Exploding the pecs. Chest: How I Ruled My Genetics (Dorian Yates) Training Triceps and Delts in Front of the Chest

How to explode your pecs?

List of the most effective exercises!

— Dumbbell flyes lying on a horizontal bench

Tip: To minimize shoulder rotation, bend your elbows at the bottom of the exercise. Make sure that your shoulders do not fall below the plane of the bench - we should load the pectoral muscles, not the shoulder muscles!

- rods

Hint: Many world-famous bodybuilders, incl. former Mr. Olympia title holder Dorian Yates prefer this exercise instead of a regular bench press due to its lower risk of injury to the shoulder joints.

— Bench press on a horizontal bench

Tip: In the bench press, technique is everything! To reduce the traumatic load on the shoulders, it is necessary to bring the shoulder blades together as much as possible and firmly fix the thoracic region.

— Dumbbell bench press on a horizontal bench

Tip: Many athletes rotate the dumbbells slightly at the top of the exercise. This technique allows you to better load the muscles in the final phase.

— Breeding with a negative slope

Hint: At the top point of the exercise, try not to rest, but to contract the chest muscles with maximum effort. It is necessary to bring the dumbbells together (but not to the point of impact) and strain the pectoral muscles with all your might.

- Pushups

Tip: In this exercise, the torso is in an elongated position, which has a positive effect on the development of the muscles of the lower back and abs. By resting at the top (without breaking technique), you can increase the duration of each approach. This will force the abdominal muscles to resist the force of gravity!

— Incline press in the simulator

Tip: This exercise twists the shoulder joints into an unnatural position (this is bad). Your partner must “lift” the weight to get you past the danger zone. When performing repetitions, never return the weight to the stops.

— Incline press dumbbells

Tip: One of the benefits of dumbbells is that they allow you to use a very comfortable grip. Here we can slightly turn our arms to reduce the traumatic load on the shoulders and improve the pumping of the pectoral muscles!

— Plyometric push-ups with supports

Tip: It is recommended to use low supports for this plyometric exercise. Provided the correct technique is followed, the exercise provides accelerated development of power and stability!

— One-arm push-ups

Hint: Extremely hard exercise! If you cannot yet perform push-ups on one arm from the floor, use some kind of support (so that your torso is in an inclined position). A box or any other similar object can serve as a support. The main thing is not to violate the technique and gradually reduce the height of the support. Over time, you will be able to do push-ups!

Find out what are the main obstacles to creating beautiful chest muscles.

Performing the bench press for the chest muscles is a favorite and popular exercise among both beginners and experienced athletes; it has always been popular, which cannot be said about and. But do you know what pitfalls prevent you from actually achieving results and not jumping around in one place?

1. Performing a press without bringing the shoulder blades together

It seems that it is difficult to take the barbell and lower it onto the chest, but there is a nuance here: when performing or, when lowering the apparatus, the shoulder blades should crash into the bench and be reduced as much as possible. This will allow the chest to puff out, which will stretch the muscles further, increasing the load and accelerating muscle growth.

To properly study the technique, take light weights, or better yet an empty bar, and study.

2. Using a single width grip

Pay attention to how you press the barbell. Usually everyone gets used to the same grip width and systematically increases the weights, the load progresses, everything is fine, but only some muscles work maximally, while others are not tense enough.

Periodically change the grip width + - 10 cm from your usual one, and do not forget to do this, it works not only the triceps well, but also the inner chest. These measures will help to work out the pectoral muscles better, since different grips create a peak load in different areas of the muscles.

3. Elbow flexion and extension in crossovers

By bending your elbows strongly at the top and straightening them when you bring them together, you are actively engaging the triceps in addition to your chest, this is a big
error. If, when raising your arms, the angle of inclination in the elbow joints is 30-40 degrees, then at the bottom point there should be exactly the same angle.

The entire load should go to the chest, the arms are just a lever for the weight, and the bent version allows you to remove the load from the elbows. for the pectoral muscles are necessary to correct the muscles, giving them a more cosmetic appearance; you will use large weights in future exercises.

