running... and that's why you don't see running in my workout plan. Of course, in order to do the half, I'll prob have to run some but I think I can get enough cardio in through swimming and biking so I won't do much running. We'll see how that pans out.

In the meantime, few posts ago, I mentioned that I wanted to be able to bench 250lbs (free weight, obv)... sure enough, my buddy JT read the blog and emailed me, telling me he can come up with a master plan. He knew how strong (or weak, it's in the eye of the beholder, I think) I am and so he came up with this 7 week plan, full with guidance like "make sure to take at least 120g of protein on the day of and day after your chest workout." He also told me that I need to do shoulder and triceps but not within 48 hrs prior to my chest day.

Since JT is a freakin beast I decided to take him up on his offer and today was Week 1 of his 7 week master plan (Mondays from here on out will be chest days, most likely Wed/Thurs would be when I would incorporate shoulders and triceps amongst other things).

His week 1 regimen:
Flat Barbell Bench
135 x 12-15 (I did 15)
155 x 10-12 (I did 12)
205 x 4-6 (I did 4 plus 1 with help from spotter - the 50lb increase was definitely felt)
225 x 2-4 + 2-4 forced reps (basically, I ended up with 3 forced reps, ie 3 with help of spotter)

Feedback: Hmmm, maybe I'm not as strong as JT thinks I am...

Incline Dumbbell
35 x 12-15 (I did 15)
50 x 8-10 (I did 10)
60 x 4-6 (I did 6)
45 to absolute failure (I did 15)

Feedback: Considering I didn't do much incline dumbell before this and he didn't know where to start because of it, it seemed right on par. The 6th one on the 60lb dumbell was a semi-struggle.

Flat Dumbbell Fly
25 x 12 (I did 12)
2 sets of 35 x 6-8 (I did 2 sets of 8)

Feedback: I never did flat dumbbell fly (I always did the fly on the machine) so it was a little interesting but I think I could have added a little more weight.

Dips
3 sets to absolute failure (I did 13, 11, 10)

Feedback: I actually thought I could do more but I just didn't have anything left. Kinda disappointing that my first set was only 13 reps... I was certain I could do 15+.

Overall feedback: Pretty good week 1. In terms of number of exercises, this is a little less than what I usually do since I usually would also do a decline bench press. So, we'll see how this goes. Since JT is also trying to gauge my strength and process, the outer weeks can change, even though it would probably only be a slight tweak. Considering he took the time to write up a 7 week program where in week 7, I'll be doing reps of 250lbs on the bench, I will def be working hard since a) I think I can do it and b) I don't want to feel like I failed him.

This won't be easy but it will be pretty cool to be able to do 3 reps of 250lbs at which point, I can see my name go up in the weight lifting board since that would be like 150%+ of my body weight. MONEY BABY!!!!