Pressing

[clevermanka]

I am contemplating participating in the Kansas City Corporate Challenge with mckitterick and madmatmax for KU's weightlifting team. My decision depends on two things:

1. The deadline for registering is midnight tonight and not 5:00pm

because

2. I want to see what I can bench press now, pre-training, before I sign up to make an idiot of myself

I hate that they have bench press as the test for weightlifting, but I suppose that's safer than dead lifts or squats since there's less chance of people doin' it rong.

Their point system is (fortunately) based on the weight of the participant, so this is good motivation to get my arms back in shape and lose this last bit of extra fat hanging around my bottom half. To place in the lower third of last year's competitors*, I need to be able to press at least 80 pounds at my current weight (currently 63kg). The last time I did any sort of bench press was when I was using the Nautilus machines at Robinson back in the 90s. I have no clue what weight I was lifting then, so I can't even hazard a guess about what I could lift now.

At miischelle's salon this weekend, I discovered my arms and abs were even more atrophied than I'd thought. Not cool, since arms (obviously) and core (perhaps not so obviously) are crucial to benching a respectable weight. So. Yeah.

Pressure! Shame is a powerful motivator.

* I am fine being in the lower third. I just don't want to be in the bottom three overall.

Comments

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

I think you can do it!
I used to heft 75 lb boxes at the Bookstore on occasion, until I realized I had young, strong college men working for me.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I know I can lift eighty pounds. But can I bench eighty pounds? We'll find out tonight!

[redheadfae.livejournal.com]

True dat... I didn't think about the difference there.
I still think you can!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

You're right! I can! (see below)

some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[femfataleatron.livejournal.com]

As a female type human, if you do a strict push-up you are lifting approx. 71% of your weight (for the other type it's 77%). From the knees its about 55%(56% for Doods). You can confirm this on a scale, by weighing yourself in the appropriate position (hands on scale).
e.g. if you weigh 130 you're pushing 92ish pounds.
Tho there are a ton of small mitigating factors involved,
You can use the number of strict pushups you do to determine your one rep max(1RM) bench.
http://www.timinvermont.com/fitness/orm.htm
Here is a calculator to make it easy...

As a sort of check, this formula applied to me (based on the 9 push ups I just did) figures my 1RM bench as 318# which is about right.

However you will not really get better at benching by doing pushups. If you really want to bench well, you must... well, bench.
this can give an approxomation of your 1RM, for those of you playing at home.

Re: some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I was hoping you'd pipe up with information and pointers. Thank you!

I just tried a strict, on-the-toes push-up (thank goodness for private offices), and I can do four. The last two were shaky, yes, and my hips dragged a wee bit on the last one, but I got up to a locked position without letting my knees drop.

By that calculator, that puts my one rep max at 107 pounds (I weigh about 140 right now). That's pretty encouraging!

some other things to think about

[femfataleatron.livejournal.com]

It looks like you've got about 8 weeks to train...
depending on what equipment you have access to this is enough time to make a good showing. In this time you will get a good base neurological adaption, and some increase in muscle, depending on how you eat. Since you are essentially untrained on this exercise you can expect to to see an early progress spike that will start to plateau around 8 weeks. hmmmm. how do your shoulders feel?

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

My shoulders are great. That stupid joint injury from last October finally cleared up. I haven't had even a twinge in a couple weeks. \m/ >_< \m/

As far as equipment, I have minimal dumb bells, the TRX, and mckitterick is probably going to break out his old Bowflex-esque machine.

Re: some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[poincaraux.livejournal.com]

As a male-type human who weighs ~180 lbs, I just did 10 push-ups quite easily. The calculator tells you that my 1RM is 185 (using 180*0.77), which sounds like crazy talk.

When I bench, I can do three sets of 5 at 140 lbs, but I don't think I could reasonably do even one set of 6, so that puts my 1RM at 158, which seems a lot more likely.