4. Raises turn into presses

- an excellent exercise that allows you to stretch the chest muscles well, which will allow them to contract better in the future, and this is a direct path to improving muscle growth.

However, many people neglect the weight, take it very large and simply cannot bring their arms together, so at the top point they begin to press the dumbbells, and all the effectiveness of the exercise is lost. Remember, flyes are a single-joint exercise aimed at good stretching of the muscles, and not at shortening them, so choose adequate ones.

5. Fixed Incline Bench Press

Probably in your gym there is a rigidly fixed bench with a certain inclination that cannot be adjusted. This is usually observed when doing a barbell press on an incline bench, but there are also free-standing gymnastic benches with the same angle of inclination of the back of the bench.

Avoid them, give preference to those benches in which you can adjust the height, perform bench presses at different inclination angles from 10 to 45 degrees, engage different muscles and promote proportional development of muscle fibers.

6. Constant work on a horizontal bench with a barbell

Usually chest muscle training takes place on Monday, it’s just like World Chest Day, when you don’t come, there are people around this simulator, like bees around the evidence. You shouldn’t constantly devote time to the barbell, but this is a basic exercise that allows you to give an excellent impetus to muscle growth, but remember that it is useful to start periodically with.

The dumbbell press does not allow you to lift as much weight, but it engages the stabilizer muscles, which help keep the dumbbells in your hands from swinging. At the same time, if the growth of weights has stopped while working with a barbell, working with dumbbells will help break through the dead center and take on new working weights.

7. Same sequence of exercises

From year to year, many use the same order of doing exercises in the gym, training the chest muscles will
effective if you introduce variety, start the training day not with a standard bench press on a horizontal bench with a barbell, but, for example, with an inclined version upside down, upside down or with dumbbells, as well as with flyes.

Constantly changing the first exercise and sequence in total does not allow the body to get used to the loads; it will constantly experience new sensations, which will force it to look for new and new ways to adapt to the loads. Your main task is not to let him get used to it, so that he experiences muscle growth every time.

8. Training triceps and deltoids in front of the chest.

When you start training the chest muscles, remember that it is a large muscle group, triceps and small. When training your chest, the deltoids and triceps are very important. If you train them before the chest, or the day before, these small muscle groups will not have time to recover and will be the first to fail when you do bench press exercises.

As a result of this, the triceps and deltoids will be overloaded, and the chest muscles will not be overloaded, so the whole workout will go down the drain. Therefore, always train your triceps and deltoids after training your chest, and not vice versa.

Breasts: How I Ruled My Genetics (Dorian Yates).

The chest, and not the biceps, is what, in our opinion, should be considered the calling card of a real bodybuilder. Based on the state of the pectoral muscles, it is easy to guess who is in front of you - either a guy who is sophisticated in the technique, and also a big hard worker, or a complete zero. The fact is that the chest cannot be pumped up with a simple swoop. Here you need to have brains, patience and work, work for a long time, with heavy weights. All these qualities are in short supply for many, so here’s an explanation for why there are so few “jocks” with Schwarzenegger’s breasts around. I know what I'm talking about. Since the early days of my competitive career, the chest has been my weak point. I set myself the goal of correcting this situation, but on the other hand, I was aware that my desire alone was not enough. Past experience has already taught me that the correct technique comes first. There is no point in lifting huge weights until you have a clear methodological plan. In fact, was I slacking when I “pumped my chest” before? No never! I always worked my ass off! Maybe I was using the wrong exercises? Also no. I “pumped” my breasts about the same as everyone else. Meanwhile, they had results, but I had none. So it turns out that in this whole matter I had some kind of purely genetic misfortune, which hindered me. That’s what I had to solve, but there was no reason to add effort - they would have sunk into the sand again anyway...

Three steps.

