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Lagging parts!!!!

curt2go

Homebrew Help, Inc.
As you may or may not have seen my chest has always lagged behind. It is the hardest body part for me to build. What my ?? is .. Do you guys think that when I am on my next cycle will it be ok to do chest twice a week. What I was thinking was my normal workout on the regular day and then a gvt chest workout 3 days later.. What do you guys think? Talk to ya...
 
What I would suggest, instead of doing an actual workout, is 3 days after your normal chest workout do a major pump set for your chest, like 20 reps on a bench. Theory is you pull more blood to this area which pulls more androgens which equals greater recovery and more growth. Working a bodypart twice a week has never worked well for me but what I stated above helped bring my back out quite a bit. Hope this helps.

Cheers
 
Try fascia stretching. Also rather than adding a second workout why not try adding a little more isolation work on chest day...

J
 
Curt.......

Some guys seem to get more stress on their delts and triceps versus their pecs when benching..... does this apply to you?

Try pre-exhausting your chest next time you train. After warming up, do several heavy sets of either flys or pec deck. Then either flat bench or incline. You won't be able to bench as much weight this way, but your pecs will ABSOLUTELY be the first muscles in the pecs-delts-triceps group to fail.

I think you'll like what that does for your pecs. I guarantee you'll feel the difference your very first session

Good luck
 
On our regular chest day. We do. Flat bench either barbell or dumb bell, incline bench bar or dumbell and flies and sometimes pullovers... My chest is usually sore after.... Talk to ya.
 
We also do a mix of some days we go a little lighter and do like 8-10 rps and others that are 5-8... Talk to ya...
 
Curt....

On the days you're up for heavy, by all means go heavy. But on your lighter days, try either pre-exhausting, or even super setting fly's or pec deck first, then either flat or incline bench press. You won't be disappointed.

PC1
 
I'd say ditch the bar for now, start with incline db, and maybe even think about incorporating decline... db's always allow for greater isolation and concentration on the ol' pectorals... oh, and since I assume you have a partner by your use of we... I suggest you stick with reps of 6-8, and use drop sets on the last two sets of each exercise to start...

ex:

incline db- 3x8, 3x8(+8-10 drop set), 3x8(+8-10 drop set)

etc... the partner should make drop sets on decline easy to manage
 
Biggin said:
I'd say ditch the bar for now, start with incline db, and maybe even think about incorporating decline... db's always allow for greater isolation and concentration on the ol' pectorals
Click to expand...

i agree...once i started doin db chest exercises...my strength on bench shot up alot...plus i concentrated on building up strength in my tris....hope that helps a little....
 
Yes if we do the bar for flat we would use db'd for incline or vice versa. We also incorperate decline as well every once and a while. ~every 3 weeks.... I think I am doing it all guys. It sucks. My chest has always lagged but i won't alow it any more... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... Talk to ya
 
Curt -
Try throwing down some variation-grip push-ups on the second day after your chest workout. While in the Army, and doing required PT (pushups, ec.) along with hardcore workouts, my chest grew immensely.
 
I'd look into overtraining. I was the same way as you, chest was always lagging so I kept wanting to put the extra effort into it. Even with fairly low sets, sometimes if you train it so hard, doing forced reps to squeeze that last rep out, or training every set of every exercise as hard as you can your just going to overwork it. I think you mentioned before that you used ECA before chest only, correct? With that added energy you might be pushing your body beyond what it can handle, and if your going to failure on a lot of the sets your CNS has probably bottomed out on ya. If you haven't taken a week or two off in a while, I would do that and then come back and hit it hard. Working for me.

Sometimes more is not better, sometimes it is.
 
Curt I was thinking of doing something along the same lines. I am thinking of picking up an extra day with a 2nd day a week for a light tricep and calves workout to stimulate a little more growth, not on cycle though.
 
Scottyo said:
I'd look into overtraining. I was the same way as you, chest was always lagging so I kept wanting to put the extra effort into it. Even with fairly low sets, sometimes if you train it so hard, doing forced reps to squeeze that last rep out, or training every set of every exercise as hard as you can your just going to overwork it. I think you mentioned before that you used ECA before chest only, correct? With that added energy you might be pushing your body beyond what it can handle, and if your going to failure on a lot of the sets your CNS has probably bottomed out on ya. If you haven't taken a week or two off in a while, I would do that and then come back and hit it hard. Working for me.

Sometimes more is not better, sometimes it is.
Click to expand...

Oye. I was reading through this thread getting more and more disappointed until I read Scotty's post. Trying all kinds of rhythm variations (i.e. drop sets, super sets, so on) seems silly to me. I don't think you were referring to cardio for your pecs, were you? Would there be a point in benching, say, 100 pounds 30 times when your max is 300? Then why would you do it after a work set? Which brings up another thing. A set is either a work set, or a warmup set. There's no other reason to perform a set. Pre-exhaust and drop sets only limit your ability to overload your muscles. When I was flat DB pressing 65x10, I decided to try pec flye pre-exhausts. After a month of pre-exhausting I went back to doing it the traditional way, and had a hard time lifting 55x6. Waste of time.

