Big Arms, Small Chest (big Triceps) Who else is like this?

Just curious to know who else also have or had Big arms/triceps/biceps small chest/core when they were weight lifting for lets say first 1-2years?

Because thats how i am, my arms are bigger than rest of my upper body. Specially the tricep area. I dont not know if i like it or not but i have small chest, its so hard for me to get my chest out.
I have a friend who never works out barely goes to gym, his arms are like 1/3 of my arm size but his chest is like 3 times bigger than mine. I bench more weight than him more reps and also he weights more than me.

I dont know

I wana know if any of you are like this before, what did you do to get your chest bigger? How long it take? what excersise worked best?
Thanks.

I'm opposite to you, small arms 16" big chest 49.5" I think in part it is genetics, I have a big ribcage so big chest follows that and large back muscles, I just go with it and make them even bigger.

My chest workout is Flat bench press barbell, reverse grip bench, close grip bench, incline bench. One thing size is not what you max bench, you need to get away from that idea that's just the ego, it's all about how you perform the exercise are you feeling it in the chest muscles, you must make mind/muscle connection at all times and perform the exercise slowly and do enough reps so that your muscles with grow. Are you arching your back or does the bar go to your neck instead of chest. Those things will hinder you.

[QUOTE=MontyMagpie;847790873]I'm opposite to you, small arms big chest. I think in part it is genetics, I have a big ribcage so big chest follows that and large back muscles, I just go with it and make them even bigger.

My chest workout is Flat bench press barbell, reverse grip bench, close grip bench, incline bench. One thing size is not what you max bench, you need to get away from that idea that's just the ego, it's all about how you perform the exercise are you feeling it in the chest muscles, you must make mind/muscle connection at all times and perform the exercise slowly and do enough reps so that your muscles with grow.[/QUOTE]

Oh i see.
THe thing is when i do chest workout, my triceps would feel it the most and when i go to failure its usually the triceps gave out first.
I do feel it in the chest when i do Guillotine press

[QUOTE=Jich4Fitness;847797303]Oh i see.
THe thing is when i do chest workout, my triceps would feel it the most and when i go to failure its usually the triceps gave out first.
I do feel it in the chest when i do Guillotine press[/QUOTE]

Try dumbell flys that will take the triceps out of the equation.

Hey Jich,

Your thread caught my eye because I've always been the same way. Everyone has a muscle group that lags, with me it's my chest as well even though my arms grow pretty easily. First off there's a lot of extra info I'd want here before I would tell you it's one certain thing that's holding you back, but I'll give you some suggestions.

Stick with chest presses - barbell & dumbbell - flat, incline, decline etc. Compound movements are what encourage growth. Dumbbell flys are an isolation movement - you don't need these right now unless you want to throw a set or 2 in at the end of your chest workout to completely burn it out. With the chest presses: I haven't seen your form, however with the way you describe your triceps burning out first it sounds like your arms are tucked into your body too closely, which is what makes your triceps work hard. Try moving your grip out wider on the bar. When you're pushing the bar up, focus hard on making it feel like you're trying to snap the bar inward (towards your face) in the middle with your hands while you're pushing upward - this is going to activate the chest even more. Keep the weight high and the reps low, varying the reps after 2-3 weeks.

One other major thing when it comes to noticing your growth - I haven't seen your diet but for a 20 year old male, your body needs insane numbers of calories to grow. I can't stress that enough. I'm not a dietitian, however I can tell you from my experiences with my lagging chest the only growth I have experienced is when I close in on 4000 calories a day. You can't be afraid of putting on body fat when you're trying to grow - that's the natural way your body allows itself to gain a noticeable amount of muscle. Hope this helps!

[QUOTE=robb88;847912913]Hey Jich,

Your thread caught my eye because I've always been the same way. Everyone has a muscle group that lags, with me it's my chest as well even though my arms grow pretty easily. First off there's a lot of extra info I'd want here before I would tell you it's one certain thing that's holding you back, but I'll give you some suggestions.

