posted Tue, 10/17/2017 - 14:13
3499
Our Favorite Chest Excercises for Mass
ad
I've always had real big arms, shoulders and back. But always lacked a proportioned chest. I have a decent chest, and a strong chest. But always lacked an all around big chest.
Would love to hear every ones favorite chest workouts that has brought real mass?
My usual chest routine:
Incline Dumbell Presses 4 sets 10-12
Incline Dumbell Fly's 4 sets 10-12
Flat Barbell Presses 4 sets 10-12
Incline Cable Crossovers 4 sets 10-12
Decline Cable Crossovers 4 sets 10-12
Fly Machine 4 sets 10-12
(Pushups with feet elevated during all rest taken between everything)
- Bookmark
- 0
- 0
That's quite a bit of volume training. While there are many ways to skin a cat , I personally have found High Intensity Training training to be the most effective for building the most strength and muscle mass in the shortest amount of time. No more than 4 exercises total with working sets totaling no more than 2-3 max per exercise. That is what works best for me
I notice you have incorporated 8 set of cable crossovers following fly machine. These are considered more as finishing touches exercise. If not in contest prep mode you would be better served to incorporate weighted dips or Pullovers in order to maximize full chest development
I don't agree with the last bit. I feel that fly's and cross overs really have their place! Great exercises to get the blood pumped in to the muscle, stretching the fascia while hitting the different types of muscle fibres. I always finish off my chest workout by super setting fly's with cross overs. But I suppose it's different strokes for different folks but I don't agree they are only good for contest prep mode.
Big difference between flys and machine flys...
The biggest difference between DB flyes and cable/machine flyes is that they also work a different part of the strength curve. DB put more emphasis on the bottom (start) of the exercise and cables at the top (end) of the exercise. Best to get in a mix of both but I would tend to prefer the DB's when goal is sheer mass. Cables are great finishers and polishers for pecs.
Not necessarily mate I feel I get a much better mind to muscle connection using cable flys over dumbbell flys alot of people always try and lift to heavy which then takes the emphasis off of the pecs and more on the deltoids as it's turning more in to a press. For me I find that cables and machine fly's you can really squeeze and get the blood pumping in to the right areas which is the main aim of the isolation exercises . Get as much nutrients and blood pushed in to the muscle as possible which helps with the growth.
I found this killer chest routine here while looking for ideas. Ive done it for several weeks with nice results in the upper portion of my chest.
The pump is unbelievable! Takes a little longer than normal but worth it. Give it a shot sometime see what you think.
https://www.eroids.com/forum/training-nutrition-diet/workout-exercise/ha...
24 sets for chest? I prefer a max. of 9-12.
Cable crossovers are not really neccessary if yo do a few sets of dumbbell flys. They build more mass and give you a great volume in the chest.
Also important is to chance your routine from time to time or from wo to wo. It really helps to get a huge chest!
Weighted dips have done wonders for my chest
excellent exercise for nearly the whole upperbody and dips increase your strength!
Always change your routine every month, our body gets adopted really fast, change does not have to be dramatic, simply remove one and add another exercise which is gonna target the same part of your muscle (upper chest or mid or lower) and add like a drop set to another one (or two), that's all.
If something isnt working, try something else. Have you tried more weight less reps for a month and then took measurements before and after, have you tried the opposite and did the same? Its hard to judge if something is or isnt working if you dont record it. This not a race its a marathon. It might take you months to find what will work. I am still learning what works for me and doesn't and its been 4 years now.
Arnold says the same.
I had a journal when I had a training partner so I could track my progress, otherwise I was lost. I read a few of Franco's articles about it how him and arnold did the same.
I'm a big believer in static and dynamic stretching to bring up lagging body parts. As long as recovery is long enough and nutrition is on point. Adding deep chest stretches between sets after finishing my heavy compound work as well as tensing the muscle "fst-7" style has helped me bring my chest up when simply throwing more sets at it wasn't working.
That's quite a bit of volume, 24 sets plus sets of push ups between every set. That's like 50 sets. If your struggling to add size to it I'd change things up, no point in doing the same thing over if it's not working. Try lower volume for a few weeks. Your only doing 10-12 reps, no variation, do a few exercises with 8-12, some with 12-15, an some 15-20. Or try lower volume but twice a week. My chest grows slow, back grows fast doesn't matter what I do. Chest is weak as hell. Only time it grows is when I focus on getting stronger, progressive overload. Last week I was inclining 245 for 10 8 6, today I made sure I beat those by atleast on rep. When if get 3 sets of 12, then I'll go up 5-10lbs. ill usually do around 1416 sets depending on how I'm feeling. Just the basic movements nothing fancy.
I was once told by a mentor of mine (Viking) that he never does less than ten sets of whatever exercise he is doing. You will get less exercises in a one hour workout but you will move a lot of tonnage.
I generally start chest day with 50 (or whatever you can do to fail) pushups in order to warn everything up. I
Next I grab whatever weight I feel like starting at (usually 35's), I commence with first 10-15 reps of flat bench flies, superset into 20 or so presses and then finished with pullovers (flat bench) With the pullovers I usually stick to maybe a 60 degree arch, concentrating on the lower end of the lift.
From there I keep going up 5lbs until flies stop being clean (75-80 normally) and then switch gears to just pressing to finish up to 125's. Of key importance is pushing beyond ten reps each set. Concentrating on rep numbers like 10 will only mindfuck you over time. Push beyond.
After all that if I have any fuel left in the tank I will likely go do some cable work.
For me less is more ..
My less is more is less days. 4/3 normally
Does that mean we are getting older lmao
Lol my chest routine was given to me by Viking. He told me flys build a thick chest, the presses are just a warm up. 5 sets of incline flys 5 sets of flat, and some incline and flat bench or db before "as a warmup". And ofcourse he was right.
I switch things up but Flat bench flies stay in the rotation. I was reading his post and thinking to myself "You know, you never use machines for chest", lol
For me its incline, always do incline flys but figure out ways to change it up. Upper chest has always lagged behind. Vike did some crazy volume. Idk how he had enough gas in the tank to finish his workouts. He would train 3 days a week when bulking, chest delts tris all on the same day. After the 16-20 sets of chest im shot. I tried it, but i was so tired after chest, then completely done after delts with still tris to do. So i settled on 4 days, chest and delts on day then one body part ed the rest of the week.
I have switched to more of a whole body approach with usually one area of increased attention is all. I fucked up my left quad pretty good tho so legs are going to be pretty much out for a minute now.