Thinking a little more, 180*0.77 is 138.6, and I can absolutely guarantee you that, while I can do 10 strict form push-ups, I can not do a set of 10 at 138.6 lbs.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

My head just exploded from teh mathz.

[poincaraux.livejournal.com]

Punchline: I may be weird, but, although I can do ten pushups, I cannot do ten bench reps at 0.77 times my weight. So, while that calculator *might* have given you a useful number, I'd suggest just going to a gym and seeing what you can do.

And, like everyone else said, benching is actually really technical, so if you can get an expert to help your form, it'll make a huge difference.

Re: some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[femfataleatron.livejournal.com]

you should also check the .77 acuracy on a scale...It's just intended as a rough estimate. Obviously from the rest of comments you can see that the expected carry over is limited. Also calculators are based on a statistical mean, so they also nee to be checked with reality. When I used to do 1RM lifts regularly, they would vary pretty widely from one day to the next.
Sooo, I bet if you warmed up and were given some form adjustments you could surprise yourself. My guess is that you do push ups more often than you bench press?

Re: some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[poincaraux.livejournal.com]

Good call about checking it on a scale. I think I'd also like to write it out as a physics problem someday.

Your point about form adjustments is a good one. I've gotten a bit of coaching recently, and it's making a big difference (bigger in my squats so far, but I think that's related to a few other issues). On everything but bench, I'm still in the phase where I can consistently add weight to my max while doing 3 sets of 5, so I haven't really tested my 1RM. You could be right, and it could turn out that my 1RM is much higher than I think.

It sounds like you probably know more about all of this than I do, but I was mainly thinking that it'd be pretty unlikely for someone who hasn't had much (any?) bench press coaching to be able to bench as much as the calculator indicated.

Re: some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

Hm - I just tested that calculator, and it says that I should be able to bench 568 pounds. This is based on 30 push-ups (not quite to failure), and with the scale saying the weight I'm pushing near the bottom is 110 pounds. If I use the 77% calculator, it's 126 pounds, and I should be able to bench 650. Yeah, I don't think so ;-)

I wonder if it's only accurate up to a certain number of reps.

Re: some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[femfataleatron.livejournal.com]

After some testing it seems like any rep number over 10 yields weird results...
After some searching, here is a better one. It won't let you input numbers over 10. Oh well.
Maybe if you stood on your own back?

link

[femfataleatron.livejournal.com]

http://www.muscletech.com/resources/tools/calculators/rep.shtml

Re: some pushing up thoughts, as they relate to benching.

[mckitterick.livejournal.com]

That one looks much more realistic - now I need to toss some weight on my shoulders and go for max weight!

[miischelle.livejournal.com]

Oh Hey!
The next Salon is April 16th. Might be the last one for a bit too.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

It's in my planner! Thank you for letting me know.

[gamera-spinning.livejournal.com]

Luckily, for you, very little is impossible. As a sign of encouragement, I include my icon of Charmion (http://www.tampabay.com/multimedia/archive/00122/lat_strong0523_122385c.jpg), Victorian Strongwoman and general font of strength.

You can't fail by trying, because it shows you've got more guts than anyone else who wouldn't even try.

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

I'm not worried about failing. I'm worried about looking wimpy. I might not be competitive, but I am very, very vain.

[normalcyispasse.livejournal.com]

Man, those bench rules are INCREDIBLY lax!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

Dude, it's the Kansas City Corporate Challenge. What did you expect?

I'm just happy I can wear gloves so I don't risk getting a blister on my soft, soft hands.

[normalcyispasse.livejournal.com]

What's really crazy is that they allow bench shirts in the name of safety. That's just. . . well, misinformed at the very best. It's kind of like putting a teenager behind the wheel of a Ferrari, saying, "This will be safer because you can get out of the way if a homicidal semi driver tries to run you off the road."

AND elbow wraps? Good grief!

[clevermanka.livejournal.com]

By "safety," I think they mean "whatever the hell people want to wear so we'll get more participants."