Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1122: How to Build an Impressive Chest

Episode Date: September 19, 2019

In this episode, Sal, Adam & Justin discuss everything you need to know to build and shape an impressive chest (Plus a workout!).   The function of the pec and its insertion points explained. (3:10)... The volume and load recommendations to build an impressive chest. (13:38) The importance of developing a strong back when learning the bench press. (22:53) The significance of priming before you perform any chest exercise. (33:21) The MUST do/MOST effective exercises to build your chest.  Barbell Bench Press. (35:50) Incline Bench Press. (39:30) Dips. (45:15) Chest Flys. (46:55) The ULTIMATE chest workout brought to you by the guys of Mind Pump: Frequency, training volume, exercises & MORE. (49:30) Sal. (52:45) Adam. (54:06) Justin. (56:05)   Related Links/Products Mentioned September Promotion: MAPS Starter ½ off!! **Code “STARTER50” at checkout** Complete Guide To Build a Great Chest | Mind Pump Media How to Develop Your Chest - Mind Pump Are You Activating Your CHEST Muscles Properly?? (QUAH #9) | MIND PUMP How to Lateral Raise for Maximum Muscle Growth How to Row: Correct these Common Mistakes for Maximum Lat Development Mind Pump Free

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Starting point is 00:00:00 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Alright, so in this episode of Mind Pump, we talk about developing your chest muscles, your pecs. Chesties. Now, I started out by talking about the function of the peck. Like, what does the pe pet actually do in your body? Where does it attach?
Starting point is 00:00:28 What are the two attachments? Why is it important to know that? We talk about the aesthetics of the chest, what makes your chest look good, whether you're a man or a woman, then we give you a workout. So we talk about what you need to do to prime your body for your chest, and then we actually give you a specific workout. So we talk about what you need to do to prime your body for your chest, and then we
Starting point is 00:00:45 actually give you a specific workout. So in this episode, when you're done with this episode, you are going to have an awesome chest workout. So we know you're going to love this episode. Also, before it starts, I want to remind everybody that Maps Starter is 50% off. Now Maps Starter is a phenomenal program for those of you who want to get started with resistance strength. So if you're not doing resistance strength now, if you haven't for a long time or you never have, and you're confused as to how to get started,
Starting point is 00:01:14 where you should go, MAP starter is perfect. It'll give you all the benefits of resistance training. More muscle, faster fat loss, faster metabolism. Of course, the ability to sculpt and shape your body, like resistance training only can do. This is a perfect program for you. Also, if you're super advanced and you're like, hey, I don't need a starter program
Starting point is 00:01:35 because I've been working out for a while, get this program for a friend or family member that wants to get started. The best part about this program, you don't need a lot of equipment. All you need is a physio ball and dumbbells, and you can do this entire workout. So again, this program is 50% off. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapsstarter.com. That's MAPS, STAR, TR.com, and use the code starter50, STAR, TR, 50, no space for the discount. So we've been making our way through all the major muscle groups.
Starting point is 00:02:11 And I know we've written quite a few guys. Actually, we have it. So I wrote quite a few guides with the collective we. Yeah. Yeah, like a friend in your pocket. It's everybody. Yeah. You know, the last episode we did on shoulders
Starting point is 00:02:25 did exceptionally well. A lot of people shared it. A lot of people enjoyed or appreciated that we broke down the shoulder, the shoulder joint, what the best exercises were. So we're going to go through the body and kind of do that. And the next body part that we're going to focus on today is the chest.
Starting point is 00:02:42 And I think we're going to do something a little special on this one too. I think we're going to provide a favorite workout of each of us, right? Oh, yeah. You'll leave this episode with a workout, a good workout for your chest. And all of our programs include chest in the programming. And we do have individual body part guides and workouts and programs that are coming out. But this episode alone will provide you with quite a bit of information.
Starting point is 00:03:06 I think we should start with talking about the function of the peck and the insertion and origin or the attachments of the pecs. And I know people listening right now, if you're not a personal trainer, you're like, eh, skip this part. I don't care about that. Why are you even talking about? This is important stuff to know because if you know the two attachments of a muscle or all the attachments of a muscle, you understand and you understand what a muscle contracts,
Starting point is 00:03:32 it brings those attachments closer together. You get a really good idea of the actual function of the muscle. And then when you do an exercise, visualizing that function makes a big difference. It really does. You feel. And then you could see whether or not
Starting point is 00:03:48 that exercises valid or not. A lot of times, you'll see some new concept out there and it's focused on chest. But you know, right away, based off of how the chest functions, where that doesn't have a whole lot of value. And so I go through that and see a lot of Instagram videos and things people are promoting. And so like I go through that and see a lot of Instagram videos and things people are promoting.
Starting point is 00:04:06 And yeah, come back to see like, you know, the real meat and potatoes are always the same. Well, the chest is fun to talk about because it's different than a lot of other muscles on your body. Like with the way the anchor points are and the way that you can target parts of the chest, which you can't do that for a lot of muscles on your body. There's not a lot of muscles on your body that you can change the angle or change the
Starting point is 00:04:33 exercise. And now you can really change the shape. Yeah, right. Change the shape. There isn't upper and lower. Yeah, because a lot of the shape of certain muscles is dictated. I mean, as a muscle grows, it obviously changes shape, but a lot of that shape is dictated by genetics. But when it comes to the chest,
Starting point is 00:04:49 you have more control over the shape of the chest that you develop than you do with a lot of other muscles. And that's because of, like Adam said, some of the anchor points. Now, first off, let's talk about the function of the pack. Now, the technical term for the function of the pack would be horizontal adduction of the humerus. That sounds kind of complicated.
Starting point is 00:05:10 Basically, what it means is it takes your upper arm and it brings it from the outside of your body closer to the inside of your body. Midline your body. On a horizontal plane, so it's not going up or down, it's bringing the arm across your body. And so that's what's happening when you're doing like a bench press or a fly or a peck deck,
Starting point is 00:05:30 you're taking your upper arm and you're bringing it from the outside of your body across towards the midline of your body. There's another part of the chest function that's interesting. And I remember when I first learned this, I laughed because there's a lot of myths when it comes to training body parts.
Starting point is 00:05:47 And this one kind of highlighted some of the myths that I had learned in my early years as somebody interested in working out. The pack, because of the way it attaches on the humerus, it actually immediately rotates the arm. Now, what does that mean? That means if you take your palm, your hand, and your palm is up, and you rotate so that your palm is down, or your arm, the upper arm rotates in that direction, that's what the chest does.
Starting point is 00:06:11 It doesn't do the opposite. It doesn't rotate it so that the palm is up. And I remember the old school exercises when they had me do that. Well, that's the aerotaped, so your pinkies come together. Yeah, that's the irony of what you're bringing up because for years, well before getting into personal training and watching the buff guys lift dumbbells in the gym, especially on a dumbbell bench press, is they would bench, and then they would, yeah, they'd actually supinate,
Starting point is 00:06:38 so they rotate with the pinkies together, and then they clink the dumbbells together. Like that was just like a common thing. And they were like, it gives you a better squeeze. Right. And what the squeeze that they feel, and if someone's ever done that, they're like, yeah, I've done that, I feel the squeeze.