Stick with chest presses - barbell & dumbbell - flat, incline, decline etc. Compound movements are what encourage growth. Dumbbell flys are an isolation movement - you don't need these right now unless you want to throw a set or 2 in at the end of your chest workout to completely burn it out. With the chest presses: I haven't seen your form, however with the way you describe your triceps burning out first it sounds like your arms are tucked into your body too closely, which is what makes your triceps work hard. Try moving your grip out wider on the bar. When you're pushing the bar up, focus hard on making it feel like you're trying to snap the bar inward (towards your face) in the middle with your hands while you're pushing upward - this is going to activate the chest even more. Keep the weight high and the reps low, varying the reps after 2-3 weeks.

One other major thing when it comes to noticing your growth - I haven't seen your diet but for a 20 year old male, your body needs insane numbers of calories to grow. I can't stress that enough. I'm not a dietitian, however I can tell you from my experiences with my lagging chest the only growth I have experienced is when I close in on 4000 calories a day. You can't be afraid of putting on body fat when you're trying to grow - that's the natural way your body allows itself to gain a noticeable amount of muscle. Hope this helps![/QUOTE]


Thanks alot Robb.
Yes, i've done alot of research and recently i've been changing up on my diets.
For past 2 weeks i've been eating alot, atleast 3000calories a day sometimes 4k on workout days.
I've noticed significant strength inrease and some size, i got a small belly now abs seem to be going away tho :/
No matter, to pack on more muscle im willing to loose abs because many said its almost impossible to keep it while bulking.
But yea i will be doing alot of Compound movement workouts.

Pass coupld weeks i've been doing benching till failure on max weight. I've already seen a bit of weight increase in benching which is very nice.

I hope in a few month i can see some noticeble difference on my chest muscles.

I had this problem for years, and there are worse problems. There are a couple things that can help.

1. When doing bench press with a bar, your triceps are helping too much. Move to dumbells, where your chest has to work harder at the top of the lift and at the bottom of the press stop before your triceps are parallel to the ground.

2. Squeeze at the top of the Dumbell lift, turning the dumbells in to about 45 degrees. Work on squeezing your chest throughout the reps.

3. Do triceps the day before your chest, this will force your chest to do more work if your triceps are still recovering.

4. Immediately after doing a flat bench set with dumbells, drop to the ground and do 8-10 explosive push ups with your arms lower and aligned with the bottom of your chest.

5. Do more back/heavier back exercises. Your body will not let your chest grow if it senses an imbalance. Packing in muscle in the upper back will allow you to gain more mass in the front. And, weirdly, working your legs harder for some also has a similar affect.

6. Get Older. The truth is your body is still growing, until about 25. And your metabolism is high. When you age, your metabolism will slow, you'll absorb more protein (supplements!) and your rib cage will expand.

Hope that helps! You look good though, take that to heart.

You look good how you are.

[QUOTE=Jich4Fitness;847770643]Just curious to know who else also have or had Big arms/triceps/biceps small chest/core when they were weight lifting for lets say first 1-2years?

Because thats how i am, my arms are bigger than rest of my upper body. Specially the tricep area. I dont not know if i like it or not but i have small chest, its so hard for me to get my chest out.
I have a friend who never works out barely goes to gym, his arms are like 1/3 of my arm size but his chest is like 3 times bigger than mine. I bench more weight than him more reps and also he weights more than me.

I dont know

I wana know if any of you are like this before, what did you do to get your chest bigger? How long it take? what excersise worked best?
Thanks.[/QUOTE]

I am somewhat the opposite. I have a superman chest and most of the time I didn't work it out too hard, but I worked it out often. Altho I did start going heavy on dumbbell incline and flat eventually, I can dumbbell bench my bodyweight 3 sets of 8. More recently I am going for heavy barbell. My arms aren't small, but they aren't as prone to mass as my chest is. My triceps and deltoids both got fully cut up extemely fast. Anyway I am pretty sure its just genetics, but eventually you'll be able to balance things out. If you really want to maximise your chest pump, hit cable crossovers at the end.

Man, I am exactly the same and trying to find answers too! I probably do chest exercises more than any other exercise, but it still doesn't grow.. I will need to try some of the advice give. i.e dumb bell presses more than bench, wider grip, doing triceps the day before chest.

Lol. No it's just you. :D

[QUOTE=Jich4Fitness;847770643]Just curious to know who else also have or had Big arms/triceps/biceps small chest/core when they were weight lifting for lets say first 1-2years?

