Weight Lifting has been part of my exercise life since high school and one of the basic and main exercises for me is the bench press for the chest.  You perform it on a flat bench on your back with a barbell or dumbbells pushing it over your chest.  One of the things that has changed for me is the amount of repetitions I can do with the barbell at 135 pounds.  Ten years ago I could do ten reps and presently I can do three!  I’m the only one that probably cares about this but it does sort of bother me.

Ten years ago I didn’t do martial arts which I do now and usually before I do my chest exercises at the gym.  Maybe doing this physical activity before weight lifting makes me weaker on chest days in the gym.  Or maybe it’s that I’ve added dumbbell bench presses to my chest days  which have affected my barbell bench presses.  Ten years ago I did just barbell on chest days and no dumbbells so this could have influenced it.  I’m probably stronger one-armed than I was ten years ago so this is good.  Something else that is different  now is I do my weights solo without a workout partner to force reps.  At Spiece, frequently I would have a spotter who forced a few reps and this could have helped.

With everything I do for physical fitness now I bet I have more “practical” chest strength with all the straight punches I do in Taekwondo sparring and group fitness classes I never did ten years ago