Starting point is 00:06:52 The squeeze that you feel is actually your arms squeezing your boobs or your chest together. It's not actually the muscle contracting more, but the opposite rotating, the opposite direction of what we've seen traditionally, and internally rotating or pronating. So that you're turning the, so that the thumbs touch each other at the top.
Starting point is 00:07:11 Right. That gives you a better, more full pet contraction. Now the other thing too, is I think when people rotate so that the pinkies face each other, which is wrong, and they say, oh, but I feel more of a burn. There's a partial occlusion going on, I think, because you're squeezing the upper arm against the pec,
Starting point is 00:07:27 you kind of blocked it from... Cut not circulation a little bit. Yeah, and so you feel more of a burn. That's funny. Yeah, so, no, if you're gonna rotate it all with your checks, exercises, if you're gonna rotate the arm at all, it's rotating immediately
Starting point is 00:07:39 where the thumbs face each other, not the other way around. So it's an important thing to know. And I believe we did a YouTube video of this. I think I talked about it in an old YouTube video, I think. Yeah, I think we did. In fact, I remember that. Now the insertion and origin, let's talk about that for a second, because that refers to the two attachment points of the chest or the two major attachment points.
Starting point is 00:08:01 One side in the upper arm, so we've talked about that already. The other side, here's what's interesting about the pec. It's this muscle that attaches at the arm and then it fans out over the front of the ribcage and it attaches all along the sternum, the middle part of your ribcage and then all the way up, even attaching at your, a little bit at your clavicle, which is your, what's this bone called, not your clavicle, but it is a clavicle. Chromium. No, no, no, your color bone. So I'm trying to use layman's terms.
Starting point is 00:08:34 And it does attach at the color bone. So because it has all these attachments in the middle of your chest, now, and remember the peck, when it contracts, it brings both ends together, like any muscle, it brings two ends together. Because there's so many attachments along the middle of the chest, that means I can work more upper chest, more middle chest, and more lower chest.
Starting point is 00:08:58 This is where you can really change the shape of your chest, different than other muscles, like the biceps. You know, the biceps, the two points are so close to each other in terms of, I mean, there's two parts of the bicep, but they're so close to each other that. It doesn't make a difference. You're not gonna work the inside of your bicep
Starting point is 00:09:16 more than the outside of your bicep, but with the pack, you will develop more upper, middle or lower depending on the exercises that you do. Absolutely. Now, the chest is involved in pushing, throwing. It also helps stabilize the shoulder joint. So anytime you do anything in front of your body, push something away, throw something overhead, bring your arm across your body, just maintaining good shoulders.
Starting point is 00:09:42 The pec is involved in that. And it's a rather large muscle. I would say it's probably one of the larger muscles of the body, definitely of the upper body. I can't think of another muscle that's bigger, except for the lats than the pecks in terms of just sheer size. Now, it's a popular muscle to work.
Starting point is 00:10:00 And there's a reason for that. It's considered a very aesthetic muscle. This is like a centerpiece of your body. When in bodybuilding and physique competition, the packs are, I mean, if you don't have well developed packs, you're probably not gonna do very well in the competition. It's also a favorite one for people to work, especially men. And I think it's because they identify like,
Starting point is 00:10:23 oh, national chest days, Monday. Yeah, Monday. Yeah, Monday. Everybody's working out, because it really is an important part of having a nice, presentable physique. But let's talk about women for a second, because I think sometimes people think,
Starting point is 00:10:37 oh, you know, nice, well-developed pecs, that's important for men, but for women, that's not that important because they have breasts. So it covers their pecs anyway. Why would they want to work their chest? Have you guys ever had women's? So I don't want to work my chest out. No, yeah, you have it all.
Starting point is 00:10:51 It's actually very common and back to your point of, you know, that we can target parts of the chest and that's unique in comparison to many other muscles on your body. And if you can target the upper chest, you will get that kind of lift for a female. So one of my favorite things to teach, my female clients that think,
Starting point is 00:11:16 oh, because I have breast implants or I already have big boobs, like I don't need to do chest at all, I would always incorporate incline chest for sure in there because it's only going to make their breasts sit more upright. And I think most everybody that has breasts would say that they prefer that their boobs sit more upright than sag. And that's something that you can actually help support by training incline.
Starting point is 00:11:40 Yes, the muscles underneath your breasts, if those develop, they do cause lift. And it's funny, I would have female clients who tell me, I don't want to work chest. First off, this is a big myth. I don't want to work chest because I don't want to lose fat from my boobs. That's actually a myth, that's false. You can't spot reduce body fat on your body. In other words, if I work out my left calf, it's not going to make my left calf leaner.
Starting point is 00:12:07 I'm going to develop muscle there, but the body fat around my calf doesn't burn any differently or faster than any other part of my body. The way your body burns body fat is systemically. It actually systemically burns a body fat, mobilizes it and uses it for energy. So you don't burn body fat from the areas that are closest to the areas that you're working. That's called spot reduction.
Starting point is 00:12:29 It's totally false. It's been proven time and time again. So no, working out your chest will not give you smaller boobs. If you get leaner overall, you may get smaller boobs, but training your chest won't do that. What will it will do besides making you stronger, giving you better shoulder stability, is it will lift what breasts you do have.
Starting point is 00:12:50 So chest, the muscles of the pecs, men have pretty much always, as long as I can remember, have valued pecs for aesthetics and have considered them important. But I think more and more women now are realizing the pecs for their own aesthetics because of that one fact right there, it does cause lift. And here's the other thing too, not having any peck muscles, and if you wear like a shirt with like a bit of a plunging neckline, and you see those upper ribcage ribs,
Starting point is 00:13:20 having some muscle there, well, just, it just looks better. You look healthier. So not having any part of your body that's not developed tends to take away from your aesthetics. Of course, those things like overdevelopment, but definitely don't skip chest training. It's an important muscle for function, but also for aesthetics.
Starting point is 00:13:37 Now, what are your eyes as theories on how much that you can train the chest in comparison to a lot of other muscles? Do you think that because we do so many things in front of us and it gets incorporated in every day movements that it can handle a much larger load as far as volume and frequency? I think it's similar to other body parts.
