What are your exercises for building a big solid looking chest?
What's your training style and rep range what's had the best results?
Lets name and shame those chest exercises for super growth
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What are your exercises for building a big solid looking chest?
What's your training style and rep range what's had the best results?
Lets name and shame those chest exercises for super growth
I'll be following this thread! I do all the basics and mix things up a lot, but always looking for fresh ideas.
Here's one chest exercise I really like...
Push ups with a plate loaded across my shoulders. When I reach failure I dump the plate and push out amrap at bodyweight alone. I love it because I can do it without a spotter, and using just one 45# plate is good for me. I imagine for you big guys it would take a stack of weights on your shoulders!
Basic exercises work the best for me. Well, I train in my basement so basic is all I got anyway so it's a challenge to constantly find new ways to hit body parts and increase intensity and motivation. HIT training spurred the most growth in me over the years. Currently changed things up to more volume training for a change of pace.
Overall it's just the basic exercises for me:
Incline bench
Dumbell flats or inclines
Flyes. Not a wide stretch fly but more of a Dallas McCarver style if that helps.
I don't flat bench anymore. Haven't in years. Never was a great movement for me anyway. For me it's pace, drop sets, RP's and any other way to increase intensity. I never have a spotter so you do what you have to do. I really need to start going to a gym to try out other equipment now and then.
Now your talking! Something exciting!Quote:
Originally Posted by marcus300
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I am just the opposite. I have used volume training and I am just getting my feet wet to HIT.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelkel
I use compound and isolation exercises. I am focusing on the upper chest. Too me, the upper chest gives you the deeper look in the chest. When I do incline presses, I bring it to the bottom of my throat and not the chest.
When I do dB presses, I hold them at a 30 degree at the chest and then bring them up parallel.
I have had success with 15,12,10,8 reps and supersets. Usually a compound with an isolation.
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I use to do a lot of flat BB benching while I was powerlifting but I haven't BB bench pressed for over 20 years and don't miss it at all. It never really development my chest in a way I wanted it to, but I did have immense results from flat DB press were I would slightly angle the bells inwards on the upward movement.
I've always used db's for growth with chest and also I've mainly just used HIT. My chest responds well to weight and I much prefer incline pressing which targets most of my chest anyway.
I can do a chest workout in less than 40 mins and feel like ive been wrestling with a brown bear.
You have a supurb upper chest charger!Quote:
Originally Posted by charger69
I'm sure the brown bear feels like he wrestled with a Marcus too...Quote:
Originally Posted by marcus300
I also like decline db press with serious weight. For some reason I'm extra strong on these and they really fill the muscle up with blood. Like doing pre exhaust with flyes
I've got a wee totie chest in comparison but I particularly like flat db bench. And flat plate loaded press.
I'm a lot stronger in dumbbells and feel like I get more out of them over barbell. Wrists And shoulders sit nicely
Going to try incline bench soon. Lots of people have good things to say
Incline is were it's all happening, get on it and make sure you lock your shoulders in when pressingQuote:
Originally Posted by hollowedzeus
I like some volume in my chest. Fly movements and cable cross overs give me insane pumps.
LmfaoQuote:
Originally Posted by kelkel
What kind of volume do you attack your chest with?Quote:
Originally Posted by i_SLAM_cougars
Do you do any compound movements?
Ill star out doing like 6 sets of incline dumbbell presses, but only the last 2 sets I would really consider working sets. Something is going on with my right shoulder, so I’ve been warming up like a 60 year old man. So something in the rep range of 20/15/15/12/6/4-6 (wherever I fail at).Quote:
Originally Posted by marcus300
Then Flat or decline Dumbell presses in much the same manner. If I feel good I’ll lose a warm up set.
At this point my chest is pretty well smoked for strength, I don’t take long rest periods, so I’ll go into flys and do like 4 or 5 drop sets, where my only rest is taking the dumbbells back to the rack to grab lighter ones.
Wrap up with dips, or cable cross overs, just to fill up the rest of the way and make all the veins come to life. This is usually pretty light as there is just no gas left in the tank at this point.
I guess I should have specified that when I said I get more out of the fly type movements, I meant in terms of a mind/muscle connection, and pump. Not raw strength or anything. I don’t think anyone flies more than they press.
My chest session are quite simple and straight, after warming up I just sit at the adjustable bench for about 30 minutes.
I go with 30 incline first, 2-3 sets warm up and 1-2 working. Add 2 sets flies to that. Then set to 45 incline, maybe controversial but I feel like this degree hits the very upper fibers and clavicular pecs.
#4 exercise is DB decline, 1-2 sets. Last I finish with couple sets of flat flies, these prove quite difficult but leave nothing left.
Do you experiment with different rep ranges or movements HH?Quote:
Originally Posted by hammerheart
I spent several weeks experimenting with all the equip available at gym but found that DB presses and flies are what target and isolate pecs best.Quote:
Originally Posted by marcus300
Rep range I would always stay 10ish at failure mark, but sometimes I fancy going heavier at lower rep range to stimulate strength.
If pulling a 2nd set, I need to drop weight, can't rep same again. I guess a nice idea to implement would be to use RP so that to go past failure on 1st set, and move to next exercise.
Sometimes I don't even finish the above routine, yesterday f.ex I was so done after the incline flies I swear I couldn't squeeze pecs for a pose, had to terminate session there. Quite sore today.
This routine has been enough effective so far, I'm improving albeit slowly...
Nice to hear and keep me updated on your progress HH :)Quote:
Originally Posted by hammerheart
Bump
If you are pushing some serious weight on chest and finding it hard to apply progression overload principle then TUT ( time under tension) its an excellent way to add further stress and intensity to your workouts to increase size. Its also great if you're suffering an injury because you can drop the weight and slowly introduce TUT training and still experience gains.
How slow are reps performed with TUT training? When training chest reps would take ~6 sec.
Try strict barbell declines.Quote:
Originally Posted by hammerheart
Nothing activated the entire pec like decline
Decline and heavy DB flat bench are 2 best chest movement out there.
I have to agree with the barbell decline being the best exercise. Dumbbells for the rest of chest exercises for me.
Damn, I'm going to have to try some decline work again. Haven't done them in years.
When doing TUT I prefer exploding on the positive part but still taking a few seconds and my main focus is on the eccentric phase of the rep were I really slow this part down. Once I concentrated on the eccentric phase my whole body went thicker and more dense so I incorporated it in any of the training protocols I use.Quote:
Originally Posted by hammerheart
For me it’s pec deck flies, 8-12 Rep range, 5 second iso hold on top of contraction for first 6 or so reps each set. This changed my chest game.
Yes Marcus concentrating on the negative stroke of the movement was a game changer for me as well especially for my arms.