BUILD A BIG CHEST
Something about this article kinda feels like Monday...
Don't know what exactly...
...Wait I remembered!
MONDAY IS INTERNATIONAL CHEST DAY, MY BRUDDAHS!
Pretty much a holiday, an ever-revolving celebration that allows us to rejoice by pumping the Broest of the Bro's muscles, THEM CHESTICLES!
Ever since Arnold showed up in Hollywood with a chest so big you could mix cement on, all them kool cats started, well, actually, MIXING CEMENT, and making their own makeshift weights to bench press on their front porch looking to build a HUGE CHEST like him.
Today we're going to explore the SWEET SCIENCE of building a large, complete chest, I said COMPLETE because we're going to see some strategies to really bring your UPPER CHEST to the game, so you can look absolutely NASTY wearing a V-neck, or nothing at all.
This post is part of a series on hypertrophy for each body part, here's what is ready so far:
BUILD BIG LEGS (In production)
BUILD A BIG BACK (In production)
General considerations.
Chest building is SUPER SIMPLE, it can be as simple as "Do lots of heavy bench presses", and it works, just look at all them Powerlifters walking around with GIANT TITS & ASSES from squatting and benching as heavy as possible— the problem with this approach is that I find it not really sustainable unless you're blessed with bulletproof shoulders— if you keep smashing on the bench for long enough without adding some variation, your shoulders will start to complain on the long run.
So to ensure MAXIMUM HYPERTROPHY we can implement a few strategies other than just banging the heaviest bench possible.
The thing is the PECTORALIS MAJOR only has two patterns of muscle fibers, the sternocostal head AKA Middle & Lower chest, the muscle fibers that attach to your ribcage, and the clavicular head AKA Upper chest, the muscle fibers that attach to your clavicle, that's why decline work is really pointless— some people believe you need to target the chest flat, inclined, and declined, but in my experience, if you hit the chest hard flat and inclined, there's no need to decline work, to me, it's equivalent to doing crunches for abs— what's covering the details is just fat— hence your chest outline will come with dieting and not training.
Volume considerations
The chest doesn't require CRAZY VOLUME like the Back, it is a STRONG MOTHERFUCKER though, chances are your chest development will be limited by your triceps and shoulders so to bring it to its maximum potential, you have gotta hit'em HARD, with high-intensity AKA HEAVYWEIGHTS and other special metabolite techniques.
To keep your chest gainz requires (MINIMUM VOLUME—MV): 3-5 working sets a week.
Getting decent chest gainz requires (MINIMUM EFFECTIVE VOLUME—MEV): 6-9 working sets a week.
Getting OPTIMAL chest gainz requires (MAXIMUM ADAPTIVE VOLUME—MAV): 10-15 working sets a week.
To go FULL BEASTMODE and brag about shoulder pain (MAXIMUM RECOVERABLE VOLUME—MRV): 16+ working sets a week.
Keep in mind to split these working sets in order to equally emphasize the sternocostal head using a flat bench press, and the clavicular head using an inclined bench press, let's say you're doing 12 working sets, make sure that 6 of them are inclined, and 6 of them are flat.
You can make SOLID chest gains even if you solely use the inclined version, aesthetically it might be even better, but if you solely focus on the flat bench, your upper chest WILL LAG FO'SHIZZLE.
Chest exercise sequencing.
When it comes to chest training I use the following sequence:
Activation sets
Overloading sets
Finisher sets
Contrary to other muscle groups, I don't recommend using stretch under-load sets for the chest, unless you're a competitive bodybuilder the risk/reward ratio is just not worth it, exaggerating the range of motion for the chest might be optimal for hypertrophy but the stress on the shoulder joint is just too much for the vast majority of trainees.
This doesn't mean that if you're using a good stable machine chess press, or DB benching that allows you to feel a big stretch on the chest in the bottom of the range of motion you shouldn't go for it, it's just that as a primary concept, you should always prioritize keeping your shoulders at a comfortable position whenever you're aiming at building your chest.
Activation Sets
Activation sets are designed to pump blood into the muscles that will then get SMASHED in the workout, their main focus is keeping your body primed to work, reducing the risk of injury, and extending your longevity.
Since my MAIN chest builder is the bench press, my chest routine actually starts with a pumping circuit of Lat Pulldowns, triceps pushdowns, and push-ups, what really builds the chest is the heaviest bench possible, and pumping blood to the lats, triceps, and chest is OPTIMAL to really create solid stabilization in order to hit the chest HARD with overloading sets.