Starting point is 00:13:58 I think sometimes people skip chest because they think it's gonna give them worse posture. But if you train properly with a full extension and contraction, I think it'll improve the pliability and the range of motion of the chest because short muscles aren't necessarily strong. A lot of times they're just tight, you know what I'm saying? Because this, and this is just part, my personal experience is I feel like I've been able to train my chest more frequently and with more volume than many of my other muscles on my body. Is that just because it's been a priority though, too? Like something like you've enjoyed more, so like repeats it. Yeah, for me it was a major
Starting point is 00:14:38 priority because I had like no chest. I think I talked on a recent episode too that I, you know, one side was develop more than even when I started like lifting and I started training bench press and I was trying to develop my chest, I was starting to get like this major imbalance where one side was developed more than the other. I also didn't have the connection in between, like I remember as kids, my buddies. Oh right. There was a space in between. Yeah, yeah, like my buddies, they would squeeze like pencils or like, and I couldn't do that.
Starting point is 00:15:05 I couldn't, my chest make them bounce yet. No, I couldn't do that. I couldn't do a lot of things. And so that was a major insecurity of mine and a major focus for a very long time. And I was able to fix all of that and get to a point where I actually could build my chest to where it was completely, I could bring it together.
Starting point is 00:15:26 I- Because you had built enough mass. Yeah. And it's important though that we clarify, you can develop from top to bottom, you can focus on different parts of your chest, perform left to right, you can't. In other words, you can't focus more on the inner chest
Starting point is 00:15:41 or the outer chest. Right. And what is the way the muscle fibers work? And what I would teach people, so then how did I close that center gap, right? So you can build your chest to be big enough that it'll start to close that gap. But you can't do exercises that are, a lot of people think the common myth would be like, oh, I want to work the center of my chest. So they do like exercises that stretch because they can feel the stretch there by like doing flies,
Starting point is 00:16:07 are going to build that better than an incline press? No, that's not true at all. In fact, I can load an incline press, I can load a barbell press with a lot more weight than I can do flies, which in turn, will put more mass on my chest, which in turn will give that illusion that my chest is closing together,
Starting point is 00:16:26 but really all it is, is it's getting just larger. That's so funny that you said that because what Arnold used to say and what the bodybuilder is back then used to say was that squeezing the chest, like a cable crossover where you focus on the squeeze works the inner chest and a stretch works the outer chest. They actually said the opposite. I mean, it's not true. No, no, no, no. Yeah, both of them are, my point is that both of them are false,
Starting point is 00:16:49 whichever camp you come from and nothing is going to, you know, make the center of your chest, close the gap in the center of your chest more than building the entire chest. The overall chest. And so doing exercises like flies are incredible movements that belong in every chest workout. But I wouldn't say that chest flies were the things that put the most mass on my chest, which in turn it up. And that same thing even goes for even though I know we can go up
Starting point is 00:17:17 upper lower, but even the biggest difference in making the hang or making my, you know, everybody talks about wanting the lip, you know, everybody talks about wanting the lip, you know, or the hang of your chest, so it looks bigger. And fuller, yeah, doing dips and doing some stuff like that helped, but still nothing helped more than building the chest itself and getting it more developed. It's the larger signal that you're flying. Yeah, because what I would see is, and this is, and why I'm wanting to cover this is because you get somebody who wants to work the lower part of their chest.
Starting point is 00:17:50 We know things like decline flies, or we know that doing dips, these are areas, with his ways we could target that. Well, problem is, that's a great way to target that, but it isn't necessarily the best way to build size on your chest. What I would see is I'd see some kid doing decline bench that I see him doing decline cable flies, and then I see him doing some, you know, ISO, one of the hammer strength machines that's decline,
Starting point is 00:18:14 and that's kind of his routine. It's like, man, you're missing out on incline barbell press, incline dumbbell press, flat dumbbell press, flat barbell press, which in my opinion are four, you know, movements for the chest that are gonna build more mass on your chest than any of those other movements. That's a good point.
Starting point is 00:18:33 Like, unless you have a lot of muscle already developed, sacrificing overall development to target a particular part of the muscle, usually results in a loss, right? So like, it reminds me of, it's the same thing as the girls doing the kickbacks for their butt. It's like what's gonna make your butt bigger
Starting point is 00:18:54 and look better is squatting and deadlifting. The big gross motor movements, you can move the most low, south put, which is required for like, you know, like some of these other movements. Like a squat is gonna do so much more than, yeah, your kickbacks or any of these like banded exercises just because the demand isn't as high.
Starting point is 00:19:12 And the chest is no different. And this is the mistake that you see a lot, and this is, you know, you see the spin press, which somebody's trying to work the center of their chest, and they're, they're over here doing this spin press with a 10 pound plate, they're squeezing together. It's like, man, what you're getting out of that? If that is replacing a barbell fucking press or a dumbbell type of a press, you're missing out on what you're trying to accomplish. Yes, you're trying to work the inner part of your chest,
Starting point is 00:19:39 but nothing's going to work the inner part of your chest more or give that illusion that you've worked the inner part of the chest than building give that illusion that you've worked the inner part of the chest Then building more mass and more size on your chest. Yes, and in another point is because these a lot of the a lot of these Best movements or presses incline barbell flat barbell or dumbbell because they're presses and they're using a lot of Muscles they're also using the shoulders the triceps. They the triceps, your stabilizing with your back, your lats. There is a way to press more weight that is not necessarily the best way to press to develop better pets. Oh, good point right here. And this is important to know because the best bench pressers in the world are power lifters. They bench press better than anybody in the world.
Starting point is 00:20:23 That's what they do. It's their job. But they've developed a technique and skill to bench pressing that maximizes their ability to move the most amount of weight quickly. But they have not, they don't bench press in a way to develop a more well-rounded chest. So you want to consider that. If you're learning how to bench press from a power lifter, which is a great thing you should learn. I think this is an important way to learn because power lifters also bench in an efficient way.
Starting point is 00:20:50 They bench in a safe way. Of course, if you're not using more weight than you should, it's a safe way of benching. Your shoulders pin back, then nice high on the arch on the back. The elbow slightly tucked. It's a very good general way to bench press and maximize his force, but it's not gonna develop
Starting point is 00:21:07 your pecs as well as understanding the function of the chest and focusing on that, what's called horizontal adduction as you're pressing, where the elbows are coming together and you're slowing down and you're focusing, when you lower the, when you lower the weight as a power lifter, you're keeping the strong arch and your bench, your back, excuse me, you're tightening your scapula,
Starting point is 00:21:29 you're tucking your elbows a little bit, and you're slowly lowering the weight. If you wanna develop your chest, what you're doing is you're focusing on the negative portion of what the chest is doing, where the elbows are coming out. So it's a little bit different to develop different parts of your body
Starting point is 00:21:42 and to strengthen different parts of the lift. So this is important to know, you know, for me, I got really good at bench pressing. different to develop different parts of your body and to strengthen different parts of the lift. So this is important to know, for me, I got really good at bench pressing. It didn't build my chest because I was bench pressing like a power lift or two. At some point. That you just, the closer the elbows get to your side,
Starting point is 00:21:57 okay, the more trisive is involved than the more you flare out, the more shoulder and chest is involved. This is where the camps were, where it was a bodybuilder bench press versus a powerlifter bench press, and the bodybuilder used to teach actually cue flared elbows, which I don't like to cue, I don't like to cue as a coach, because I think that risk of injury for your shoulder, but the truth is that if you can, if you can flare the elbows out more and not bother your shoulders
Starting point is 00:22:26 and it's comfortable for you to do that, you're incorporating more chest. The more it's flared, the more chest, the more the elbows are tucked by your side, the more triceps are getting more. Yeah, and you have to check your ego because a bench press like that, done bodybuilder style, you're not gonna lift as much weight.