To begin with, I sketched out a small three-point diagram for myself. The first is analytical. Here you need to wiggle your brain and determine exactly what exactly does not suit you. The chest may lag behind in various parameters. Maybe she lacks overall “mass”, or maybe there is no balance - the top lags behind the bottom, or the internal areas of the pectorals are poorly developed... Personally, I had no “mass”, no top, no bottom, no normal internal and external drawing . When you have established what needs to be fixed, look for exercises that will help solve the problem. This is the second step. And finally, the third step is to give your all to the complex that you have compiled for yourself. It seems that everything is simple, but I know in advance that some people will have difficulties with such a scheme. There are people who look at themselves and see that their breasts are somehow unsightly, but they don’t understand what exactly needs to be corrected. Such people need to turn to an experienced friend for advice. The second step is also difficult. All bodybuilders have different anatomy, so there is no single way to correct one or another deficiency. You need to experiment with exercises to choose exactly those options that work best. But the most difficult thing is, of course, the third point. You not only need to be able to give your best, but also use your brains to properly integrate a new complex into your regular training program. I'll explain what's going on here. If the chest does not grow, then the most obvious explanation is that the load from it, due to anatomical features, is “taken away” by other muscles - triceps, deltoids, small muscles of the upper back... So you need to think carefully about how to correctly create a split so that you We didn’t start chest training with “fresh” triceps and tired pecs. In this case, the load balance will again shift in favor of extraneous muscles. There are other problems too. How often should you train your chest and with what intensity should you perform exercises for other muscle groups? It may happen that when you press hard on your chest, the total energy expenditure during the week's split will exceed your recovery capabilities. As a result, the remaining muscles will begin to melt like butter in a frying pan. It may be different. You work too hard, “pumping up” other muscles, and therefore you have too little physical and mental strength left for your chest. Then there is no need to expect any return. In short, you need to think and think... For me personally, there were no problems with the first and last points. I have gained enough experience and feel my muscles well. But as for the selection of exercises, I had to rack my brains. First, I studied all the literature on “pumping up” the pectoral muscles that I could find. I compared the opinions of different champions and figured out what would suit me myself. In addition, I tried every conceivable variation of the well-known exercises with barbells, dumbbells, and pulleys. And this is what I discovered.

Useless press.

At first, when I first started training, I did a lot of chest pressing. The chest press is considered the best compound exercise for the chest, and I believe it. However, even today I will not throw stones at this exercise. Maybe it actually helps someone. If so, then I am just an exception to the rule. In any case, I want to emphasize that the bench press will only be effective for you in one case - if you were born for it. I mean the simple fact that the bench press is a complex exercise, and your shoulder joints should be “designed” by nature in such a way as to “send” the maximum load to the pectoral muscles. But I was unlucky: in the bench press, all the load falls on the front deltoids and triceps. After experimenting, I found that the angle of the bench needed to be slightly changed, namely, raised quite a bit - by 30 degrees. Then the force vector changes direction, and the entire load falls directly on the pectoral muscles. If you raise the bench more - by 35 or even 45 degrees, then the entire load, on the contrary, will “go” from the pecs to the deltoids. Giving up the horizontal press and changing the angle of the bench is not everything. Usually, I prefer a barbell over anything, but then I changed my habit and started trying everything - dumbbells, blocks and different exercise machines. There is a special reason for this approach. If a muscle is not growing, then one of the most important ways to influence it is to increase training stress. Of course, as I already said, you need to do this wisely, but when you have chosen the right direction, you need to press the gas pedal all the way to the floor. If you take this instruction literally, then you simply need to lean on heavy weights, but I have worked with such weights before. So something else is needed. And what? Let's brainstorm together. Let's say you're bench pressing a barbell. Her weight is stressful for breastfeeding, right? What limits this stress? Exactly, the magnitude of the amplitude! The same segment along which the bar moves up and down! Here is the answer to the question you are looking for: lengthen this segment, and the same weight will act longer on the pecs! Stress will increase! Well, how to lengthen the amplitude in the same bench press? Take dumbbells instead of a barbell, that’s all! However, no. The matter is not limited to dumbbells alone. There is such a simulator for chests - it's called "Hammer". It was invented, I emphasize, by very smart people. It stimulates the bench press, but unlike the Smith machine, the bar does not narrow the range. You have to press two handles, which, like dumbbells, can be lowered lower than the bar. But, in addition, when you press them, they “contract” to the top point, combining the effect of pressing and flyes in one movement. The pecs are just moaning! There is another type of this simulator, when you sit and push the handles away from you. Also the coolest thing! By the way, for many it has a stronger effect than any bench press! In short, my “arsenal” includes all the gadgets that lengthen the amplitude. And both Hummer presses and dumbbell presses, and flyes, both with dumbbells and on blocks.

