Chest lagging on MAX-OT

fst89lx

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Starting This week, I'll be in my fourth week of MAX-OT. So far it has been going well, I have gained a few lbs and strength is going up pretty steadily for everything except my chest.

anyone have any ideas that could help with this problem?

I'm following the routine provided by AST to the T
Flat bench
Incline bench
Weighted dips

Should I just stick with it and see if it gets better? Change exercises? do a different routine for chest?
 
hypo

hypo

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If you were following their routine to the T, your exercises would be changing every week anyway for the first few weeks. If you're just following the principles, check to make sure you're not hitting arms or tris super hard in some way on another day. And check your form. Most guys use way too narrow of a grip on bench, utilising the tris and setting themselves up for injury. If you're not sure where your grip should be, just ask someone who looks like they know what they're doing on bench, most will be glad to give you a few tips. My arms are really long and I used a narrow grip for a long time before figuring out it needed to be wider... like wider than the rings wide.

Also make sure your shoulder blades are squeezed together, your whole body is tight, and you have arch in your back. Do not let the weight deviate from it's course. It should come down to the very bottom of your chest without you having to correct the path, and your push should feel like you are actually pushing up and down a little bit instead of just straight up. Bench form really takes a while to get used to.

Also try going down to maybe 2 or 3 super duper intense heavy reps for ~3 sets/exercise (remember, around 8 sets TOTAL for chest using max OT). You should almost, but not quite, need a spot for the last one. Very low reps can help your strength plateau break. And if all else fails, skip chest for a week and come back to it. Your arms or chest may simply need some time to repair.

edit: oh, I forgot. Eat some more too :)
 

fst89lx

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Hmm maybe I didn't read far enough. I read the sample routine (which I'm doing) then it went on to explain the warmups and such. I didn't see anything about changing exercises every week... I'll read and re-read to see if I missed something.

I have good form on bench, my grip is pretty wide for me (middle fingers on the rings). As far as I know I'm not doing too much for my bi's/tri's.

We'll see how this week goes and I'll re-evaluate from there.
 
hypo

hypo

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Yeah, when I read the Max OT writeup I remember having to sign up and it was like a 12 week program slowly introducing more advanced principles as you went along. It was a fairly long read, at least a few pages per week.

The idea was to go through their writeup, learning the principles, then be able to create your own routine after the 12 weeks were up. I just read the whole thing outright and created a split from there. It worked quite well for me, and I still follow Max OT rules in some form or another all the time.

Be sure you're getting it from: http://www.ast-ss.com/max-ot/max-ot_intro.asp
 

fst89lx

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Someone had posted a PDF on here I believe and that is what I have been following, I'm pretty sure its what is on ast's site but not sure, guess I'll sign up and compare the two.
 
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