How has your chest training been lately? Are you making the best gains of your life, or are you just chugging along, trying to keep up with the others around you? If you haven’t been adding 5 pounds per month to your major compound chest movements, then you’re essentially treading water, spinning your wheels, and wasting your time. Here are some tips that you can employ to bump up your chest training productivity. Start with wide flyes Begin each workout with 2 to 4 sets of slow-motion, wide dumbbell flyes with a lot of depth. You’ll wake up a lot of muscle fibers than lie dormant during your standard workouts. This may limit your ability to hit maximum poundage immediately following these sets, but your chest/shoulder tie-ins will grow much stronger, which will benefit strength gains more ...

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Back in the day, bodybuilders kept it simple. They trained hard, and they trained heavy. They didn’t have dozens of variations of machines, allowing them to torch muscle groups from hundreds of angles using cables and other attachments. They had barbells, plates, and not much else. Yet, despite this lack of technological innovation, they managed to build some seriously well-developed physiques. We’ll be training old school today, using a minimal amount of sets to completely scorch two major muscle groups (back and shoulders) in very heavy and brutal fashion. We’ll be combining back and shoulder day into one ‘super’ day in which you will only need one station and one set of equipment - the squat rack, a barbell, and a pile of plates. Reserve this corner of the gym for about 45 minutes ...

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There are times when you want to keep your training simple. One adjustable bench. A few sets of dumbbells. And of course, about 75 minutes to kill, and to kill chest doing it. Here is a sample routine. You can rearrange the movements to fit your preferences. This routine starts at the upper chest, moves to the lower chest, and then finishes things off with middle and outer pectorals. All you need to complete it is an adjustable bench, some dumbbells and of course, some hard work! Incline DB presses The upper chest should usually be emphasized first in any good chest routine. Many bodybuilders use between a 2-to-1 to a 3-to-1 ratio for upper chest. The idea is to build that upper shelf as much as possible. It is rumored Arnold ...

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The dumbbell is absolutely the most versatile piece of gym equipment you could ever own. They are so versatile you can train any body part, they are suitable for everyone at any age and stage in life. They are also the best equipment, no matter what your fitness goals are. If you are looking to trim down, maintain or build mass, dumbbells are the right thing to accomplish your goal. There are definite tried and true dumbbell exercises that most people use, the point of this is to give you some off the beaten path ideas that are not as common, or maybe you never have even considered these types of exercises for dumbbells. The Dumbbell Thruster: This will work your glutes and shoulders at the same time. You will start by placing an exercise ball behind ...

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Many bodybuilders find that while the movement is hardcore and a great deal of fun, the deadlift just isn’t for them. Perhaps they are too tall and have long arms, which can make for a very awkward lift. Maybe they lack low back flexibility, or have sustained an injury at some point in their career. Whatever the reason, if deadlifts are out, then dumbbell rows most definitely have to be in. They are nearly as efficient for back thickness as deadlifts, with much less chance of injury. Completing dumbbell rows is simple. Place your knee on a bench, secure your position with your same-side knee, and grab a dumbbell hanging from your free arm. Slowly bring the dumbbell up to your highest position, flexing your back at the top. Then, lower it back to ...

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If you look around in any gym in America, you’ll see a few things. You’ll always see average-looking people moving average weights. You’ll sometimes see average people moving heavy weights. But there is one thing you’ll very rarely see. You’ll almost never see a very highly muscled man moving average weights. You don’t have to be big to be strong, but it’s almost never that you’ll see a big guy who isn’t strong. When it comes to biceps training, this maxim is true – to an extent. You’ll see lots of average bodybuilders using average weights, and they’ll have average arms. And you’ll see some men with very average arms moving very heavy weights – often using a great deal of swing to move the weight from start to finish in the repetition. ...

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Training to failure is a popular technique used by bodybuilders to deliver as much growth as humanly possible. By pushing a muscle group beyond its limitations, you tear down enough new muscle fibers to ensure some new muscle growth. However, very often, bodybuilders place themselves at substantial risk when training in this manner. They use sloppy form or movements which leave the weight suspended over their head right about the time muscular failure arrives. It’s far better to plan for failure by selecting movements which can be completed safely. Here are some movements that work well, sorted by body part. Use them at your own risk, and only after you’ve completely worn out this body part using traditional means. Chest Avoid movements such as bench press and dumbbell presses which leave the weight suspended over your head. ...

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Life throws a lot of curveballs at us sometimes. It’s always when we’re making our best gains in bench press numbers that we’ll tweak our shoulder tendon during warm-ups and lose three months of progress while recovering. It’s always when our diet is going so well that our job will throw us a bevy of new duties which will disrupt our eating schedule. Finally, it’s always when we finally seem to find that perfect workout plan that our gym access disappears and we’re limited to a nice set of 40 pounds dumbbells in our garage, until the gym remodeling or our financial problems subside. It’s at these times that we need to make adjustments to our training protocols and find ways to continue making progress – or at the very least maintaining our recent gains – ...

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There has been a significant improvement in the training regimen of most bodybuilders due to the availability of information. When you are training the chest muscles you need to use four simple techniques which are guaranteed to ensure your success. These four techniques have been used by many bodybuilders because they are the ones which yield great results when it comes to developing the chest muscles. 1. Push Ups This is the simplest technique for exercising the chest muscles. Almost anyone can perform sit ups and you do not have to be a guru to do them. The other advantage about this method is that you do not need any special equipment so that you are able to do them. The chest muscles are very unique because they are connected to various other muscles. The procedure for performing push ups is to first ...

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“How much ya bench?” The question has been asked a million times in a million gyms. Perhaps the first exercise most bodybuilders utilize when entering the gym – and the measurement stick for gym prowess - is the bench press. Because of this, many trainers spend a disproportionate amount of gym time bench pressing, and not enough time on other chest movements. As a result, their chests become disproportionately built; thick in the middle, of course, but lacking in the upper and outer areas. This leads to a bunched-up look in the chest area on the bodybuilding stage. The solution, as with most things, is intelligent training. Selection of exercises and techniques to focus on different areas of the pectorals can solve this problem. Keep The Bench Press First off, don’t stop benching. The bench ...

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