Complex.

INCLINE PRESS. My main exercise is the 30 degree incline bench press. Either with a barbell, or in a Smith machine, or on a Hummer. I start with a light warm-up set, and then gradually increase the weight in one or two sets until it's time for the main one - a super-heavy set of 6-8 repetitions. In addition, with the help of a partner, I “finish off” a couple more forced repetitions each time. I lower the weight slowly, building up energy inside me, like a spring under load. Once the bottom is passed, this energy is powerfully released to push the weight upward. But! I am not allowing for "explosive" effort here. It's so easy to tear something. No, the effort itself is smooth, like the movement of a piston in a ship’s engine (if anyone, of course, has seen it). At the top, the weight freezes for a moment, but not because I deliberately delay it. The force simply balances the force of gravity, and the bar “hangs” in the air before starting to move back. Thus, the movement itself is continuous, without deliberate stops at the top and bottom, and without shocks.

HUMMER PRESS. This is my second exercise, which seems to copy the bench press, however, in fact, it has a lot of useful advantages. First of all, complete safety. Secondly, the sitting position prevents arching of the body in the lower back. By the way, the more so-called lumbar “arch”, the more load “leaves” from the chest! Try yourself while doing bench presses by consciously pressing your lower back against the bench - the exercise will seem twice as hard! But never ask your partner to force you onto the bench - this is a direct path to a back injury! Another advantage of the Hammer is that it provides biomechanics that are safer for the shoulder joints than a conventional bench press. In addition, it is much easier to perform forced or negative repetitions. The technique is not much different from bench presses. Slowly lower the weight to your chest, and then powerfully push it away from you. Because the machine is safer, you can push the weight harder than you would with a bench press. At the top point there is again a delay in conditions of absolute contraction of the chest and then back. The set scheme is the same: one super-heavy set of 6-8 repetitions. Then 2 more forced reps and 2 more negative reps. All this with the help of partners.

BREEDING. The third exercise is dumbbell flyes. Sometimes on a straight bench, sometimes on a bench that has a slight backward incline. What is important here is, on the contrary, to limit the amplitude. Raise your arms from the bottom position to two-thirds, no higher. The upper third, when straight arms with dumbbells are above your head, is completely useless. Check it yourself: while you “go through” the first two-thirds of the amplitude, the tension in the chest increases, and in the last third it remains constant. Then what is it for? In short, here you need to be able to control your pecs under heavy weight and feel them. This is why the exercise is performed slowly. You shouldn’t interfere with yourself with jerks and pushes. I have fewer warm-up sets here - only one. And then immediately comes a super-powerful set of 6-8 repetitions. I rarely do forced repetitions here. Elbows are already overloaded, so there is no need to take unnecessary risks. In the end, overexertion is always dangerous. This is what my traditional off-season program looks like. But before the tournament I also add crossovers on blocks to it. The logic is this: the largest possible amplitude, and even a delay at the peak point. In addition, there is more variety - I change the inclination of the body, the angles of the blocks. More repetitions in sets - from 8 to 12.

For beginners.

