Thread: Chest Issues...

Originally Posted by medici999

Hi Guys,

One major problem is that I really cant feel my chest working when pressing etc..

My arms are very long, much longer than the average person, so i feel like its my arms doing alot of the work or my front delts.

Its a weak bodypart for me...i have tried declines, etc..all sorts.
Now im pre exhausting it following by two presses.

Any ideas?

Your pre exhausting which bodypart before you press? Chest? If so that will just make your arms take over even more. Pre-exhaust your tri's/anterior delts prior to your chest presses and I gaurantee you'll be feeling your chest work harder in no time. Otherwise, try pressing with dbs and make sure that your going wide enough/deep enough that on the eccentric phase you feel a slight (I mean SLIGHT) pull in your pecs then press it back up, you could have your hands too close together, and just remember to squeeze those pecs at the top of the range of motion. I had a similar problem until I realized I wasnt focusing my mind on using my pecs to move the weight, otherwise my tris would gladly take over. Just some food for thought

Originally Posted by medici999

Hi Guys,

One major problem is that I really cant feel my chest working when pressing etc..

My arms are very long, much longer than the average person, so i feel like its my arms doing alot of the work or my front delts.

Its a weak bodypart for me...i have tried declines, etc..all sorts.
Now im pre exhausting it following by two presses.

Any ideas?

Is that you in your avatar? Your arms don't look any longer than normal at all. Don't worry so much about what you are feeling, if you are doing your movements right your chest is getting worked. Everyone has a weak point. If you want to pull it up some you can focus your training around chest for a month or two, the way you would do this is drop off training for everything but chest a little bit and train chest 2-3 times a week. I wouldn't worry about it too much though, especially if you aren't a competitive bodybuilder.

Ok guys, thanks.
Yeah that was me...but fully pumped after a chest session.
MY arms are deffo longer than average.

So on a monday i do chest, shoulders, tri's in that order.

Would you say do shoulders, tri's then chest?

I am only doing 2sets for 3exercises on chest, keeping it lower volume as i hit it again on a friday to try and help bring it up to scratch.

On a monday i do pre exhaust, declines, flat.
On a friday i do pre exhaust cables, declines, dips.

Your training seems to be in order, and are a big guy. Now here's the thing, if you keep training everything regularly, your chest will grow, but so will the rest of your body. So your chest will likely always be a weak point, if you want it bring it up you should try block training. This is when you put growing the rest of you body on hold and only work out enough to maintain the rest of you body while you do the weak body part 2-3 times a week. You would do a full body work out(minus chest) once, maybe twice a week, and not go quite 100% on that work out. Then do chest training the rest of the week. This is not the only option but is a pretty good one for most people. My arms are a weak point and I found doing drop sets and counting the concentric/eccentric/static parts of the lift for a timed interval a good way to bring them up as well. I don't like putting the rest of my body on hold but if you care that much about catching up your chest you can try it.

Originally Posted by medici999

Ok guys, thanks.
Yeah that was me...but fully pumped after a chest session.
MY arms are deffo longer than average.

So on a monday i do chest, shoulders, tri's in that order.

Would you say do shoulders, tri's then chest?

I am only doing 2sets for 3exercises on chest, keeping it lower volume as i hit it again on a friday to try and help bring it up to scratch.

On a monday i do pre exhaust, declines, flat.
On a friday i do pre exhaust cables, declines, dips.

Thats basically it yeah, Id definitely work in that order. Dont do too much, but just enough to exhaust the shoulders and tris a bit so your chest can take over

So if i do say pressing, laterals and rear delts for shoulders and skullcrushers and presdowns for tri's. just do that first intense as normal then chest..

Or would you just do 1set of each then do chest?

I see a lot of declines in there. You ever do inlines? I feel inclines are the best for bringing out your chest. A low-incline at about 30 is what i prefer, but you can change that up.

Originally Posted by medici999

So if i do say pressing, laterals and rear delts for shoulders and skullcrushers and presdowns for tri's. just do that first intense as normal then chest..

Or would you just do 1set of each then do chest?

Just 1 set of each, then if you want to train them that day go back and fatigue them, youll just have to feel it out my man. It usually is recommended to do 1 or 2 sets, nothing crazy, normal weights.

Originally Posted by medici999

Hi Guys,

One major problem is that I really cant feel my chest working when pressing etc..

My arms are very long, much longer than the average person, so i feel like its my arms doing alot of the work or my front delts.

Its a weak bodypart for me...i have tried declines, etc..all sorts.
Now im pre exhausting it following by two presses.

Any ideas?

1. keep your shoulders BACK, (pinch them to the bench... I used my shoulders alot on benching and isolated out the chest....

2. you can always pre-exhaust as you are doing as long as you dojt pre exhaust your front delts while doing flys , keep shoulds pinched back, a trick I recently found out.....