Starting point is 00:22:41 Or if you try to lift a lot of weight doing that, that's where the injury comes in. You're going to lower the weight considerably and have that kind of form to really work the pecs more than anything else. So now a strong back is really important for well-developed pecs. This is important. I think Adam, you talked about this one. This is like, this is everything to me. I've talked on the show before.
Starting point is 00:23:04 We've made fun of how I used to bench press as a kid, where I had one friend would be pending my shoulders down, and then the other two friends would be spotting the barbells I'd press it, and there'd be like a total of 10 pounds in the bar when I was lifting it was awful. It was a terrible sight to see.
Starting point is 00:23:18 And at that point, I just didn't understand anatomy, physiology, physics, anything. I was a young kid trying to learn how to lift. I think I'm 16 and my buddy's garage, and I don't know what the hell I'm doing. Other than what I look at the magazines and what I read, and they don't really teach you much there. For the forever, it felt like forever. For years, I benched pressed, and my shoulders and my triceps just took over the load.
Starting point is 00:23:46 Like I just couldn't, I didn't understand how important it was that my shoulder stayed in a retracted position. It's just very natural for us to roll everything forward. We do everything in front of us all the time. So already naturally, most people have the, what we call upper cross engine when they have the the rounded shoulders and the forward head So you're already projected forward which means when you go to do a Movement in front of you and if the shoulders are rolled forward then the anterior delt and the tricep Take over most of load so as a kid. I don't know any better
Starting point is 00:24:22 I don't understand posture so I lay down on the bench I grab a bar and I see my friends just press it and I just press it and I try and get it up off as much as I can. So for me, I get under there already with this kind of rounded shoulder position and I get the bar off and I start pressing it. And so my shoulders and my triceps are just taking the entire load. It wasn't later on until I became a personal trainer and I began to learn kinesiology and I started to understand the importance of, in a bench press, being able to keep the shoulders in a retract and depressed position while you press.
Starting point is 00:24:58 That's very unnatural for most people. Very few people get that concept. In fact, when I think about training clients for many years, boy, that was a common thing. First, client would do an exercise and I'd have to sit them back up, I'd pull their shoulder blades, be like, you got to keep it here and then I'd have to take their shoulders and hold it back and then with no weight, just their arms sitting up and get them to show them, can you move your arms in front of your body without letting the shoulders collapse and roll forward. That's very difficult for people to do.
Starting point is 00:25:26 Yeah, another thing with that, because they were trying to teach you to keep everything super flat. So I know, for the longest time, people would even pull their feet up onto the bench, because they wanted to make sure the spine was super flat in that process, and you're able to get that connection with your core, so your course, your core was still bracing, but now look at your position, look at your shoulders, natural tendencies to do is to kind of curl forward. And so now I'm in this advantageous position to where all the stress is going to my shoulder and my triceps and everything else are compensating for that. So this was me for years, for years. And even when I started to learn, and like, oh, I need to be kind of back more,
Starting point is 00:26:09 it didn't matter because I was an athlete that was left-handed. So all my sports, I throw, hit, do everything left, that I already had, like I was a little bit more dominated on that side, so I kind of had more of a rounded shoulder on that side. So even as I'm like, okay, I get it, chest is up, shouldersers back why I press. My right side is retracting and in the
Starting point is 00:26:31 proper position, my left side is not. So then what's weird is, and that's why I couldn't didn't make sense to me. I would look at my chest and be like, this is so weird. I'm left handed. So that should be my stronger side, but my weaker side is more developed than my more dominant side. This didn't make sense to me. Even now this is me becoming a trainer and like starting to address this. It baffled me for a long time
Starting point is 00:26:56 before I started to piece it together, what was going on, I was like, oh, what's happening is I'm trying to retract, I'm so dominantly rolled forward on the left side because I am an athlete and I play with this. So that side is collapsing in. So when I go to bench press, the shoulder and the tricep on that side is taking a little bit more load. The right side, because it's weaker, it was easier for me to teach myself to hold back that side. That side's actually working the chest more. Like this just, it completely blew my mind when I finally learn how to address it and then work on that.
Starting point is 00:27:31 And that's when I started to see my chest strength. And it was a little while, like, it wasn't like all of a sudden that someone showed me, I figured it out and was like, oh, now I'm off to the races and bench pressing and I'm like super strong. I mean, I was the kid that couldn't hardly bench press. I remember the day still, I was over 20 before I could even put the wheels, the big wheels on the barbell.
Starting point is 00:27:52 Like that was a big moment for me as a kid. Like, oh my God, I could put the, you know what I'm saying? Cause when you're a teenage boy and you're lifting in the gym, it's a little embarrassing to not use the 45 plays. You know, when that's what we warm up with today. Now they have bumper plays.
Starting point is 00:28:05 Yeah. So the kids put turns on each side. So this was a, this was a major insecurity for me as a young boy who was trying to lift and, and being so weak in that area. And then it's crazy how once I, I really started to develop my back, understand how to retract and depress, I learned how to keep it in that position. Man, and I had to lighten the load instead of always going for maxing out with my buddies
Starting point is 00:28:31 as a kid. I had to lighten the load and it was more about, can I take this exercise through its full range of motion while still maintaining those shoulders back? Because I tell you what, which is why too. I don't know if you guys ever taught this As a trainer for many years. I actually would not teach my clients all the way full range of motion on a chest press because The last reach with it. Yes, the last two to three inches They would reach and then protract forward again And they would lose that retraction that I would want so I actually would
Starting point is 00:29:01 Sure, I used to teach a shortened range of motion at the beginning to get them to really put the emphasis on retracting the shoulders. That was so important that I taught that first. And then I could say, okay, now we can go full range of motion. It's because your body doesn't understand your brain, doesn't understand, you know, feel the muscle. It just knows, push this weight off my body and reach, and reaching includes spreading the scapula and rounding forward.
Starting point is 00:29:29 So it is a little bit unnatural at first, but one way to fix this is to try priming before you do your presses. And so an easy, very easy way to get yourself in this position would be to do like a cable row. Yeah, cable row. Really, really light, cable row, you can use a band and focus on squeezing the shoulders black, get connected to that pinched back position.
