Chest Workout In Gym

Have I been doing it wrong all along? Have you been doing it wrong all along? Well, maybe if your chest exercises in the temple that you performed looked a lot like this up till now, but is it more effective? According to Mike Mentzer, it is. You see, Mike Mentzer made heavy-duty training popular back in the day based around high-intensity training. And guess what? It’s made its resurgence once again. But was training at the tempo Mike was showing here critical to making chest gains, some would say no. Mike would say, No Mo. meaning no momentum allowed at all. Momentum is an outside force to the degree to which it’s brought into play reduces the force of the muscular contraction, thereby reducing the intensity, thereby reducing the results. Well, he’s got a point because let’s face it, any asshole can move away from point A to point B, especially if it’s the ass that’s moving the weight. What he’s trying to say, though, is what matters most when you’re trying to make a muscle grow is the amount of tension you can deliver to it. Remember, the language of muscles is tension, and you need to become fluent in that language if you want to grow. Here, what Mike’s talking about is not relying on momentum and not just swinging the weight around but focusing on making that chest take over every single inch of that contraction. It can only be done if you slow down that repetition greatly and have control over every single piece of the rep. The good thing about this technique is that it is really good for people who have orthopedic issues. If you have any type of structural issue in your shoulder, for instance, it’s going to feel a lot better when you take away some of that speed. The other thing it does is it negates the need for a long warm-up to have a great chest workout. Speaking of that, what would Mike say about what a great warm-up would look like? Generally, we have to do three warmups, a very light one just to get the blood flowing. Then we move to a moderate weight to set him up neuromuscular and then a heavy one to get him ready for the big set to come later. And that couldn’t be any more music to my ears because you’d think as a PT, I might advocate using like two or three of these to get ready for a chest workout. Not at all. Just use some common sense and this approach will work great. So, if I was following Mike’s heavy-duty chest workout training in that 6 to 10-rep range to failure, my first warm-up set would be with very, very light weights like 15 or 20 pounds just to get some of that blood flow going, like he said. For the second set, I’d probably be going for about half of what I was going to ultimately use, maybe 40 or 50 pounds here to proprioceptively make my joints aware of the positions I’m going to need them to be in to absorb that bench press. The third and final set for me is something I do heavier than what Mike recommended. We call it a touch-up set, knowing that I’m going to fail in the 6 to 10 rep range in my working set, I’m going to pick a weight that’s going to make me go no more than five repetitions to failure. And I’m only going to perform two repetitions here because what that does is it prepares my body to make the working weight feel even lighter than it is. However, you get ready, the point is you need to be ready to perform what Mike wants you to do next. And that is one high-intensity combination of two chest exercises. For your chest. You start with a set of Flat Bench Dumbbell Flys or Pec Deck, you have an option. There, followed immediately by a set of Close Grip Incline Bench Press. Well, you know how I feel about the Unsupported Dumbbell Bench Fly. Don’t do that exercise. I’m not a big fan of it. But we can get back to that because I have a better option. But what’s most important is understanding why he chose those exercises, because that’s what led to the effectiveness of it. He set them up as a pre-exhaustion. In other words, that first exercise was set to pre-exhaust the chest so that when we get to the second half, exercise the compound, exercise, and bench press, you can get some additional assistance from the triceps and shoulders to push the chest even further to fatigue into that point of forcing muscle growth. Now, the unique choice of the close grip on the Incline Bench Press is done for that reason to favor the triceps and put them at that mechanical advantage to assist in pushing that chest through fatigue. Now let’s go back to that fly. I don’t like it, I already said that, but in a less nice way. The point is the Unsupported Chest Fly is not a great exercise, especially if you’re trying to train it to high intensity, in other words, with heavier weights you’re going to fatigue in the 6 to 10-rep range. Now the Pec Deck is fine if you have access to it, but you want to make sure that you’re not setting the arms too far back or that you’re using the foot pedal to get those arms out in front of you to risk any additional compromise of the shoulder. But all those are not the best option. I’d rather see you do a Cable Fly because here I can still limit the contribution of the triceps by keeping the elbows in a relatively locked-out position. And because of the way we have the cable set up here, there’s no risk of that overextension or compromise of that anterior capsule, so it’s a lot safer. But we still want to do it the way Mike advised here, and this is where we need to slow things down. Again, I admit it. I do most of my reps like this because I get lost in the desire to push more weight. Chest workout in gym