Take a couple weeks off from lifting for your chest. Work your rotator cuff in the meantime. When you go back to it focus on form and on the mind-muscle connection, rather than fancy techniques.

</end rant>
 
Flavor said:


Which brings up another thing. A set is either a work set, or a warmup set. There's no other reason to perform a set. Pre-exhaust and drop sets only limit your ability to overload your muscles. When I was flat DB pressing 65x10, I decided to try pec flye pre-exhausts. After a month of pre-exhausting I went back to doing it the traditional way, and had a hard time lifting 55x6. Waste of time.

</end rant>
Click to expand...

Point missed.

No one said that pre-exhausting one's pecs are going to increase the amount of weight they can bench. TThat's another matter altogether.

While strength and size are related, one is not 100% dependent upon the other. We've all seen people training in gyms who are freakishly muscular, but rarely bench more than 300 pounds or more........ and we've all seen guys who don't look like they can bench 250 who can actually push up over 400 for reps.

It may very well be true that Curt is overtraining his chest. Only he can answer that question, and advising him to consider that is good advice.

However, the suggestion to pre-exhaust a muscle is also a good one, when looking to do something "different" to stimulate growth. Some guys can bench for years, and get quite strong.... and their delts and triceps grow yet they remain flat chested. Anyone who's trained for years knows that we need to do something DIFFERENT once in a while to stimulate growth. Progressive, resistance is afterall what it's all about. Alternating periods of heavy training with light, varying the speed with which one performs reps, and performing supersets or pre-exhausting a muscle are all time tested methods of changing one's training in order to stimulate new growth.
 
Flavor said:


Oye. I was reading through this thread getting more and more disappointed until I read Scotty's post. Trying all kinds of rhythm variations (i.e. drop sets, super sets, so on) seems silly to me. I don't think you were referring to cardio for your pecs, were you? Would there be a point in benching, say, 100 pounds 30 times when your max is 300? Then why would you do it after a work set? Which brings up another thing. A set is either a work set, or a warmup set. There's no other reason to perform a set. Pre-exhaust and drop sets only limit your ability to overload your muscles. When I was flat DB pressing 65x10, I decided to try pec flye pre-exhausts. After a month of pre-exhausting I went back to doing it the traditional way, and had a hard time lifting 55x6. Waste of time.

Take a couple weeks off from lifting for your chest. Work your rotator cuff in the meantime. When you go back to it focus on form and on the mind-muscle connection, rather than fancy techniques.

</end rant>
Click to expand...

I have to disagree, not with taking a week off but with how everything else seems silly. People posted those techniques because it is something that worked for them or someone they know, not for you to judge. Mike Mentzer even used the pre-exhaust approach, which is the next thing I was going to suggest, switch to an HIT form of training for awhile. Just because something didn't work for you doesn't mean it is silly or won't work for someone else. What I originally posted worked well for me but taking time off didn't do a damn thing except make me feel weaker when I returned to the gym and yes my diet stayed clean during that time. Also, a set is either a work set or a warmup set, how do you explain techniques like GVT then, where does the warmup sets end and the work sets begin?

To stay on track

Curt,
You might want to try swtiching to an HIT type style of training for your chest as well. Maybe something like
Pec Dec 1set 6-8
Dips 1set 6-8
Incline Bench 1set 6-8
One set may seem kind of low but you go directly from one exercise to the next. You will definitely feel like you can do more but let that extra energy go towards recovery. Good luck bro.
 
on ur next cycle, why dont u try and just prioritize?
i mean, if its that much of a problem, just lower the intensity on ur shoulders and triceps.

ie- try to just stick with maybe lat raises- 3 sets of 10-12. dont do any other isolation excercises for triceps. stick with super-heavy iso's for ur chest, like pecs decks, pullovers, decline's(not really an iso), crossover's, etc.


just try and keep ur shoulders and triceps where they are at for now, dont even worry about em.

also, takin a week or two off, might be a good idea.( ihate doin this too, but sometimes u gotta do what u gotta do.)
 
curt2go said:
As you may or may not have seen my chest has always lagged behind. It is the hardest body part for me to build. What my ?? is .. Do you guys think that when I am on my next cycle will it be ok to do chest twice a week. What I was thinking was my normal workout on the regular day and then a gvt chest workout 3 days later.. What do you guys think? Talk to ya...
Click to expand...

Doing a second chest workout 3 days later is a little too soon IMO. Space the workouts at least 5 days apart to allow proper recovery. As well. keep it simple. Too many different exercises will not help your chest. Stick with flatbench at weights where you can do 2-6 reps for 8 sets. Follow up with isolation exercises only (cable crossovers or pec deck will work fine). This will work. Thank me in 3 months.
 
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