People usually think that professionals have healthy breasts because they have access to some special equipment or train all day long. No, that's not the case at all. All professionals use the same exercises as any beginner. The results are different because professionals have accumulated extensive individual training experience and consult with each other. They feel their muscles better, and therefore more skillfully select exercises for themselves. At the same time, do not forget that the pros earn their living with their muscles. Believe me, when the championship is around the corner, and because of the same chest you can “fly”, the balls in your head begin to spin oh so quickly! Sometimes in a dream you see how to do this or that exercise. Beginners have little experience, and they train rather aimlessly - without any idea of ​​what their result should be. In any case, I advise them not to overexert themselves and at first limit themselves to just two exercises: the barbell bench press and the dumbbell bench press. As for barbell bench presses, press the weight at first only as an experiment. If you feel pain and burning in your front delts during or after pressing, then horizontal presses are not for you. Then move on to my incline press variation, but never raise the bench more than 30 degrees. When it comes to dumbbell presses, a more radical approach is needed. If they act mainly on deltas, then give them up altogether - only do dilutions. And forget about forced repetitions - as long as it's not all about you. Let's say you're a cool guy who can pay for a membership to a gym with Hummer machines. Maybe you should start working on them immediately? I’ll say right away: it’s useless! Hummer is a tool of the elite. It will only be beneficial if you already have 2-3 years of training behind you, not earlier. In short, start like me - do no more than 2 exercises per muscle group and no more than once a week. Let you have more heavy sets - 2-3. Of course, they must be preceded by a good warm-up. There should also be more repetitions at first - 10-12 per set. At the first stage, the main thing is not to undermine your physiological growth resources with too frequent and intense training. Don’t overexert yourself, and your body will slowly return to growth mode. Then the turn of fanaticism and will will come. But even here we must remember that bodybuilding is not powerlifting. Remember, in our sport the main thing is not weights, but brains!

2015-01-06 Views: 71 449 Grade: 3.0 Good day, friends! I’ll say right away that this article will not discuss the general principles of muscle growth; I have already covered all this in the article: Training program for gaining muscle mass. There is also a program specializing in pectoral muscles. The post is intended for those whose chest muscles are lagging and refuse to grow according to standard training regimens.

Why don't my chest muscles grow?

It so happens that genetically, in every person, some muscles respond well to the load, while others clearly begin to lag behind. In our case - breasts. There are many reasons that can affect overall training results. But if we highlight one main one, it is poor neuromuscular connection. That is, while performing exercises on the pectoral muscles, we feel their work poorly or not at all. For example, we can give the well-known one. This exercise is one of my favorite exercises, because it allows you to compete in strength. But it is far from the best exercise for gaining muscle mass in the pectoral muscles. Many may object, saying that some athletes primarily used it to pump up their chests. Let's remember about genetics, which means that in these athletes the pectoral muscles are a muscle that responds well to stress, but not everyone was gifted this way by their parents. So, let's look at some tricks that will help us fully develop our lagging chest muscles.

Techniques for chest muscle growth

1. Bench incline

When working on pectoral muscle mass, you should give preference to incline presses. , . The opinion that a horizontal bench press involves all the bundles, and an inclined one predominantly the upper bundle of the pectoral muscles is not entirely true. With horizontal presses, the lower pecs and shoulder girdle work primarily. When pressing the barbell horizontally, a bridge is formed (you can easily put your hand under your lower back). The bridge allows us to lift more weight by recruiting other muscle groups. This reduces the load on the chest muscles. To work out the chest, it is recommended to set the inclination of the bench up to 30 degrees. With this tilt, the biomechanics of movement changes, and the load is distributed mainly on the chest muscles. With this tilt, the pecs work fully. Both the upper and middle bundles of the pectoral muscles are perfectly loaded with the lower bundle of pectoral muscles. An excellent solution would be to replace the bench press with. Very relevant for guys with a narrow chest. When working with dumbbells, an important advantage is the large range of motion compared to a barbell. The tension in the chest should be maintained throughout the entire approach, so at the top point, do not straighten your arms completely, leaving the elbow joint slightly bent, and without pausing, repeat the movement.

3. Bridge in horizontal presses

If you under no circumstances want to give up horizontal presses, then there is one way out. Eliminate the bridge, thereby distributing the load primarily on the pectoral muscles. This is done simply: during the exercise, raise your legs and bend your knees (you can put your feet on a bench, or keep your legs crossed in the air). The lower back will press tightly against the bench and bench press will become more difficult. This means that we have excluded extra muscles from the exercise and all the work will be on the pectorals. However, it must be taken into account that in this position the working weights will be lower than in the usual bench press. These recommendations will help reduce the lag of the pectoral muscles from the rest of the muscle corset. Don’t forget that you need to work with maximum weights and maintain a progression of loads. It is also recommended to use periodization in bodybuilding for better progress in training and.