Date: April 11th, 2020
I'm sure you all love working on chest muscles, and you're not guilty of it, pushing your head further out of the womb that the ultimate masculine trait is well-developed chest muscles (either that or a really big jeep). From comic books by Super Man and other cartoonists who like to wear their underwear over their pants and fly in bodysuits, to action movies that always feature the bare-chested hero (usually with some smear in ketchup / blood / lie), and the main culprit is Arnold... Arnold gave birth to generation after generation of people who do not like to do anything other than squeeze a chest. Over the years it has simply become a measure of masculinity among people who practice. The most common question in the world of gyms is "how much are you pushing" (because, God forbid, anyone would be interested in something like leg workouts, are just leg-working girls right? The article writes eye roll and fights the urge to vomit)
If you didn't understand this "moving" introduction, I hate chest training. More than that, I even despise them. If it wasn't possible to work a chest at all, my life would have been more beautiful, but for the past two years I had found myself getting more and more involved with my chest training because it was lagging behind my arms and shoulders, so I had to find a way to improve it. So over those two years I became a Doctor (with a fake certificate bought in Eastern Europe) for chest workouts, and as always, I decided to share my conclusions with you in a nice article.
Chest is big muscle or small muscle?
So like this: By the general view and perception, chest is a big muscle and also gets treated accordingly, but I look at it a little differently. Although a muscle that takes up a lot of space on our torso, it is quite simple relative to a big muscle isn't it ?! The total consists of two heads: Majoris and Minoris. With me it always got a treatment like the shoulders, of a muscle that is "in the middle" not exactly big muscle and not exactly small muscle, and the attitude accordingly and also the distribution of sets:
You will never find me giving more than 10-12 sets of chest workouts in regular workouts, and in power repetition ranges I will even say that I do something like 6-8 sets.
So what to choose? Rods, dumbbells or machines?
There is a lot of debate about this, but as I said in previous articles, a smart bodybuilder knows how to utilize every element of the gym to move forward, for its advantages and disadvantages.
Free weights are the classic option for chest work (and just about any other muscle) in the gym. Their most significant benefit is the total amount of weight you can lift. Definitely you will be pushing more weight in a free pole than the dumbbells or the machine, and it is much easier to get to a starting point with a free pole (I will address this point precisely when I talk about working in the dumbbells). The big disadvantage of free weights, working with the two-arm pole works together, and the load is divided evenly (because there is always one stronger hand controlling the movement). Over time this can lead to disproportion at best, and injury at worst.
Dumbbells is another old-school option. The advantage of the dumbbells over a freestanding rod is a freer range of motion (which is uncomfortable for everyone), enabling both a better chest tightening and a higher quality contraction of the chest at the end of the movement, but the dumbbells also have quite a few drawbacks. First of all, the fact that each hand moves on its own requires more attention and awareness of movement. Incorrect movement when you hold a significant amount of weight in each hand can most likely end in injury. Another drawback of dumbbells is the very preparation of the exercise (although not valid for everyone), it's not a problem that will happen to you when working with 20-pound dumbbells, but when you practice with 40-50-pound dumbbells and above, just get into the position you start the exercise takes lots of energy from you. Just bringing the dumbbells and swinging them to a starting position will cost you at least two reps (in theory).
These machines are an option for the new generation, and the hard core of the trainees (during my less enlightened times I was part of this core) is disqualifying them out of hand. The machine has many advantages. The machine is safer than free weight, simpler to operate, and gives you the option to focus much better on the target muscle without involving stabilizing muscles (which is also a disadvantage). The downside of machine work is that when a manufacturer of sports products designs a machine, it takes an average person structure and builds the machine according to this data, in what it believes is a "normal person." You don't really take into account very tall or very low people or with very short or long arms, and most often the machine locks you in a range of motion that is unnatural and unhealthy to you. You have to be very picky about working with machines.
So what to do at a gym?
After going through what our options are, how exactly do we build a beneficial training program for our chest?
What are the weak spots in our chest? What are we missing?
The most common weakness that can be encountered in the chest muscle is the upper chest. I didn't get to see many people who had "excess" of the upper chest, and this problem begins in the early years of their training. Except for the purple-headed individuals who have tried to learn a bit beyond what the guys are talking about, a lot of trainers don't work on their upper chest at all until they (if at all) get into the field of bodybuilding.
My general advice for those with a weak upper chest is to start any upper chest pressure training with more freshness and energies at peak. That way you can really exhaust your upper chest to the fullest.
Flat chest press:
The mother and father of chest exercises. No exercise has survived the years better than this exercise, and there are good reasons. This is one of the best exercises to measure strength for the torso, as loads of upper body muscles participate in chest compressions (directly or indirectly). The chest itself, the back hand, the shoulders and even a little back. But this exercise, like any other complex exercise, has a considerable risk of injury. It is very important to maintain proper technique in this exercise, mainly because of the sensitive position the shoulders are in, and, of course, because the technique is spoiled, the chance that you will actually activate the target muscle at the peak of efficiency.
So how to do it? After removing the rod from the rig, the rod should drop to your nipple line (although this issue varies a bit from person to person). Be sure to slow down and exploding upward movement. Grip width is also a matter of debate, but in general a little more than shoulder width is the ideal grip.
How far to lower the rod down? I personally recommend not lowering the bar up to your chest, too, because it forces you to concentrate more on the negative part of the movement and keep it under constant scrutiny, and also more suitable for the general population. Not everyone can go down to the chest because of their structure (long arms or just discomfort in doing so). I personally recommend stopping the rod about 3-4 inches from the chest.
My personal preference is to do my flat pressing with the dumbbells, as I feel the chest work more like this, and I can play more with the angles of my elbows and take some load off my shoulders (who have been injured more often).
About clicking on an incline?
The same rules apply to the upper chest as in the flat chest, except for the point at which the rod is lowered. Pressing the chest with a positive slope lowers the bar slightly below the neckline.
Place and Cross Moves:
I have to admit that I really like to use cross cable, why? Because it is a very varied exercise for the chest (it can be performed from top to bottom for a different angle of stimulation), and for me, the most important thing is that in this exercise I can concentrate more than any other exercise on a very high quality contraction of the chest. The cable allows you to control the negative part of the movement in a very controlled way, since you are actually going against the pulley and not against gravity.
Basic rules that apply to both Place and Cross: It's not a press, so don't turn it into a press. Always make sure to move the arm as one unit, but it will bend slightly at the elbow. You don't want to go crazy with the stretch because a little more serious weight can (and probably really will) end in a rupture.
So how is a breastfeeding program supposed to show good results?
I am a big believer in exercise rotations, so for every muscle I write two workouts on paper and do them "week-week" rotation.
Chest Training A:
- Upper chest pressure in rod
- Chest pressing flat in dumbbells
- Cross cable
Chest Training B:
- Upper chest in dumbbells
- Flat chest in rod / machine
- Place on the slope of your choice
Don't look too much right? And that's because your chest doesn't need too much. It's not like a leg or back workout that has a lot of muscle groups that are distributed in the stimulus, it's one muscle that has limited endurance. After all, the most significant factor in growth is recovery, you have to work on your chest in a way that it can recover.
The amount of sets is a matter of choice, but my favorite division is 5-4-3 which means the first exercise is five reps of which there are only 3 reps of actual work, in the second exercise four reps when in practice only 3 reps of the exercise The third 3 reps. A total of 9 sets, but if you've worked hard enough and strong enough, you really don't need any more.
Wish a lot of success!
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