Starting point is 00:29:52 Once you get that feel, get in the bench press or whatever pressure doing, maintain that position and then do your press and you'll get a full range of motion. You know it's funny about that. I remember like learning the bench press and just intuitively, my friends used to make fun of me for this because before I would go to lift the weight, I would do this like really, like almost like a plyometric row with just the air and I would just like try and open myself up,
Starting point is 00:30:16 you know, right before the lift. And so that became like almost like a meme, you know, back in the day where they would make fun of me for that, but it would really set my shoulders back in a good position and get me ready to be able to stabilize. You know, I didn't know we were going to go here in this conversation, but to the, back to the point that I was talking about, it's so funny to me that I'm like, I'm envisioning myself right now trying to teach this on YouTube and how destroyed I would get. Like if I was showed people like how I taught a bench press to or a dumbbell press to a
Starting point is 00:30:49 you know brand new 45 year old client who's never really lifted weights before, I used to teach this really kind of shortened range of motion to get them to understand because retracting and depressing was so important to learning how to bench press correctly. I would teach this short and range of motion until they got that under control really well before I progressed them. It reminds me of the split stance bisip curl and only coming up and just keeping the shoulders retracted as I taught that first. And it makes me want to do a YouTube video because of that because I think
Starting point is 00:31:25 there's a lot of value for a beginner who's never really lifted or struggles with feeling it in their chest with understanding the how important it is that you stay retracted and depressed in that movement and understanding that how how hard that is. It's very unnatural. Just to keep them anchored. It's very unnatural. It's also safer. Like if you them anchored. It's very unnatural. It's also safer.
Starting point is 00:31:46 Like if you're pressing heavy and you're allowing your shoulders to roll forward, it's a matter of time before something happens, especially if you're using a lot of weight. So that's a very important component. I'm glad we went in here because that piece right there, when you're doing your chest exercises, pretty much most, if not all chest exercises,
Starting point is 00:32:04 will involve that anchor and stabilization. Anchor stabilizes the scapula of the shoulder blades, now work the chest. If you don't do that, then you can run into a lot of problems. This is also why most people feel chest flies so well. Well, when you open up and you fly, open like this, it naturally retracts and pulls you back.
Starting point is 00:32:25 So it's almost hard not to feel it in the chest. That's why the chest fly is such a popular movement that people are like, well, I feel it in my chest when we do the chest flies. Well, it's yeah, because the cables or the dumbbells rip you open. Yeah, the gravity pulls down or the cable, whatever you're using, opens you up and retracts the shoulders.
Starting point is 00:32:44 It actually puts you in that position you need to be in. So it's almost impossible not to feel the chest in those first six inches of contraction, right? Where in a barbell press or a dumbbell press, you could very easily bring the dumbbell or the barbells down and the shoulder and tricep and everything else take over the load and not feel hardly anything in your chest, which when I go back and I think of all
Starting point is 00:33:09 the clients that I have trained, you know, chest is a one of the more difficult muscles to get people to fire correctly, which makes it that much more difficult to develop correctly. Feeling the chest work when you're doing a press is a bit of a skill, isn't it? Takes a little bit of practice. It's the only one that I, so before we wrote Maps Prime, it was the only one that I was already priming for a long time. Once I learned that I had to retract and depress my shoulders,
Starting point is 00:33:38 this is also why so my buddy, Paul and I, we used to lift, and he was the first person that I ever lifted with that love to do chest and back together. That was those were like, he always paired chest and back in his splits. And at this point in my career, I really had never trained chest and back together. I like to, I like to separate my big muscle groups by themselves so I could get after him because I was back in the days when I was in the theory of destroy every workout and trying to destroy your back and chest in the same workout as it could be taxing. But I remember, this is when this all clicked for me,
Starting point is 00:34:10 is we'd start with our back workout typically and then we would move to chest. And man, I just felt right away, as soon as I got under the chest exercises, I just felt in my chest right away. It felt great, I felt engaged, I felt strong and I thought that was surprising after I just did all these backers, but what I what clicked it, I finally realized, well, what's what it is?
Starting point is 00:34:30 I woke up all those muscles in my back. I'm in a really good retracted position already because it's all been stimulated and woke up. Now when I get under the barbell press, I'm already in the position I need to be in to be in the most advantageous advantageous position to press up the most amount of weight. That's when it kind of like clicked for me that, okay, I've got to always print. So now I always either do like barbell rows with just the bar so I could get it warmed up or I do pull apart with the band or do rows like you see the frame that area. Yeah that area. Yeah, just to prime that area really well
Starting point is 00:35:05 and then get into your bench. And then someone's listening right now and you're not following one of our programs, you don't own prime, but you have a chest day coming up, I challenge you to go over and do some seated rows and you don't do it. The idea is you don't do it really, really heavy. No, you're not working out your back.
Starting point is 00:35:22 Yeah, just go focus on the shoulders, pinching back, squeeze. And then once you get that feeling, once you can feel what's going on, then go to your press. Yes, do a lightweight, do a really lightweight that you can do 20 reps easily and do 15 to 20 reps with a squeeze, a pause, so retract, squeeze, and down,
Starting point is 00:35:39 and hold that for two or three seconds, let it out, do that for 15 to 20 reps, maybe two sets of that, and then go over and do bench press and watch what a difference it feels. Let's talk about the must-do chest exercises, like the best, most effective bang for your buck, chest exercises. Bench press has gotta be a barbell bench press,
Starting point is 00:36:00 done properly. I mean, it focuses on the overall chest, but mainly works, I'd say the mid to lower part of the chest with good form. So you're still activating the whole peck, but most of the development's gonna go towards the mid from the middle down to the bottom. Yeah, and this is just one of those you could load.
Starting point is 00:36:19 You could apply the most load towards this exercise, and that's where we're getting get that big response. We're gonna have to produce a lot of force to overcome a substantial amount more load than say you're doing a fly or doing even just a dumbbell bench press, for instance. Yeah, so you're talking about the barbell.
Starting point is 00:36:37 Although I like the dumbbells too, right? I do like them too. Yeah, there's another great compliment to that. Yeah, the thing I like about the barbell is you can use more load. What I like about the barbell is you can use more load. What I like about the dumbbells is the greater range of motion. With the dumbbells, I can go down further
Starting point is 00:36:51 than I can with the bar because the bar would obviously hit my chest and stop. And by the way, full range of motion is important for all muscular, all muscle development. Chest included. And the reason why I'm making this point is a lot of people, the bench press still to this day is considered one of those exercises That it's your ego tends to flare especially if you're a guy like how much can you bench?
Starting point is 00:37:12 That was an extra that was the the question everybody used to ask when I first started working out and so I think People like to shorten their reps on the bench press. Oh, yeah, you know it two inches off the chest three inches off the chest So that they can lift more weight. That extra inch or two makes a big difference in development. So go all the way down, all the way up. load, and I think it's this is something that we should expand on a little bit because there's this idea of if I feel it in an exercise more that that exercise is better for me to do it. And I'd always. Yeah, and that's not not always true. In fact, it's mostly not true. It's the movement that you could typically load more.
