Lifted to much

[LiftHardOrDontLiftAtAll]

Well all of my years of hard training finally paid off. I actually managed to influence a friend of mine to come to the gym. He was always interested in bodybuilding but never followed through with it. So he asked me the other day if he could come to the gym with me. I said hell yes lets go pump some iron. Well I set him up with a basic routing and told him to experiment with different weight to find out what is best suited for him. For the first half hour he was doing fine. He kept questioning me about my bench press. He was impressed that I bench 415 for 3 sets. I said it took me years to get here. I had left for a few minutes and he continued with his work out. Came back only to find out he had been crushed by the barbell. Several people rushed to his aid to get the damn thing off of him. Stupid fuck injured his shoulder and is now in an arm sling. Told him only lift what you can lift. But he said everyone else around him was curling this or pressing that. And he felt stupid. Only to find out lifting to heavy and getting injured now he should feel stupid. I will admit I made the same mistakes when I started lifting. Everyone else was a lot stronger so I tried to do what they did only to injure myself. Figured may as well look dumb benching 75 pounds than get injured and not be able to bench zero. Just thought I would share this esp with begginers. Bottom line: leave your ego at home. Anyone else have any similar experiences?

 

[Robboe]

'leave the ego at home' = excellent advice.

Good post.

 

[Onenameleft]

I was lucky having a good experienced workout partner when I started. I can remember doing my 'heavy' sets with 115 on the bench and then putting 225 on for him to crank out 8 or 10 to get good and warm. He made sure I never tried to catch up with him just to be lifting the same weights and encouraged me to just make sure I was doing as much as I could. We still have to change the weight between sets, but we both leave sore, and I'm gaining on him. I can't imagine being pinned under a weight.. That would suck. You're right. It just takes time, and lifting what you can and you keep getting stronger.