Incline bench press

On most days you head to the gym and ‘do the right thing’. You take out your training log, follow the reps and sets, add a little more weight than last week and walk out the door feeling pretty darn good about yourself. Other days, you’re not quite ‘feeling it’ and you spend less time deadlifting and more time chatting up the hot chick in the squat rack. Hey, it happens.

Get Crushed

Then there are some days you just walk into the gym feeling extra pumped and super focused. Sure you could bang out your regularly scheduled training program. Hell, the way you’re feeling you could probably hit a couple of PR’s. But, today, you’re same-old training program just won’t do. You want to tackle something tough. You want a challenge. You want to train so hard that you crawl out of the gym. You want to GET CRUSHED.

Lucky for you, we’re here to help. Each week we’ll give you a tough, one-off workout that you can try when you are looking for the ultimate training challenge of just feel like you need a break from your regular routine. But be warned, this training program will leave you totally CRUSHED.

Click to next page for the workout.

Bench press 11 05

Everyone loves to bench press, right? Well, after this workout, it may be a few weeks before your glutes ever want to touch a bench again. Load 60-65% of your 1RM onto the bar (of course, warm up as needed first). Your goal is to complete as many sets of 8 reps of the bench press, resting as little as needed between sets.

You have 25 minutes to bang out as many sets of 8 as possible. And don’t feel bad if you have to start taking some rest within each set as time ticks by. And if answering questions in class, hailing a taxi or anything else that requires raising your arms for the next week is important to you, you may want to think twice about taking this on.

The Workout

Barbell Bench Press

Max sets x 8 reps x 25 minutes

Score is the total number of sets you complete within 25 minutes. Let us know how you did in the comments section below.

Dan Trink is a personal trainer, strength coach and nutritional consultant based in New York City. To find out more about Dan visit his website.