Starting point is 00:38:06 I think I was in the camp before, if I feel it really good, this is a good exercise for me to do, so I want to do it all the time. My muscle can, oh, they'll talk about tension in terms of having more tension throughout the entire range of motion. Right. Or I would make mistakes a lot and do things like the cable fly or maybe a hammer strength machine that I felt really well. And so I would do these exercises first and I would end up fatiguing probably a lot of my
Starting point is 00:38:36 chest. And then I would go over and do a barbell or a dumbbell press. And I think there's a lot of value in doing those barbell or dumbbell movements first because of the load purposes. And that's just it is that, I mean, figure out how much you can do a dumbbell fly with. I mean, most people are probably using between 20 to maybe 60 pound dumbbells. Maybe that, right at the most.
Starting point is 00:39:01 You know, where that same person will probably be able to dumbbell press somewhere of like 60 to a hundred pound dumbbells. So the amount of load that you can do on a press versus a fly, that ends up transferring over to more mass that you can put on the chest, which, you know, even though you may not be able to feel it as much as you can in an isolated exercise like a fly, you'll get more bang for your buck with those.
Starting point is 00:39:27 Totally. Now, the incline press has got to be second, in my opinion. And that includes barbell and dumbbell. Because you're on the incline, you're working more of the upper chest. Now, why this is important is because I have seen quite a few people with peck development where the chest is overdeveloped in the lower and like the bottom half of the chest and it gives this kind of droopy look to the chest.
Starting point is 00:39:51 Whereas the incline press focused on the upper part and when that's well developed, it tends to give the pecks more of a nice full square look. And then for women, that's the upper chest is the part that really adds to the lift of the breast. So the incline press has gotta be really important and there's a lot of bodybuilders that really adds to the lift of the breast. So the incline press has got to be really important. And there's a lot of bodybuilders that only press in the incline.
Starting point is 00:40:09 I was just gonna say, I would fight for this to be number one. And for a couple of reasons. One, I think that it's neglected. So that's what makes it number one, right? I think that if someone's listening right now and they work chest out, they're probably not like the flat bench is probably not foreign to them. They that's probably their
Starting point is 00:40:31 go to exercise or one of their go to exercises. But there's a lot of people that avoid incline press because if you're an average gym goer and you see the flat bench that's for chest and you see the incline press that's for chest and they're both for chest and one of them your way better at than the other, you tend to just naturally gravitate to the one that you're way better at. This was 100% me for at least 10 years of my lifting. I interact intermittently with throwing incline in every once well, but deep down inside, I hated doing it because I was the load.
Starting point is 00:41:08 I could not do nowhere near what I could do on the flat bench. And the reason why, the other reason why I pick it as number one is because it was, have all the things I could think of that I pieced together. And there were several milestones in my chest journey of developing my chest. Nothing changed it aesthetically more than when I decided, and I never, I'll never forget it was right before I started to compete. I was like, I'm going to train my incline press until I can catch my flat bench. At that time, I think I was like it.
Starting point is 00:41:43 185 on one and like 275 on the other was about to where I was at and eventually I met them both at 315. And that was a huge deal for me. And when I when I was able to incline press 315 flat bench 315, my chest was way way way bigger than it had ever been looked better and more impressive. And I think I can't be alone on that, that people can. Well, I like it a lot just because, like, you don't have to be quite as intentional and conscious of retracting, depressing the shoulders.
Starting point is 00:42:15 So, another reason why it's a top one for me. Yeah, I mean, it uses that, that, that angle to really set you in a good position. And yet, so it is harder. I mean, it's very exposing if you're not, you know, used to that, you know, maintaining that position in that in the press. So I think it's great for just even somebody that's not really good at being able to maintain that position to start there to get, you know, build and work up, you know,
Starting point is 00:42:44 that strength in that in that direction. I later on in my career, I began teaching incline press first before ever teaching flat. Same for that exact reason right there is I it's so much easier to teach it. Well, gravity, right? When you sit at a 45 degree, a 30 to 45 degree bench, and you just let someone lie down there and let their arms flat by their side. Gravity just naturally retracts the shoulders back and down.
Starting point is 00:43:09 So you're already got gravity helping you get these people in the position that you want them to be in. It's much easier to coach them through that. But I didn't piece that together till later on. It was like later on in my career, I realized that and then that became like, okay, I'll teach inclined first. So, yeah. So I said, jump, I would go from Incline to flat to decline,
Starting point is 00:43:32 because that's how it's set up in the gym. Yeah. How do you guys feel about the decline bench and the worth of that? I never saw a lot of value in the decline press. First off, I don't like the way that it's set up. You're kind of hanging upside down. And the way you're pressing, it's an awkward,
Starting point is 00:43:48 it's very strange. Exercise to teach. It's also super prone to eagle lifting. Because you're at a decline, you can put a lot of weight on the bar, you can create a very short range of motion. It's also more of a dangerous press to perform because of the angle of the bench. Right, how do you get out of that?
Starting point is 00:44:06 And if you get tricky, that's kind of tricky. Worthless exercise. I just didn't see a lot of it. Worthless exercise. I haven't done it so. Hey, it's a worthless exercise and I did it for a very long time. So I just want that's not me talking shit
Starting point is 00:44:17 and offending somebody right now who's like in the gym lifting on their decline breasts right now. It's not that, I did it for years too. And again, I decline press way more than I incline press for the first 10 years of my lifting career because of that reason right there because of the weight because I could put more weight on it. But when you look at the range of motion that you go through when you're on the decline, it's like hitting at the bottom of your chest or even the top of your rib cage. It's like your, your elbows are barely even hitting. It's such a short range of motion.
Starting point is 00:44:44 It's such a short range of motion. If you want, nobody's doing a decline press where they're bringing the bar all the way up, down, up to the upper, which is, if you do a decline press like that, it might be interesting. That'd be, be difficult, but you'd be interested. Nobody does that.
Starting point is 00:44:56 They go to the bottom part of the chest. Right. And it's this short ass range of motion. And, and, and if you were to do it the way you're saying right now, just it's very compromising could be risk of injury. So the way I look at it is, if whatever benefit you're chasing after
Starting point is 00:45:09 that makes you gravitate towards the decline bench, you'll get all of that and some doing dips. Oh, totally, way more functional. You can really work on a really good range of motion. It's great for the shoulders. It's done properly, right? Done properly. Great for the shoulder joint. It's great for the shoulders. It if done properly, right? Done properly. Great for the shoulder joint.
Starting point is 00:45:27 It's gonna work the lower chest, just like it would with a, you know, a decline press. It's safer if you fuck up, you're done, you're okay. You're not gonna drop a barbell on your neck. It's easier to get into and it requires a lot more stability of the shoulder joint. It's just much more functional. You get really good at dips. You're gonna have much more real. It's a lot more stability of the shoulder joints. It's just much more functional. You get really good at dips.
