11-07-18: Bench Presses and Ring Push-Ups

Elm City Crossfit WoD for July 18th, 2011

Bench press showing a great lumbar arch. Feet flat on the floor, butt and shoulder blades firmly on the bench, hands on the bar. Not too arched,a la powerlifters, going for the most leverage possible (which isn't bad, its just a style thing). (The Training Geek)  

Ring push-up variations. We did the version on the lower left, just feet on the floor . However, we did it with just one foot on the floor (if we could), or two feet, or on knees, or just holding the planche position if need be. The joys of scaling. (Third Coast Crossfit)

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Strength Endurance: 6 rounds

• Bench Press @ 70% (95#) x 12
• Max Rep Single Leg Ring Push-ups (scaled as needed)

I won't lie. This one was hard. One of my glaring weaknesses is my strength endurance. I'm pretty strong (depending on the activity), but my ability to maintain that output is rather limited. A workout like this highlights that weakness in the 2nd or 3rd round, then keeps hammering on it. While I wasn't entirely sure of my 1 rep max for bench press going into this workout, I had a good feeling about 95#. I warmed up to 135#, and realized I could only hit that for 3-4 reps, struggling a bit.  Checking out the chart, 70% of that was 95#.  Of course, hitting 3-4 reps in the warm-up implied my 1 rep max would be a bit heavier, but I had no illusions about my strength endurance.

I was starting to get positively buzzed with excitement as the workout started, and thought I might have put the weight too low when I cranked out the first twelve reps with ease. However, when I completed four single-leg ring push-ups (my first attempt ever) and promptly fell flat on my face, I knew I was going to be in trouble over the long haul. I switched legs, got another two reps and that was the end of round one.

Each round, the bench press got slower and seemingly heavier. The push-ups were ever more impossible, until I was finally just planching for a 10 second count, then doing however many standard push-ups brought me to failure, usually 2-3, tops.  The final round, I barely completed the 11th rep of the bench, needing help re-racking it after that, barely held the planche on the rings, and failed on my first push-up attempt. I spent a lot of face time on the floor during those 6 rounds...