jay and I are the same age, almost to the day, I believe, I am a little bit smaller than Jay, and I have only been powerlifting for 7 months, but I will throw in my two cents for another perspective on how long it takes to get to 500.
In July 2001, I entered my first bench meet weighing 215 lbs, not having trained as a powerlifter ever in my life, and benched 365 wearing an Inzer poly blast shirt. I put up 450 before the end of 2001, having lost a month of training due to a horrible vasectomy incident, which nearly caused me to bleed to death in September/October. A word of caution to the huddled masses, don't go in for an elective surgery while on the gear. It causes weird shit to go on with your blood volume and clotting factors. I hit 475 in February 2002, and hope to put up 500 in one of my next two meets. If I don't get 5 bills this Saturday, the 16th, it will only be because they changed the shirt rules on us. I will be lifting again in May, and 500 will fall, in the 220 class. If I get it on the 16th, it will be in the 242 class.
If I get 500 Saturday, then you could say that I got to 500 in 8 months. But I have been lifting weights for almost 10 years, and could bench 365 paused, before I ever took up powerlifting. So it is hard to say. I benched 255 while weighing 155 in high school. Only working out during football season. If I had taken up powerlifting and used Westside from the time I was 17 until now, Hell, I might be up around or over 600 myself. But I did not do that, and we will see where I am at in 5 or 10 years.
Cubanito, 500 in 3 years will be a tough chore. Maybe you can do it, maybe not, but you won't know till you try. It is much easier for me to say I will bench 500 this year, or for Jay to say I will bench 650 this year than it is for a 275 lb bencher to say I will bench 500 in 3 years. That is because for Jay and me, those particular numbers are right around the corner. Do what you want, but if I was benching 275, I would not be able to think about anything except for joining that 300 club, if I did 300, I would break my neck getting to 325, then 350 and so forth. You need to see yourself as a 500, 600, 700 lb man, but you also need to seek intermediate goals.
I have set a lifetime goal of a 600 bench, a 800 lb squat and a 550 deadlift. But the closer I get to a 500 lbs bench, the more I think, I need to punch that number up. I am sure that the day I bench 600 (Which will be July 4th weekend, 2003 for anyone that wants to go to Eufala Cove and witness, by the way), I will not be thinking of quitting, I will be thinking of 626, because 625 is the State and World record in the organization that puts on that meet.
I know that this was a long way around the barn, but I hope that the point gets across. Keep hammering away, have a long term goal in the back of your mind, but realize that to reach that goal, you are going to have to overcome many, many short term goals en route to getting there.
B
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