Day one results and the world hasn't fallen to pieces yet

As mentioned in yesterday's post, it is my goal to increase my bench press up to 300 pounds. I've been stuck with a one rep max of 265 for a few years and I want to break that limit. I just started a 12 week program today.

The first week is easy. The maximum weight for standard bench press is 225 and the maximum weight for the incline bench press is 135. Bar dips were pretty easy. As for the dumbbell flies, it is unclear if the weight listed is total or per hand. If I don't get good results, I'll have to do this 12 weeks over again with the heavier weight for dumbbell flies.

I had no trouble completing the exercises. I just felt a little tired after the first few sets.  I did the following.

Standard bench. 225 at 5 reps. 205 at 4 reps. 185 at 5 reps.
Incline bench. 135 at 9 reps. 115 at 8 reps.
Bar dips. 13 reps. 7 reps.
Dumbbell flys. 60 total at 5 reps. 45 total at 6 reps. 30 total at 10 reps.

The schedule doesn't specify how many times you workout per week so I will be doing 3 per week for the next 12 weeks.

I'd feel a little lazy just posting about the progress of my workouts, so each time I record my progress, I'll also make a post about something else.

With the beginning of the new year, I'd come the the realization that I had been waiting to see if the world would end for the past 15 years. It all started in the months leading up to January 1st 2000. People were panicking about a computer glitch that would reset everything to the year 1900. I have a little laugh every time  I see the Y2K episode of Family Guy. You know that scene where at the stroke of midnight, a plane crashes, a train derails, a building falls over and then Peter says "Holy Crap. Did anyone else feel that?"

The world didn't end on January 1st and we were in the clear. At least until September of the following year. They say everyone remembers where they were when the twin towers collapsed. The days and weeks following that felt very uncertain. Would the economy fall over? Would there be more attacks? Would another world war start?

For the next few years, I remember hearing about a few natural disasters here and there but then in 2008, our country suffered the economic meltdown and the popping of the housing bubble. I remember being in economics class when the professor let us know the news. While it didn't affect me personally, a considerable amount of people lost a significant amount of their net worth and people had to delay retirements.

While talking to a lady at my chruch, she told me she lost $70,000 or $80,000 as a result of the incident.

Compared to the housing bubble, the next incident is laughable. I guess most people would have forgot about it but there was a christian talk show host that predicted the rapture would happen sometime in 2011. On the day it was supposed to happen, I was eating with a friend in Subway and I saw this one guy walk out of the restaurant with this head pointed to the sky and his hands lifted in the air as if he was expecting to be lifted off to heaven. I do also remember a lot of people committed rapture bombs that day.

They dropped clothes on the ground to make it look like people magically disappeared because of the rapture.

Lastly, the most recent incident where the world was supposed to end was December 21 2012. Actually scratch that. The Ebola outbreak earlier this year was the most recent thing I can recall.


So far, I'm very grateful that the world hasn't fallen to pieces yet. However, because of the last 15 years, I always have the feeling that it could come crashing down at any moment. It is for that reason that I avoid debt, long term obligations, and risky investments. The world is already uncertain enough. I don't need any more things to worry about that I do today.