Focused Chest Training In Gym

However, leave that aside, and focus on getting the chest to do more of the work and slow it down. Four seconds up or five seconds up, a little bit of a squeeze at the top four or five seconds on the way down. You will instantly find that whatever weight you are using is going to have to be decreased, but the effect of what you’re feeling will be increased. Remember, the language of muscles is tension. Your tension will go way up, you will become much more fluent in this language instantly. Now, when it comes to the back end of that superset, the Incline Bench Press, you’re more than welcome to use a barbell. For me, it’s just not a great option personally because it doesn’t feel so good. I have a torn rotator cuff and labrum in my right shoulder and every time I try to do that exercise, it just doesn’t feel right. But I can easily mimic Mike’s intentions by just grabbing dumbbells and performing it as an Incline Dumbbell Bench Press. The idea is the same here though tempo and positioning. By keeping the elbows tucked, I’m going to allow the triceps to contribute a little bit more than usual, and that’s a good thing, again, to back end this already pre-exhausted chest. The second thing is the tempo. That tempo is going to once again force you, maybe you to drop the weight a little bit from normal but again, drive more effective tension into the muscle you’re trying to make grow. And by doing that, again, I’m making the exercise more effective. I go for a slow, eccentric four or five seconds on the way down. Yes, my whole body is shaking because it’s more difficult. I even go for a little bit of a hold in the bottom stretch position, which, by the way, stay tuned is one area that Mike and I firmly disagree. But we’ll get back to that. The idea is choosing a weight that once again causes me to fail in that 6 to 10-rep range and making the chest do as much of the work as possible with now the assistance of the triceps and shoulders along the way. Add a little benefit for you, fellow shoulder pain sufferers, the slow tempo here is going to work in your favor there too. Because that slowed-down tempo will make sure that your shoulder is stable. Any compromise structure is going to do a lot better when there’s stability to support it. And when you do that, miraculously, the pain almost always goes away. And it wasn’t just this specific exercise combination that held the secret to Mike’s heavy-duty chess gains. It was actually that he knew how to perform these two exercises and specifically three types of muscular contraction that, when tapped into, could take anyone’s chess games to a whole new level. Chest workout in gym

Mike- Remember, you’ve got three levels of strength: The positive with lifting, the static, which is the holding, and the negative, which is the lowering and the strong. Let’s look at that. He couldn’t complete a positive rep, but he held it easy and he’s lowering it even easier still. But there’s a problem with this. It’s not very practical. I mean, let’s face it, we don’t all have Ray Mentzer available to spot us on the Pec Deck and squeeze our hands together to make sure we have a good isometric contraction. We don’t all have the Mentzer brothers or even two people we can scrounge up at the gym to stop what they’re doing to help us in pursuit of our glorious gains. If you’re using a chest press machine, you might have a 3 in 10 chance of that particular machine in your gym having a foot pedal on it that will allow you to even perform the eccentric-only repetitions. And even on my chosen Cable Fly, sure, there are some things I could do to perform my eccentric only repetitions, but they’re not necessary. Because there’s a better way to do it and that is with a different exercise. And not just any exercise, but the one that Mike called the best chest shoulder, and tricep builder of all time. Think of the dips as the upper body squat. Dips are by far, without a doubt, they’re unparalleled, they are the best exercise for pecs, delts, and triceps. [End clip] You see, the Dip not only allows us to most effectively target these three levels of muscle contraction but therefore increases the intensity of our workout. But it also does something else, it perfectly complements the flat and incline work you’ve already done and gives us a good lower chest exercise. So, when Mike says this after finishing his one-set chest combo. That’s all you’re going to do for chest, one set of Pec Deck, and one set of Incline Press. I can’t do it anymore. Can you imagine doing 20 sets like that? Sure. As the orthodoxy describes. Hell no.

