Come To The Bench

The above incline weight bench was bequeathed to me from a neighbor that I will call "Rambo" when I lived the town east of where I am now. He was a body-builder and when he pushed the lawnmower looked like a colossus striding the earth. 

He shared an abiding and mutual hatred of groundhogs and operationalized the hatred from theoretical to practical through his acute skills in hoisting his 22 rifle out the back bathroom window of his domicile and pegging said diabolical creatures in their foreheads as they peered out of their holes. The poor vermin never saw it coming which preserved a serene look on their face when in state. The day just seemed so promising to ravage my and others' gardens.

My history with lifting weights goes back about 40 years. My dad purchased a set of concrete weights covered by plastic and a wobbly weight bench in my early teen years. We didn't have a basement so it had to either go up to the attic, which became infernal or cold depending on the season, or the garage which would just be cold, with the warmer seasons being OK. In retrospect, the equipment needed to be in the garage year-round. It wasn't. It stayed up in the attic. Truly the worse place possible.

Here is the deal. It was never an ideal place to lift. Too hot, too cold, too crowded with other stuff. So, it just sat for years unused. When I entered my Master's program back up here in God's Country, I brought the bench and weights up. And added some dumbbells through Christmas present acquisitions. My lifting became more consistent but my form was poor. Leading to serious back-spasms. I was playing rugby at the time and couldn't figure out why my back was hurting. This lack of good form, as a result of a poor weight bench, actually went back to my West Chester days of after college and before grad school.  I apparently was too daft to connect cause and effect. You'd think I could ascertain the variables and take corrective action. Nope.

When lifting weights, it is crucial that the back is centered and supported. The old bench press bench was good for one thing, sort of. Bench Press. 95% of the other lifts, it is just the wrong equipment. Anatomically-incorrect. The Incline Bench is the way to go and move the bench press movement to push-ups, which is a lot safer anyway due to the fact that I often lift without a spotter. Much easier to collapse in exhaustion with the floor below rather than the bar above.

More to come next week on these thoughts. That is it for now.