12-02-20: Bench press and push-ups

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, February 20th, 2012

Floor press - We did these with an empty bar as part of our warm-ups.

Rip! Mark Rippetoe coaches Eva T. on the finer aspects of the bench press.

Stop smiling and go for another rep already!

Push-ups. You know you hate them.

Push-ups. He knows you hate them, too. That's why he's punishing you with them. 

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• Strength: Max Rep - Bench
  
  • 85% = 175#
  • 87% = 180#
  • 90% = 185#
  • 92% = 195#
• Sellout: 2min
• Max Rep Push-ups

After a new warm-up, including workout-specific bits (floor presses, shoulder pass-throughs), we reviewed the finer points of the bench press. Scapula should be retracted together, providing a firm stable base on the bench, there should be a small arch in the lower back, but the butt has to stay on the floor.  The goal in the work sets was to work to failure on each round, trying for the maximum number of reps. Rest two minutes, then do it again with a little more weight.

I felt really good about every set. There's something nice about sets with a competent spotter (Thanks Woody!), where you can really go to failure and not be *too* concerned about dropping the bar on your face. 

Bench %	Weight	Reps
85%	175#	9
87%	180#	7
90%	185#	5
92%	195#	3

After all the benching, it was time to do as many push-ups as possible in 2 minutes. Thought we had the option to do scaled after failing out on strict, I opted to go strict the whole way through. This was motivated by a somewhat recent workout when my push-ups were embarrassingly non-existent. As such, it was time to do some real work. After banging out 10 reps (which felt pretty good), I had to break things up into smaller bites.Total reps? 23.