Mike- If you did 20 sets like that, we’d have to have you leave here in an ambulance. I say, yes, I agree, but that’s only if you had access to the spotters and machines that this guy did to pull off that level of intensity. Because if you did not, I still think you have the capacity, though admittedly limited to pull it off.

Nothing changes in terms of the intention of trying to deliver as much tension as you possibly can to the chest. You want to lean forward a little bit here to assist with that because the more upright position will shift a little bit more of that focus to the triceps. Again, this is a chest for training, lean as far forward as you can at this point. Now I take it till I can’t perform another repetition Again, that might vary for you. It doesn’t matter as long as you’ve reached that point. But at that point I want you to stop and hold. And this right here, my friends, is probably where Mike and I would disagree the most. Chest workout in gym

Mike- Never stop in the bottom extended position of any exercise. You can only stop in the top contracted position. But it’s here that I’ve got the benefit and advantage over Mike of 50 years of modern-day research into the topic of strength and conditioning, where we know that’s not the case anymore. It’s good and we need to tap into it, and I want you to tap into it here. So, you maintain that isometric hold at the bottom of that final concentric repetition for as long as you possibly can. And I’m going to tell you right now, spoiler alert, it’s uncomfortable, but you have to dig in. Again, this is where, if you want to make gains, you can’t back down. You gotta keep pressing forward. At some point, though, you won’t be able to hold anymore. But you’re not done just yet because you can take it one more level. Remember, the third and highest level of strength you have is eccentric strength. Well, we can do that by cutting out the rest of the exercise so we can step ourselves up to the top of the Dip and focus on lowering ourselves under control. With each subsequent rep, it’s going to get more and more difficult. And the telltale sign here is you just won’t be able to lower yourself down under control, you’ll get faster and faster on every repetition. But until that does, you still want to go for yet another rep. Fight for it, guys. As I said, this is where the real gains are made. If heavy-duty, high-intensity training was easy, everybody would do it. But not a lot of people did because they couldn’t muster up this type of intensity. But you can if you know what you’re shooting for. So now at this point, you’re going to be fried and there’s nothing left for you to do in the gym. Mike always said, What’s the benefit of spending one extra minute out in the sun if you’ve already triggered the stimulus for a suntan? None, because at that point you’re just going to be burning. At this point, I’m suggesting you get the hell out of the gym and recover. And for those doubting how important recovery is to this big picture, well, here’s what the legend himself had to say. Chest workout in gym

Full Pec Workout With Rep Ranges

Mike- Most bodybuilders today do not understand that the big picture is comprised essentially of two elements of equal value, I emphasize the word equal. By equal value, I mean 50/50, not 60/40, not 70/30, but 50/50. The first element, the first 50% of the big picture, obviously, yes, of course, is the actual workout, who would deny that? But just as important, the other 50%, is not one iota less important than the actual workout is the rest period between. And here’s why, the workout, you must understand, does not produce, the word is produced, and the workout does not produce muscular growth. Remember, the workout is merely what? A stimulus. It stimulates what? The body’s growth mechanism into motion. It is the body itself that produces the growth, but only if you leave the body undisturbed by further exercise during a sufficient rest period. Or you could say it simply, in other words, if you don’t rest enough, you don’t grow enough, if at all. That is one I can wholeheartedly agree with because there is no understating the value of recovery, especially when you’re a natural lifter seeking new muscle gains. And that’s where you’re going to have to focus on, maybe putting in a little extra effort. It might mean putting in a few extra days of rest in between chest workouts. Or it might mean going to bed maybe an hour or two earlier to make sure you’re not sacrificing good quality sleep. Or maybe you have to refocus on your high-quality nutrition to ensure you’re giving your body the nutrients it needs to grow. In that case, even maybe focusing on supplementation to fill in the gaps or ensure you get enough high-quality protein to support new muscle growth. All right, guys, see you soon. Chest workout in gym

Kumar Sarthak

Noida- UP

201307