Weight lifting for old folks

Today I would like to indulge myself a little by talking about
weight lifting, and bench-pressing in particular.

This Christmas will mark the 50th anniversay of receiving my
first 110 lb set of weights, I was 12 years old then and am
now 62 years old. When I was 52 I bench pressed 240 lb after
some moderate training, ( my best ever was 300 lb at the age of
37) more then moderate training is required when someone is
62, so after 3 months of regular training I had some aching in
my shoulders and could do a single with 215 lb.

(I'm, basically, a 165 lb weight lifter who weighs
180 lb, a little out of shape)

I decided that I had to take a weeks rest and redesign my
program to make it a little more age-appropriate. I rested the
week and came up with, what I think is the best bench press
routine that I've ever seen for old people, and maybe anyone.

Here is the routine and a few concepts behind the training:
Warm up with military presses, French presses, and lateral
raises with very light weights, I do sets of 3 with an
empty Olympic bar, 15 lb dumbells, and 5 lb dumbells.
I also do some work on the lat machine to warm up the
whole shoulder.
Here is the heart of the workout:
Do sets of bench presses with a pause of five breaths
between each set. I do 2 sets of 3, 1 set of 4, and 10 sets
of 6 reps with 100 lb. All sets are done at the some time with
5 breath plauses. The set of 4 is to make the reps come out to
an even 70, which is 7000 lb in all. The Idea here, is that work
makes muscle, remember the football players who work
construction in the summer and the stories of strong men who
delivered ice to homes.
This 7000 lb warm up with a light 100 lb will leave you
with a good pump and ready for only 4 remaining reps.
I do 4 single reps with 20 lb jumps, the last is a negative
rep, or what is known as an eccentric contraction. The
negative rep is done with a weight that is over your
maximum, it is held for a short time then lowered as
slowly as possible to the chest.
I have good safety boxes on each side of the bench, they
catch the weight when I move the bar from my chest
to over my neck at the end of the negative rep.
The height of the boxes is adjusted so I can turn my
head to the side and slid out from under the bar,
the weight remains on the safety boxes and has to
be partially unloaded and the bar placed back on the rack.
Recently I improved my best single to 220 lb, here is
the routine I used on that day:
Light shoulder warm up, 7000 lb work with 100 lb,
1 rep with 180 lb, 200 lb, 220 lb, and a 240 lb negitive.
I finished with 24 reps of 100 lb each and no pause, this
pumps the muscles at the end of the workout.

Finally this routine is done on a 10 day cycle.
Two light workouts with below-maximum attempts, after
two days of rest and a maxumum attempt workout after
three days of rest. The rest is important, you must allways
recuperate and give the muscles time to grow before
the next workout. This is even more important
for old-people like me.