alternate press/flys or not?

[jmborr]

My 'push' routine is made of presses and flys. I alternate them because I thought the flys would give the front chest a time to recover, but now I've read that it's best to do all compound exercise at the beginning, and leave the isolation ones for the end. Is this really important ?

My routine:

3 x BB press
3 x cable flys
3 x DB press
3 x machine flys
3 x machine press
3 x BB bicep curls
3 x military press

[Siafu4Life]

My 'push' routine is made of presses and flys. I alternate them because I thought the flys would give the front chest a time to recover, but now I've read that it's best to do all compound exercise at the beginning, and leave the isolation ones for the end. Is this really important ?

My routine:

3 x BB press
3 x cable flys
3 x DB press
3 x machine flys
3 x machine press
3 x BB bicep curls
3 x military press

I'm not trying to be a dick here...but your signature should read; "Every cheat-food is fat I gain now, and muscle I'll "lose" later". You just spelled "lose" wrong. Not a big deal..just figured I'd bring it to your attention...cause I'd want someone to do that for me. Like having food stuck in your teeth. It's like..."tell me, please!!". I don't want the hot girl noticing I have **** stuck in my teeth. Anyway...rant over. As for the workout, I can't say. I'm still learning, myself. Good luck!!

[drudixon]

My 'push' routine is made of presses and flys. I alternate them because I thought the flys would give the front chest a time to recover, but now I've read that it's best to do all compound exercise at the beginning, and leave the isolation ones for the end. Is this really important ?

My routine:

3 x BB press
3 x cable flys
3 x DB press
3 x machine flys
3 x machine press
3 x BB bicep curls
3 x military press

That's a ton of exercises. I'd toss half of them. Don't superset imo. It just makes you do worse at both. How long have you been lifting and what's your goal?

[bigtallox]

My 'push' routine is made of presses and flys. I alternate them

Flys are useless except for a warmup. Supersets are just plain useless ( at least for me ).

[tsoden]

I thought flys were "pull" movements?

[drudixon]

I thought flys were "pull" movements?

The purpose of flats us to achieve a range of motion not possible with presses. The idea is to provide moe stimulus in different parts of the range than presses. That said, for a beginner/intermediate there isnt much benefit to doing flys that couldnt be gotten from pressing. Youd be better off just doing flat and incline presses and adding a set to both.

[TouaregV8]

Shoot for 12 (no more) total sets for chest and stick to the basic, compounds movements, presses. Flyes are not considered a compound movement. BB and DB presses are your meat and potatoes movements. Maybe consider throwing some dips (focusing on chest) in there for variety. Do as Bigtallox stated and save the flyes for your warmup.

And what are BB curls doing in there on your "push" day?

[ljimd]

No offense OP, but you need to start over. You need some leg work, some rowing along with a few pressing movements. Search out a basic routine. Get the garbage out of your diet and get on with it. Good luck.

[jmborr]

I'm not trying to be a dick here...but your signature should read; "Every cheat-food is fat I gain now, and muscle I'll "lose" later". You just spelled "lose" wrong. Not a big deal..just figured I'd bring it to your attention...cause I'd want someone to do that for me. Like having food stuck in your teeth. It's like..."tell me, please!!". I don't want the hot girl noticing I have **** stuck in my teeth. Anyway...rant over. As for the workout, I can't say. I'm still learning, myself. Good luck!!

Thanks! my excuse is that English is not my first language

[jmborr]

That's a ton of exercises. I'd toss half of them. Don't superset imo. It just makes you do worse at both. How long have you been lifting and what's your goal?

Well, at 144lb my goal is pretty obvious: gain weight (lean weight, that is). This routine takes me in between one hour and one hour and a half. Are you saying I should be done in 45 minutes? It sounds very short to me.

[jmborr]

Shoot for 12 (no more) total sets for chest and stick to the basic, compounds movements, presses. Flyes are not considered a compound movement. BB and DB presses are your meat and potatoes movements. Maybe consider throwing some dips (focusing on chest) in there for variety. Do as Bigtallox stated and save the flyes for your warmup.

And what are BB curls doing in there on your "push" day?

I could do the BB curls either on push day or pull day, not much difference to me. I'm quite surprised about ditching the flys, but I'm no expert here and that's why this forum is great . Tomorrow is push day, so I'll follow what seems to be the consensus advice and stick to the compound moves.

[drudixon]

Well, at 144lb my goal is pretty obvious: gain weight (lean weight, that is). This routine takes me in between one hour and one hour and a half. Are you saying I should be done in 45 minutes? It sounds very short to me.

Its diminishing returns. You'll get a miniscule benefit from doing things like flyes. You would get more benefit from adding a set to the core lifts. Better return on your energy. When you're small (im small too) the portion of the pec that benefits from flyes is tiny. So, if you do flyes and make it twice as big, its still tiny and you didn't do anything to help the largest portion of the chest. Doing the press, you stimulate that small portion of the chest, along with the rest of the chest for a greater overall benefit.

Regarding the time your workout takes, I've grown more and gotten stronger doing shorter workouts than I ever did doing a gazillion exercises.

[SerpentHearted]

The way I look at things... BB Press, DB Press, Machine Press... it's all pretty much the same movement, right?

Of course you could make one an incline press and one a flat bench press which isn't an idea... but my point is, the boys that are telling you "it's too much" are quite correct especially since you're basically just repeating what you have already done. I tend to agree that 1.5 hours is too much and 45minutes to 1 hour is more suitable depending on how much rest time you have between sets.

I disagree with what the guys are saying about flyes though. They're absolutely not useless and you should keep (some of) them in there.

[jmborr]

No offense OP, but you need to start over. You need some leg work, some rowing along with a few pressing movements. Search out a basic routine. Get the garbage out of your diet and get on with it. Good luck.

I'm doing a push/pull/leg three day split. Since posting my push day has resulted in some drastic changes, here goes the rest, for your critique:

Pull day (1.5hours):
3 x pull-ups (warmup)
3 x chin-ups (warmup)
3 x snatch grip deadlift
3 x machine bent-over row
3 x seated row
3 x single-hand standing row
3 x pulldowns

Leg day (1 to 1.5hours):
3 x boxed squat
3 x single leg press
3 x knee curls (for the hams)
3 x single-leg weighted calf-raise
repeat the previous sets

I do this routine in the low rep range (~6 reps) and the next routine in the high rep range (~12 reps) I've been at this for almost three months and got some gains in the arms and legs.

My diet is clean, the problem is the occasional cheating I indulge in.