Focus:
Pumping blood, activating stabilizers.
Exercise suggestions:
Triceps pushdowns, pushups, Lat pulldowns, pull-ups/chin-ups (if you're mad strong at them).
Rep range: 20-30 (per exercise in the circuit.)
RIR: 8+
Primary Progressive Overload Strategies:
Mind-muscle connection
Reduced rest between sets.
Do more in less overall time.
Stretch under-load sets
Not optimal for chest training considering the risk of injury.
If you're really advanced you should consider doing it, if you have any questions about it, ask on my Quora space or Substack Chat.
Overloading Sets
I never forget, one of my Idols, Jay Cutler, saying he didn't build his chest with bench presses, and then sitting on the Inclined Bench and cranking 12 clean reps with 335.
I wonder if he was being sarcastic.
The chest requires gigantic heavy loads, it's always heavy bench presses or ultraheavy dips, never met a single person that didn't do it like that with an impressive chest, ok, maybe a few dudes blasting T, Tren, and Dbol built their chest with crossovers and lots of yells.
But the majority of lifters, especially naturals, only build chests with heavy shit, so you gotta do it.
Focus:
Lifting as heavy as possible with a full range of motion.
Exercise suggestions:
Bench-Press, Inclined Bench-Press, Weighted Dips.
Rep range: 4-8
RIR: 1-4
Primary Progressive Overload Strategies:
Increase weight.
Improve technique/form.
Finisher sets
Alright alright, now it's time to reveal the secret of the stars, let me ask you when you're done benching, there are no more reps to do, which muscle is completely fatigued?
Take note, it's NOT THE CHEST unless you have UNCANNY triceps and front-delts— 100% for sure— your triceps and front-delts are the limiting factors.
Remember that to isolate the CHESTICLES, you need to NOT USE your elbow joints, only the shoulder joints, chest isolation are not pressing movements.
So to finish off your chest workout, do some DB chest flyes, go to the Pec Deck, or any chest isolation machine and FINISH HIM (Mortal Kombat!), do straight sets to failure or dropsets, be my guest, and really focus on contracting and squeezing the chest on the top of the concentric part of the exercises.
The trick for doing so, is focusing on bringing YOUR ELBOWS in, instead of your hands— imagine you're doing DB flyes, instead of focusing on touching the dumbbells, do your best to "touch your elbows" (not literally of course), but that will be THE KEY to feeling the center of the chest working like crazy.
And if you REALLY want to step up your game, you can even do SUPERSETS with tha'muthafookin PUSHUPS, after fatiguing your chest in the isolation movements, go down and crank as many pushups as you can to reach the GNARLIEST chest pump you could ever imagine.
Focus:
Going to failure and BEYOND.
Exercise suggestions:
Pec Deck Flye, Machine flye, Dumbbell Flye, Cable Flye, pushups.
Rep range: AMRAP
RIR: -0
Primary Progressive Overload Strategies:
Increase reps.
Exercise selection.
A brief Tier list of my favorite exercises for the muscle group:
Tier S - Exercises that beginners, intermediate and advanced lifters SHOULD be doing to maximize hypertrophy.
Declined Pushups.
DB Bench-Press
DB Inclined Bench-Press
Tier A - Exercises that beginners, intermediate and advanced lifters COULD be doing to maximize hypertrophy.
Weighted Dips
BB Bench Press
Incline Bench Press
Pushups
Tier B - Exercises that beginners don't need to do, but intermediate and advanced lifters can incorporate into their workouts.
Machine Flyes
Pec Deck Flyes
Flat Dumbbell Flye
Incline Machine Chest Press
Machine Chest Press
Tier C - Exercises that are NICHE and designed for a specific goal.
Cable Flye
Cable Bent Flye
Hammer Machine Press
Cable Underhand Flye
Flat Hammer Machine Press
Flat Dumbbell Press/Flye
High Incline Dumbbell Press
Incline Dumbbell Flye
Smith Machine Bench Press
Smith Machine Incline Press
Wide Grip Bench Press
Close Grip Bench Press
Look at this, writing about CHESTICLES is WAY easier than writing about building a MASSIVE BACK.
GET YOUR CHEST GAME GOING!
STAY ON THE IRON PATH, MY BRETHREN!
Big KISS,
THE POTATO MAN
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BANG IRON, MY BRUDDAH!