Chapter 25 – Bench Press

“His kicking motion should generate power like this.”

“A bit faster, but it still seems off.”

“Is there a problem with the posture in the latter half?”

Lu Yuan followed the vivid memories of his battle with the middle-aged man in his consciousness. Those striking moments of the fight replayed in his mind.

He kept mimicking, practicing, and correcting.

He felt that his kicking speed seemed to have increased.

Each kick also became sharper and more powerful.

He had no idea how much time had passed.

“Whoo•”

Lu Yuan took deep, heavy breaths, his chest rising and falling as he gradually came out of the state of [absolute concentration].

Wiping the sweat off his forehead, the first thing he did was check his professional panel.

[basic leg techniques Level 4 (160/800)]

Lu Yuan was startled, then delighted.

He remembered that yesterday the experience points for Level 4 of his basic leg techniques were only fifty. Now it had reached one hundred and sixty.

Did he gain more than a hundred experience points from this session?!

“Having a benchmark for practice indeed speeds up progress. A few rounds of actual combat were also crucial.

There’s nothing clearer and more direct than getting hit up close as a teaching method.”

Lu Yuan attempted another kick.

Even after a long period of practice, with his stamina drained and his leg muscles feeling sore and numb, this kick still made a slight whooshing sound and was noticeably faster than before.

“The direction is right.”

A satisfied smile crept onto Lu Yuan’s face. “Now I just need to keep working hard in this direction.”

Lu Yuan glanced again at the increase in his professional experience, which seemed to have gone up by 10 points.

From this, he deduced that this practice session had lasted about an hour.

Just as he was about to ask Liu Yue for the time, he turned his head and noticed that most people in the training room were watching him.

Their expressions were somewhat peculiar.

Next to him, Liu Yue’s face was filled with admiration.

“Lu Yuan, you’re really amazing!”

Liu Yue’s round face blushed slightly, stars practically shining beneath her glasses. She said excitedly, “Those kicks you just did looked so cool!”

“Uh…”

Lu Yuan was momentarily stunned, then he realized what was happening.

It turned out that his leg techniques practice had “shocked” everyone around him.

It made sense.

The martial arts leg techniques he learned from the middle-aged man were honed in actual combat and were incredibly sharp.

With 11 strength points, using the correct force technique could even create gusts of wind with his kicks.

A group of beginners in the basic class would naturally be “stunned” by this.

A man in his thirties, wearing glasses, approached with a smile, holding a cell phone.

“Your leg techniques are really impressive. Can I add you on WeChat? We can chat when we have time.”

“Sorry, I didn’t bring my phone.”

Lu Yuan’s response left the glasses-wearing man awkwardly retreating. Then he turned to Liu Yue.

“How long did I practice?”

“One hour and seven minutes.”

Liu Yue answered without hesitation.

Lu Yuan asked her about the time almost every class, and she had gotten into the habit of timing his sessions.

It matched his estimation.

Lu Yuan then asked, “Didn’t Coach Lin come?”

“He did. He peeked in from the doorway, told us to practice by ourselves, and then left.

You were training at the time, so you probably didn’t notice.”

It seemed Lin Zhiqin was skipping this class again.

Even with Lu Yuan’s good-natured disposition, he couldn’t help but feel a bit critical of a coach like Lin Zhiqin, who had such an attitude.

However, Lin Zhiqin not showing up was convenient for another task Lu Yuan had in mind.

With that thought, Lu Yuan instructed Liu Yue.

“If Coach Lin comes, just tell him I have something to do and will miss half the class.”

“Okay, okay.”

Liu Yue nodded obediently.

As Lu Yuan reached the door, she suddenly remembered something and shouted at his retreating figure, “Water! You haven’t drunk water yet, Lu Yuan.”

But Lu Yuan had already disappeared in a flash.

Liu Yue looked at the vitamin energy drink she had specially prepared, feeling a bit disappointed as she pouted in the direction of the door.

Lu Yuan left the training room and entered the hall of the Yuan Martial Arts Gym.

He glanced around and quickly locked onto someone.

It was a young woman, probably in her early twenties.

She was wearing a blue T-shirt with the Yuan Martial Arts Gym logo and had a name tag hanging around her neck.

There were quite a few people like her in the gym, mainly responsible for reception and guidance.

Most of them were recruited from nearby universities, with a higher proportion of women.

“Hello, where is the device for testing punching power?”

As Lu Yuan approached, the girl was intently watching some male students working out in the strength training area. His question startled her.

“The device for testing punching power?”

Her face flushed slightly, and then she quickly pointed in a direction.

“Go straight this way and it’s on the left. Actually, I’ll just take you there.”

The girl led Lu Yuan to a spacious room filled with various training equipment.

This was also a training room, but it seemed much more advanced than the one in the hall outside.

“This is our advanced students’ training area. The punching power device is over there.

You can wait until they finish using it.”

The girl pointed to something that looked like a large standing sandbag and whispered to Lu Yuan, as if this were something against the rules.

“Thank you.”

Lu Yuan thanked the girl and then walked into the training room.

Three or four people, all young men and women, were gathered around the punching power device she had pointed out.

“Impressive, Ming Yu! This punch is at the fourth rank!”

“Haha, you think I train every day for nothing?”

“Let me test it next. Come on, let me try!”

They chatted and laughed, their expressions relaxed. When Lu Yuan entered, they glanced at him briefly before continuing to ignore him.

“Restricted to advanced students.”

Lu Yuan saw the sign posted on the wall and realized why the girl had whispered to him earlier.

“Advanced students. Cheng Peng is an advanced student, right? If anyone asks, I’ll just say I’m Cheng Peng.”

Feeling no guilt, Lu Yuan wandered around while the others occupied the punching power machine.

He noticed that the training equipment here was indeed varied.

There were specialized machines for training arm strength, wrist strength, and finger strength, some of which Lu Yuan couldn’t even figure out how to use.

In the center of the room, a large over 100-inch LCD TV was mounted on the wall.

The screen was continuously playing tutorials on basic fist techniques, leg techniques, and footwork.

Lu Yuan wandered around before finally stopping at a bench press machine. He tried it out, adding weight until he reached 130 kilograms, and he still felt he had strength to spare.

He felt a sense of reassurance.

Generally speaking, punching power is usually higher than bench press strength.

The former emphasizes explosive power for a brief moment, while the latter focuses more on sustained output strength.

Comparatively, Lu Yuan felt the bench press was a better metric for measuring overall strength.

This is because punching power heavily relies on technique.

An ordinary person who knows nothing about punching and an experienced boxer, with the same amount of strength, could have vastly different punching power results.

“A normal adult male with a strength point of 9 can bench press around 60 kilograms. I’ve already exceeded that by more than twice. The difference from these additional 2 strength points is even greater than I imagined!”

Lu Yuan was about to test his limits further.

Just then, the group of young men and women who had been gathered around the boxing power machine finished and started walking in his direction.

His eyes flickered for a moment, and he quickly stood up, heading straight for the boxing power machine.