Starting point is 00:45:46 You're gonna have much more real, lots of carryover. Yes, real world carryover strength. And then the range of motion can get challenged phenomenally. And I love, I didn't start dipping a lot until I met Justin Justin raved about him. So I started practicing him. And I was, I loved the fact that I got to the point
Starting point is 00:46:02 where I could really sink real deep into the dip. And you of course do this with caution, do it, make sure you have good stability, good form. But boy, that deep sinking into the dip, I could feel that all across my chest, my shoulders, and that at the top of my stretch. And if you're gonna talk about time under tension and that's one of those things where the entire rep,
Starting point is 00:46:24 I mean, you feel that contraction, you feel that all the stretch, you feel everything involved with that is very transferable towards the bench press. So would you guys say the fourth best chest exercise is a rotated in hammer strength side chest press? No, no, no, no. No, that would be four. No, I think flies is gotta be. You see that a lot. Yeah, I think flies are great. People still be, no, no, no. Total waste. That one before? No, I think flies, it's gotta be.
Starting point is 00:46:45 You've seen that a lot. Yeah, I think flies are great. People will still be doing it right now, bro. It's still happening in the gym right now. So dumb. If you're listening right now and your friends over there doing that, knock it off. Yeah, no, I like flies.
Starting point is 00:46:56 I think the fourth exercise is flies. It's more of an isolation movement. And also, the muscles that support a fly are a little bit different. Like the muscles that support a press are your triceps and shoulders. With the fly, you're getting a little bit of bicep and shoulders. And there is something to be said about connecting different muscles to work together and the functionality that they improve upon.
Starting point is 00:47:17 Now, as a grappler, I love flies because a lot of what I had to do was hug and grab people and grapple with them. And so that bicep chest connection was very important. What I love the eccentric portion of that too, that's my favorite, because then you really do. You feel that stretch like, and you get it in bicep contractual. I think a pretty common rule when doing the chest
Starting point is 00:47:40 should be at least one press, at least one fly. Yeah, right? Yeah. At least one of each should be, it just like you would shoot the cat, when we do calves, it's like you should have one that's focused on the gas truck, one that's focused on the solea, so one with a bent knee or one standing, right? The combination of two of them, you should just always every workout target both. I feel like the same thing goes with chest, almost every chest exercise I would argue
Starting point is 00:48:07 should have a fly, should have a press. Yeah, and if we wanna get technical, and so I'm gonna get a little technical, this is a little bit splitting hairs, but the application really improves, or I think there's more value, the longer you work out, okay? You have your mid-range contraction movements,
Starting point is 00:48:23 which are your big gross motor movements like your bench press. When I'm doing a bench press, I'm not getting a stretch in my chest and I'm not really getting a full contraction, at least not with a barbell. I'm getting a lot of the weight on the mid-range portion of where my pecs can contract.
Starting point is 00:48:37 When I'm doing a fly with dumbbells, with free weights, most of the resistance is on the stretch. That's just the way that gravity works. When I have the dumbbells together, because gravity's pushing down, there's not that much resistance. There's no resistance pulling my dumbbells apart. When I bring them out, the further I bring them out,
Starting point is 00:48:53 the more the working directly with gravity, more of the resistance is on the stretch. And what we find with studies is the different, how you apply the resistance in different positions of the contraction of the muscle fiber, that activates different muscle fibers, or at least it develops a type of strength that is better suited for that movement.
Starting point is 00:49:12 So with a bench press, I'm developing mid-range strength with a fly. I'm developing a lot of stretch, out-strength. And then you wanna get the squeeze strength, in which case a cable fly would be really good, or a peck deck, because now the resistance is really, really hard. It's emphasized more on that consensus. On the middle.
Starting point is 00:49:30 Yeah. And so what I like to do, if you want to complete work out my opinion, and this is especially as you get more advanced, this maybe doesn't really apply too much to beginners or intermediate, but when you're advanced, it's a good idea to have that mid-range exercise, then have that exercise that puts the weight at the stretch, and then have that exercise that puts the weight on the squeeze. Now you're kind of covering all of your bases. Well, and ideally, what how I would do it is how we're about to right now, because what we decided with Chess, this would be a fun one that we would each come up with a day
Starting point is 00:49:59 in the week. So, I mean, I would be hitting my chest two to three times a week. If you're trying to develop your chest, frequency is king in everything that we talk about, and that's one of the things I think that most people neglect. So minimum, I would be training my chest two to three days a week, and for sure, I would make sure that I'm incorporating what you just said right now, so I would make sure that those movements are at least in every single week that you're training. I think you're going to get the most bang for your butt. Totally.
Starting point is 00:50:27 Now, you want to, one word of caution, you want to train hard, you want to have intensity, intensity is important, but I caution you against training to failure. I think it's okay every once in a while, but for the most part, what we're about to recommend, let's say I recommend you do 10 reps, you want to pick a weight that you could max out at 12, 12 reps and that's it, you can't do anymore. That's the weight that you do 10 with. You want to leave what we say to in the tank. You want to leave two reps in the tank, stop about two reps short of failure. In our experience, in my experience in particular, that produces the best results, especially when
Starting point is 00:51:04 you're training a body part more than just once a week. In this case, we're going to advocate for what, three days a week. And again, in my experience, it's even more important then. Definitely. Right. If you're training the chest only one time a week and you train to failure, not as much of a big deal, but if you're going to train the chest two or three times a week and you go to failure, the likelihood that you overreach and then that soreness is going to carry over into the
Starting point is 00:51:28 next workout and hinder that workout. Like now it's becoming counterproductive. So I know that we tend to, people tend to chase that sore feeling as, oh, that's what dictates if it was a good workout, that's not true at all. And there's a much smarter approach to that. So I know that with the protocols, I think each of us picked like, Sal picked a rep range of eight to 12. I picked a rep range of like your five and then Justin picked a higher rep range of 12 to 15. So if you in a week, incorporate all three of those and then keep in mind what Sal is saying, okay, reduce. So, you know, to keep two in the tank on every exercise that you do, you should feel okay and fresh enough to be able to train
Starting point is 00:52:07 all three of these workouts. Now total volume for the week, what is that? 15 plus nine. So you're doing a lot of sets throughout the whole week. So this is a relatively high volume, high frequency workout. Feel free to reduce the sets if you feel like it's too much. So feel free if I say three sets and you do this workout and you're like, okay, this is a little too much,
Starting point is 00:52:28 you can bring it down to one or two and go from there. We always advocate doing the minimum amount of work for the maximum benefit. So air on the side of caution, you could always add more, but once you over train, it's very difficult to back off. So the workout that I think that I'd like to advocate for would be to start with an incline barbell press. That's your mid range exercise.
