thoughts // bench press

its late, im sleepy, and i have things to do that are of much more importance than this post right now. however, there is something on my chest (no pun intended), that i really want to talk about. not because it is some deep subject, but because it has gained a great deal of importance to me and i am unabashedly excited about it.

if you read back in my archives you would find an 18 before 18 list. it was 18 things i thought i wanted to do before i turned 18 (less than 3 months from my birthday and hardly any are still a goal and few are accomplished). one of those goals was to bench press 135 lbs. as the year went on i discovered how weak i was on the bench press. i stopped implementing the bench press in my work outs because i didnt think it was a really important chest movement (boy was i wrong in that assumption! my pectoral muscles have developed a great deal since utilizing the bench press). in august, i realize that i was never going to reach my 135 lbs goal if i didnt create a plan and follow through with it. so i created a 20 week training program in attempt to help gradually build the strength to bench press 135 pounds for 2-3 repetitions.

on monday i will begin week 9 of training and i cannot express to you how extremely excited i am to reach my 135 pound goal. a 135 bench would be my body weight. i would basically be bench pressing myself. (boom. is your mind exploding?). week 9 consists of 1 warm up set, 1 light set, 2 sets at 85 pounds for 10+ repetitions, and 1 set at 95 pounds for 8-10 repetitions on monday and thursday. in week 10 (the week i am so inexplicably excited about) the first training session (on monday) will be a max out session. what i mean by that is that i will gradually add weight to the bar each set until i cant push the bar back up. the second session will be normal.

this max out session is what has me excited. i am one thousand percent confident that i can hit 115 pounds. i know it, i can feel it. can I hit 125 pounds? can i hit 135 pounds? thats the question. if i hit 115, i will be happy. but i am shooting for the stars. i will keep adding weight until i cant press it anymore. the anticipation is killing me. curiosity. (of course i could decide to max out on tomorrow, but i want to be sure that i am as ready as i can be.)
i keep picturing myself hitting 135 pounds on monday, october 5th. my gym partner josh yelling confidence in my ear, me channeling all my strength to push that weight back up. 1...2...3..., me crying out with each repitition (its been proven that yelling while lifting makes you stronger). slamming the bar back against the rack when i finish. jumping up, not giving a frickle frackle that i am screaming with excitement. tears probably coming to my eyes because i actually did it.

oh please, please please please, let me hit 135 pounds on week 10. please.

i havent wanted something so badly before. i have never had a goal that i wanted to reach, and had such passion inside me to accomplish it. i have never worked so diligently to reach a goal in my weight lifting career until this.
no one knows how deeply excited, passionate, driven, i am when it comes to this particular goal. no one knows how my heart beats a little faster when i think about this bench pressing 135 pounds.

if you arent a weight lifter, i am sure that this sounds silly (if youre a really strong girl who can already bench this much, you probably think its silly too). but to me, it is one of those things that i am blessed to be excited about. it is something that God gave to me to be passionate about.
if when i reach this goal (whether it be on october 5th or december 14th) it will be only because God allowed me to. it will only be because of his never-ending and unlimited grace upon me. some of you may not understand that. but i believe i can only lift weights in the gym the way i do because God gave me the muscles to do so. (thats one of the reasons i lift, because God gave me the muscles to do it).

i am so excited. so beyond, so speechlessly excited for the next two weeks of weight lifting. i will most definitely let you know how week ten goes.