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Weight
Training Routine & Lifting Weights Guide - Part 6 |
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Weight
Training Routine - Chest Muscle (Pecs)
So, you want to develop a thick and impressive
chest? Well, who doesn't? There are 2 components to the
chest muscle: pectoralis major and pectoralis minor muscles.
The pectoralis major lies on top of your rib cage, and the
pec minor lies under the pectoralis major muscle. Your pecs
attach near the shoulder joint, and originate on the breastbone
in the center of your chest. |
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Any type of pushing or hugging motion
will involve the chest muscles. For example, a pushup or
a dumbbell fly.
There are many different exercises you
can perform to develop your chest: bench press, incline
bench press, dumbbell press, cables flyes, db flyes, pec
dec, and more - but the grand daddy of it all is the flat
bench press. Almost by instinct, its the very first exercise
any beginner will head for their first time in the gym.
Strange, but true. ;-)
Another key chest exercise I rank way
up there with the flat bench press, is the incline dumbbell
press. It's a highly debated issue on whether different
levels of incline / decline works the chest in different
ways - although there isn't an upper or a lower chest muscle,
but different inclines and declines will target upper and
lower areas of the chest differently with different stress
levels.
You can build a "good" chest
with almost flat bench alone, however, if you want a fully
developed, and thick chest, you need to hit it from different
angles or inclines. Aside from just a thick chest, you also
need to develop your upper chest.
Note: I use the terms
"upper chest" and "lower chest" loosely,
because there really is no upper chest muscle or lower
chest muscle. There is only the pec major and minor muscles.
What I'm referring to when I say upper / lower chest is
just the upper area and the lower area of your entire
chest muscle.
If you just do flat benching and develop
a great lower section on your chest, it'll look saggy and
droopy. But if you also sport a great upper chest, you're
chest will look fuller and so much better. Just take a look
at Arnie's side poses - you'll see the height of his chest
due to the fantastic development of his entire chest.
The chest upper area, is also probably
more difficult to develop for most compared to the mid and
lower chest areas, simply because its not as thick, and
is more difficult to develop more strength for incline pressing
movements. At the sam time, incline bench pressing is probably
one of the worst exercises you can do to develop the chest.
Ok, in all fairness, maybe not the worst, but its not very
effective. In a study to measure the relative overload intensity
of common chest exercises conducted by Pete Sisco, here's
what he found:
- Straight arm Barbell Pullover 12.8%
- Nautilus® Machine Pullover 33.7%
- Flat Bench Cable Crossover 43.9%
- Dumbbell Fly 45.5%
- Incline Barbell Press 53.8%
- Nautilus® 10 Degree Chest 57.5%
- Unilateral Cable Crossover 70.2%
- Bilateral Cable Crossover 91.5%
- Decline Barbell Bench Press 96.9%
- Flat Barbell Bench Press 100%
As you can see, working down from flat
benching ranked at 100%, incline barbell bench press ranks
5th last at only 53.8%, which is a very good reason why
I don't do incline bench pressing very often. Unfortunately,
he doesn't have incline dumbbell benching in that list.
I bet if he did, dumbbell incline would rank high up with
flat bench and decline bench press.
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Chest Weight Training Routine
I don't have a huge bench compared to
most, but its decent. At 156lbs, I can flat bench 225lbs
for 3 reps. I'm not sure what my 1 rep max is, but my guess
is somewhere around 235 to 240lbs.
Again, I have a slightly different workout
for odd and even weeks. Take a look at the charts below:
Week 1, 3, 5 |
| Exercise |
Week 1 |
Week 5 |
Incline Dumbbell Press
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3 X 5, 5, 4 (90's) |
3 X 6, 3, 5
(90's, 100's, 90) |
Flat DB press
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3 X 4 (85's) |
2 X 5 (90) |
Weighted Dips
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2 X 5 (70) |
3 X 8, 6, 6 (70) |
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Week 2, 4, 6 |
| Exercise |
Week 2 |
Week 6 |
Bench Press
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3 X 5, 5, 4 (225) |
3 X 5 (225) |
Incline Dumbbell Press
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2 X 4 (90, 85's) |
2 X 5 (90) |
Hammer str. Decline
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3 X 6, 6, 5 (270) |
3 X 6 (290) |
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As you can see, on odd weeks, I did incline dumbbell press,
flat dumbbell press, and then weighted dips to finished
- so mostly dumbbell work. On even weeks, I start off with
flat bench pressing, incline dumbbell press, and finish
with hammer strength machine decline presses.
I'm a big fan of dumbbell pressing, if you haven't noticed.
Dumbbell presses offer a fuller range of motion, and another
dimension is added into each rep - balancing. With dumbbells,
your stabilizer muscles comes allot more into play to just
balance the dumbbells. Which is why most will find that
they can't dumbbell press as much as they can barbell press.
But give it a little time, and your dumbbell press can be
just as impressive as your barbell bench press.
Chest Workout - Shoulder Warmup
I warmup slightly different for odd and even weeks. Mainly
because I perform different exercises for the chest. But
I always start off by warming up the shoulders and the rotator
cuffs. I grab a set of 5lb dumbbells, and do 8 to 10 reps
of side laterals, front raises, and presses. Then I slowly
make large circles with my arm, 6 reps rotating forward,
and 6 reps rotating backward - this is done with both arms.
The following is done after my shoulders are warmed up.
Week 1, 3, 5 chest warmup
I start with dumbbell incline presses, so this is where
I warmup. At the start of my program, i could do 90's for
4 to 5 reps without much problem. I had attempted 100's
once before, but was unsuccessful. But by week 5, I had
managed to crank out 2 full reps with 100's. Here's how
I warmup to 100's.
- I do a set with 40lb dumbbells for 8 to 10 reps
- I do a set with 60lb dumbbells for 8 reps (sometimes
6)
- I do a set with 80lb dumbbells for just 2 reps
- Then I pick up either the 90's, 95's, or 100's, whatever
weight I'm using for that day, and perform 3 sets.
Week 2, 4, 6 warmup
I start with barbell bench press, so I warmup on this.
Here's how I warmup to 225lbs.
- I do a set of 12 reps with just the bar
- I load up 1 plate each side (135lbs) and do 10 reps
- I add a 25lb plate each side (185lbs) and do 6 reps
- Finally, I take off the 25lb plates, and add another
45lb plate, and do my regular 3 sets
After the warmups are done, I go on and perform the remaining
chest exercises as listed in the charts above.
I think the exercises listed are pretty straight forward,
so I won't describe them. But a quick word on weighted dips.
You want a fully developed chest, right? To get the fullness
of the lower and outer chest, weighted dips work fantastic.
It maybe hard to perform for beginners, especially if your
triceps are weaker. But give it time, and it'll catch up.
The more forward you lean when doing dips, the more your
chest will get involved, and less so for your triceps.
Start with just your own body weight, and if you have a
tough time working with your own body weight, you can either
use a spot to help give you a light spot either by holding
your waist or your knees. Or, if your gym has one of those
dip / chinup machines which helps lighten your weight, use
that. Eventually, you can work your way up to adding
additional weights. At a light weight of 156lbs, dips using
my body weight doesn't do much for me, and I've worked my
way up to adding another 70lbs doing weighted dips.
Your gym should have a weight belt - I'm not talking about
those for back support. These belts hang loosely around
your waist, and have a metal chain attached to it. Put the
belt on, and wrap the chain around the weights, and you're
set. If you're not sure how to use the weight belt, just
ask for some assistance. ;-)
>> Continue
to part 7 (back muscle) |
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