3. dont lock out, go up 3/4 of the way and focus on the mid range of the press

4. squeeze the bar and I think about hugging or flying, (as I press up, helps me focus on chest muscles too.

5. declines are known to be a much better chest exercise than flat benching , it uses or activates more of the chest.... deep Chest parallel dips also do the same.

Originally Posted by cshea2

I see a lot of declines in there. You ever do inlines? I feel inclines are the best for bringing out your chest. A low-incline at about 30 is what i prefer, but you can change that up.

yes, the slight incline assists in building a more pleasing look for the chest, so many experts swear by.

Thanks guys.

So my routine tonight will be like this..

Shoulder Press 1 set. Lateral Raises 1 set. Rear Delts 1 set.
Skull Crushers 1 set, Pushdowns 1 set
Cable Flys 2 sets, Decline Dumbell Press 2sets. Dips 2 sets.

Then i will go back and do another 2sets on shoulders and triceps as i have fatigued them a bit to help with my chest.

to be honest, I dont get it but how does pre exhausting your triceps and shoulders make a chest workout even harder?

I can understand, ok, tris and shoulders anre exhausted so the chest actually assists them so you feel it

BUT

if you pre exhaust chest first and then you feel tris later, it is cuz chest is burnt out and you need the tris. Additionally, you can sandwich the isloation/core/issolation as a tri set...

or try dumbell flys and immediately go to dumbell presses when you cant do more flies to get further....

Seems counter intuitive to kill the very muscles that are limiting just so you can feel a strong chest assisting.... Maybe there is a mechanism at work I aint aware of but it doesnt hit me right. pre exhausting is like FORCED REPS for me. you pre exhaust so the muscle if fatigued FIRST, then the other muscles like tris and shoulders are the training partner. they assist in doing reps the main body part is too tired to do, thus pushing thru a threshold. yes, your training partner will feel it and feel strong assisting but he isnt the one working out the set, he is assisting, you, your chest, not tris is what the set is all about. (how I psychologically think of it)

I had problems getting me chest to grow and one of the things that helped me was paying attention to my form more. I use to bench with my elbows pointing out. pretty much vertical with the bar. Then I switched it up and made sure that when benching that my elbows are almost pushed against the side of my body. Couldnt do as much weight at first that way but it made a huge difference in the pump and making my chest do all the work.

dumbbells ftw!

My advice to you is to split up shoulders and chest into 2 different workouts. You are doing way too much pressing for one session. You may be overtraining.

When I start my chest routine, I make sure that I am totally warmed up. I either ride my bike to the gym, or do 15-20 min on the stationary bike if I drive there before I start.

I like to do two different types of chest workouts.

The first is concentrating on the core bench press exercise. I start with those and do about 4-6 good sets. I end on the last set or two with drop sets. Example... I will do 315 for 6-8 reps ; pull off a plate on each side, then get right back under and do 225 for 10-12 reps ; pull off another plate on each side, then get right back under there and do 135 for 15-20 reps. If you don't feel a burn on your chest after that, then you are doing something wrong. I then do about 3 sets of moderate to light incline dumbells at a 30 degree angle. Then end with flat flyes for 3 sets. Moderate to light weight... rep range 10-15 reps. That's it. Stop there... You should be spent.

The second routine is taken from the Dorian Yates philosophy. I start with low inclines for 4-6 sets and do the same drop set technique on my last set or two. I really like the lower incline angle (30 degrees) as it places less stress on my shoulders. I have seen some incredible progress in my chest since I started doing this. Then, I will either do moderate to light incline dumbells at about a 45 degree angle or moderate to light flat dumbells for 3 sets. Then I end with low incline flyes for 3 sets. My chest is sore the next day everytime I do this workout...

Occasionally, I will add cable crossovers or pec deck for a couple high rep sets to either routine if I am really feeling like an animal in the gym and want to really torch myself.

I switch between the two routines every 3 months or so.

I guess everyone has their own things that work for them. This really works for me.

Best of luck to you.

Pre-exhaust your chest. My favorite pre-exhaust exercise is pek deck flies with my shoulders against the back rest but my ass at the very front edge of the seat. Makes it almost like an incline fly. Slowly go as deep (far back) as you can and feel the stretch and then hold at contraction. 3-4 sets, 6-15 reps.

Then an incline exercise, a flat exercise and a decline exercise, 3 sets each for 8-15 reps. Doing this really brought my chest up and my strength never suffered.

I do chest, shoulders and triceps in that order on Monday, don't think I agree with doing shoulders and triceps first and you'd be worn out when you get to chest. But hell, give anything a try.

^^^ my chest doesnt lag.....but damn, im gonna hit it tomorrow like you outlined
nice post