Because thats how i am, my arms are bigger than rest of my upper body. Specially the tricep area. I dont not know if i like it or not but i have small chest, its so hard for me to get my chest out.
I have a friend who never works out barely goes to gym, his arms are like 1/3 of my arm size but his chest is like 3 times bigger than mine. I bench more weight than him more reps and also he weights more than me.

I dont know

I wana know if any of you are like this before, what did you do to get your chest bigger? How long it take? what excersise worked best?
Thanks.[/QUOTE]

It seems to me that a lot of guys inadvertently or deliberately train the arms more than anything. Some of it is genetics, but I see so many gym rats with gorilla arms the size of their calves and I think its mainly a by-product of this obsession with bench and curl, bench and curl... of course there's nothing wrong with that if your goals are purely aesthetic, but even in that context I'd rather be well balanced, not Hollywood-jacked.

Either way, in your case I would prescribe more compounds... and honestly benching isn't the best one. I find weighted dips target pecs more than anything. They also hit your lats pretty well which contributes to your chest size. I think its sort of a self confirming concept---compounds seem to target the entire core best simply because it's functionally more important. A limb is only as strong as the base (like a tree trunk) that holds it.

I had the same issue! I fixed it by going wider on bench and going from touching chest to three quarters of the way up to avoid using triceps. Alson start working upper chest a lot more incline movements and adding a neck bench press. Trevor



L
[QUOTE=Jich4Fitness;847770643]Just curious to know who else also have or had Big ar


ms/triceps/biceps small chest/core when they were weight lifting for lets say first 1-2years?

Because thats how i am, my arms are bigger than rest of my upper body. Specially the tricep area. I dont not know if i like it or not but i have small chest, its so hard for me to get my chest out.
I have a friend who never works out barely goes to gym, his arms are like 1/3 of my arm size but his chest is like 3 times bigger than mine. I bench more weight than him more reps and also he weights more than me.

I dont know

I wana know if any of you are like this before, what did you do to get your chest bigger? How long it take? what excersise worked best?
Thanks.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=robb88;847912913]Everyone has a muscle group that lags, with me it's my chest as well even though my arms grow pretty easily. [/QUOTE]
With me it's my left arm, haha fail.

got the same problem here... I'll just stick with my simple chest routine and just add poundage every week

Guys if you want a big chest then do pushups
3 sets of untill failure with 1-2 min rest period in between each set
Do this everyday or just 3 days In a row with a rest day in between and repeat

In the beginning you gotta work through the soreness and eat a lot of proteins before and after you do this

My Chest Routine (which is really working):

1) Flat DB Bench Press (warm-up half max, warm-up 80% max, 2 sets max, 1 set just below max, 1 drop set)
2) Weighted Chest Dips (3 sets)
3) Incline DB Bench Press or upward angle cable cross-overs
4) machine flies (allows for full motion and STRETCH of chest, especially works the inner chest) Focus on inner chest so go all the way to a close. Also stretch far out. To finish out, you can do a few closes without going out far.
5) DB overhead extensions (great for upper-inner chest and STRETCH)

It's quite a routine, but if I have to cut something out its incline BP / cross overs (3). My upper chest is worked during the overheads.

Remember, you are not working out the weights, you are working out the muscle! Leave the ego at home, but do push for more weight while maintaining proper form!

FYI the stretching is key here, especially for a muscle like chest with a wide range of motion. Emphasize on stretching your chest during your waiting time, especially flies & overheads

Hi there.
I am going throught the exact same frustration as you. I am an ectomorph body type. I have been working out for nearly four years. I have good arms, good shoulders, a decent six pack but no fricking chest. I have tried many different exercises and nothing seems to really help. It gets me down a bit but on the plus side, other parts of my body is good. I think the chest is the stubborn muscle group for us. You are in good shape, so do not let it get to you. We will never be like the van dammes or bigger, so be happy with what you have. The main thing is that your stronger and bigger in different areas than you were. Keep at it

Do you do cardio?

What is your workout routine?

Ang

Same here, pal! I've always been that way. I notice a lot of people shun the decline in favor of dips. I love dips, and I can plank out pretty far, but when I "listen to my body" it feels like a tricep workout. Anyone throw declines in to their routines?

Considering the chest as one muscle, decline hits it the best.
Decline even hits your upper chest more than incline - no troll.