Dynamic Bench Press

Today is my rest day, but I finished setting up my garage gym earlier and I’ve been doing some reading about things I wanted to try.

I’ve read a few things about dynamic effort days as opposed to max effort days and it seems really interesting. PowerWOD has some good info about it:

This method is defined as lifting a non-maximal load with the greatest speed possible. This method should be coupled with compensatory acceleration. This means you must apply as much force as possible to the barbell, i.e. pushing as hard and as fast as you can in the concentric phase of the lift. If you squat 700 pounds and are training with 400 pounds, then you should be applying 700 pounds of force to the barbell.

The weight used should be non-maximal in the 50% to 75% range.

I wanted to try it out with bench pressing because I benched for the first time in 5 years on Friday. Since I set a 215# PR on the bench press, I picked 125# for about 60%, where I’d focus my sets. You have to warm up so here is what I ended up doing (about 1 minute of rest between each set):

• 2 sets of 3 @ 45#
• 3 @ 65#
• 3 @ 85#
• 3 @ 105#
• 8 sets of 3 @ 125#

I tried to press up really fast, but probably didn’t do it right. Even though 3 reps at 125# isn’t very heavy, I could start to feel a little fatigue as the sets went on.

I was going a little nuts without doing a workout today, so at least I got in a little work and got to use the rack I put together earlier. Oh, I did walk 18 holes of golf this morning as a little active recovery.