Starting point is 00:52:52 Focus on good, slow, controlled form. I think you should have a three to four second negative. That means it should take three to four seconds to lower the bar. At the bottom, maintain tension. Reverse directions, it should take you two to three seconds on the way up, pause for a second, and then repeat. Do that for eight to 12 reps, three sets.
Starting point is 00:53:12 The next exercise, excuse me, the next exercise is an incline fly. Here, focus on the stretch. I want you to really challenge the stretch. Don't go too far, of course, make sure you're safe, but focus on the stretch of the chest on the fly. And when you come up to the top, go ahead and squeeze your pecs, but there's not a lot of resistance at the top.
Starting point is 00:53:31 So go right back down to the stretch, again, taking four seconds on the way down, eight to 12 reps for three sets. And then the final exercise is a cable fly. You could do a peck deck if you want, but really the key here is the focus on the squeeze. So what I want you to do with the fly, what the cable is, do your three second, four second negative, bring them together, but pause when the handles are together and crush and squeeze your chest for a good two second hold.
Starting point is 00:53:58 Really focus on that squeeze. You'll get a really, really good pump with this. Same thing with that exercise, three sets, eight to 12 repetitions. So since I'll put a little bit of emphasis on the end client, I'm gonna do the reverse and put a little emphasis on the decline and I'm gonna start off though with the dumbbell flat bench press. So I'd start off with the dumbbell flat bench press.
Starting point is 00:54:19 We're gonna go a little bit heavier load here, so we're gonna be doing five by fives, which we're gonna do five sets, five reps of each one of these exercises. So the first thing is the dumbbell fat flat bench press. Again, a lot of emphasis on making sure that we retract the shoulders, keep them depressed. All of these workouts, salves, mine and Justin's highly recommend priming before you get involved. We get to do any of them. So that would be ideal for each one of these workouts. We'll be to make sure you prime, do some of the exercises either do the seated row,
Starting point is 00:54:49 band pull apart, something to wake up all those upper back muscles to help keep you in that retracted position. The second movement that I would do, I'd do dips, same thing again, five by five. Now, some people can rep out 10, 15 plus reps for body weight dips. So if you can do 10, 15 reps, this is where you would load that.
Starting point is 00:55:07 So either hook a dumbbell between your legs or if you've got one of the belts with a chain that you can wrap around some plates or a dumbbell, load it to where five is challenging for you to do. But again, you should still have two in the tank. So you should be able to land at seven, but you're stopping right at five. This is five sets, five reps.
Starting point is 00:55:25 Right. And then the last one will do a decline dumbbell, or excuse me, decline cable fly, because we're going to focus more on decline, because Sal went on the incline direction. And that would just be used like a free motion machine or use your cables. And that's where you use the cables starting up high. And then you go down. So we go up from the top down. And this is something that would normally do
Starting point is 00:55:48 like probably 10 to 15 reps, but since Sal's already had an 8 to 12 and I know Justin's got 12 to 15 reps, it doesn't hurt to do these for five reps either. And I would say because you're using cables here, just go slow. You don't have to max down the weight, but make them real slow, so you have your last reps.
Starting point is 00:56:04 So mine's pretty fun, I'm gonna be honest. It's more funnier. Yeah, it's more funnier than you guys. So, the worst start out with the ploy of pushups and the reason I'm doing this is it's somewhat like what you get from post activation potentiations. So, this is a fancy word for just being able to get you hyper responsive by applying like, you know, something that's gonna require like a power output. So you can do this either on the ground, or you can do this with an elevated bench, if that's too difficult.
Starting point is 00:56:34 But, you know, the key is to have instant access to high amount of force output. So. So this is where you do a push up, and you essentially jump off the floor, or jump off of a bench or whatever. Yeah, you can clap and you see people doing all kinds of variations of this and get the answer.
Starting point is 00:56:51 Do we do a YouTube video on this? I'm pretty sure we do. Yeah, I'm pretty sure. So then, and FYI for this, I have 12 to 15 reps on most of these. This is one of those I would make an exception of like 10 or maybe even less reps. If you get fatigued pretty quickly with that, it's gonna degrade and so that would be something where I would hold, you know, maybe go a little bit lower reps.
Starting point is 00:57:13 Justin, would you say once you can't jump off the floor anymore and the set? Stop, yeah, it's gonna lose, it's the put, lose its effect, right? So now we're gonna jump into our fully stabilized bench press. And so this is just like your regular flat barbell bench press. And so now we're going to use that stretched capacity for force. So basically you've just charged the battery. And now I'm going to apply with with a more substantial amount of load for 12 to 15 reps. So obviously not like trying to max
Starting point is 00:57:43 out, but definitely something that you can do with two reps in the chamber there. And then we're going to get into after that, I'm going to put you in a little more unstable environment. So after a little bit of fatigue, now we need to really make sure we control your body. And this is really going to train that part of the process where I'm trying to hold and sustain my body in good position. And I'm gonna slowly bring one arm down into fly and then stabilize my hips and everything from rotating. So there's a lot more to be conscious of
Starting point is 00:58:16 to maintain control and balance. So this is a dumbbell fly on a stale ball. And you're doing one arm at a time, which I love this. So this is the one arm is staying up in the middle. The other arm is coming out and doing the fly. And then you just wanna, couple of keys when I cue this and I teach this, one of those is to make sure you're driving the hips up
Starting point is 00:58:35 because it's common when people try to do the exercise that their hips sag. So keep the glutes engaged so you're squeezing your butt, your hips are also through. The second thing or cue is start off with a really wide stance. It gives you a lot more stability that way. And the more advanced you become, the more you bring your feet in. Those that are got incredible core strength and stability
Starting point is 00:58:56 can actually bring their feet together and do this movement that Justin's talking about, really challenging to do that. But that's kind of a fun exercise to the challenge and progress as you get better and more stable. Totally. So quick review. If you were to work out Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So these are one workout on each day. Day one, every exercise is three sets, eight to 12 reps. The first exercise incline barbell press, second one incline fly, third one cable fly. Wednesday is everything is five sets of five reps, first exercise dumbbell flat bench press, second exercise dips, third exercise decline cable flies, and the third workout which would be on
Starting point is 00:59:32 Friday, this is pliopushoops, all these are by the way the third workout is three sets 12 to 15 reps. First exercise pliopushoops, second, barbell bench press, and third exercise, stability ball, alternating dumbbell flight. By the way, if you want more information, if you go to mindpumpfree.com, there's a chest development guide. Now in this guide, I talk about sets and reps and frequency and they give you more information,
Starting point is 01:00:02 more than there is in this podcast. So if you really want a full breadth of information on how you train your chest, how you can get your chest to develop, nicely, I suggest, of course, listen to this podcast a couple times, write the workout down, go to mindpumpfree.com and download the chest development guide. So you have everything you need to have a great chest workout. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbumble at Mind Pump
Starting point is 01:00:36 Media dot com. The RGB Superbumble includes maps and a ballad, maps for performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money bag guarantee, and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com.
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