trouble isolating chest while benching!?!?!?

[-Jon-]

ive always been a lopsided individual (strong legs, week upper body), but now its pushing into the extreme. i'm squatting 400 now, but dropping 60 lbs dumbells on myself. i get an ok pump during most of my chest workouts, and sometimes get pretty sore. ive gained a bit of size (minimal in comparison to the rest of me) but stood still with strength.

i work with dbs as i dont feel comfortable with a bar and no spotter. recently ive been doing 4-6 sets of inc press (12,10,8,6,6,4 reps), and then 4 sets of dips (10 reps). i really feel the dips in my chest, but less so for the press. flat bench is no different, but my upper chest is lagging so i concentrate on that. how can i better exhaust the muscle? pre-exhaustion? some sort of other trick? thanks

[Gr8Ape]

just try dips and flyes, adding a rep or 5 pounds every week on the dips (well trying to do so)

[Tim_G]

Get over that fear of working w a bb and no spotter. You have to know when you've cleaned your last good rep. Having said that, position your hands further out to outside shoulder with so you're working your chest more and your triceps less.

[Cor]

ive always been a lopsided individual (strong legs, week upper body), but now its pushing into the extreme. i'm squatting 400 now, but dropping 60 lbs dumbells on myself. i get an ok pump during most of my chest workouts, and sometimes get pretty sore. ive gained a bit of size (minimal in comparison to the rest of me) but stood still with strength.

i work with dbs as i dont feel comfortable with a bar and no spotter. recently ive been doing 4-6 sets of inc press (12,10,8,6,6,4 reps), and then 4 sets of dips (10 reps). i really feel the dips in my chest, but less so for the press. flat bench is no different, but my upper chest is lagging so i concentrate on that. how can i better exhaust the muscle? pre-exhaustion? some sort of other trick? thanks

When doing DB bench I will bring the DBs as low as I can bring them (passed the breaking point of chest) and then hold for a count or two at the bottom. You get a really good stretch and burn. And as always, heavy heavy heeavy.

[farfie]

i find it hard to swallow that your loading 8 plates onto the bar and stepping back with it and squatting deep enough that the top of your thighs break parallel and that at the same time you are afraid to barbell bench without a spotter.

[Tim_G]

i find it hard to swallow that your loading 8 plates onto the bar and stepping back with it and squatting deep enough that the top of your thighs break parallel and that at the same time you are afraid to barbell bench without a spotter.

This thread is about bringing his upper body in porportion to his lower. He did state his legs are disporportionately much larger and stronger and he can handle heavy squats with no problem. He wants to bring up his chest but is afraid of using heavy bb bench presses because he has no spotter. I don't see why he would make up a story about having a weak chest.

[Baldeagle79]

I would get a good workout partner, at least for Chest days. I know it's hard to find motivated people, though. I'm in the USAF, and it's STILL hard to find anyone with any kind of determination to lift. They'd all rather just go play basketball...it's rather frustrating. I use the Smith-Kline machine when I want to do Barbell chest workouts, although you don't get the stabilization. You can go a little heavier with it though.

Have you tried starting your chest workouts with Inclines? That's a good chest builder, I think.

Also, as someone else mentioned, flyes are great. Arnold stops when they are about 10 inches apart, though at the top, because anything more really isn't a chest movement, apparently.

I am sort of the opposite of you. I neglect legs more often than I should, and I don't squat hardly at all. I am going to start squats again, though. That's a good one.

[farfie]

This thread is about bringing his upper body in porportion to his lower. He did state his legs are disporportionately much larger and stronger and he can handle heavy squats with no problem. He wants to bring up his chest but is afraid of using heavy bb bench presses because he has no spotter. I don't see why he would make up a story about having a weak chest.

use your brain. imagine someone loading 8 plates on the bar and burying it with good form and then walking over to the bench and putting 155 lbs on the bar and not knowing if he should stop at 8 or 9? or maybe he's a t- rex? i'm not saying he made it up, i'm saying he doesn't know what a real squat looks like.

[lovemytrx]

Why not do your flat bench and incline benches in a rack, like smith machine or other.

[Samuel Corble]

Try training your rotator cuffs to give your shoulder support and strength and prevent them from exhausting before your chest does.

Internal and external rotations with a bungee cord or light dumbbell.....

Also work your postural muscles (inner and lower traps, rhombus, serretus anteriour, rear delts) this will help pull your shoulders back into correct allignment and make your chest do more work on the presses. keep your shoulder blades dowm and withdrawn and focus on a strong mind-muscle connection!!

[Gradman]

ive always been a lopsided individual (strong legs, week upper body), but now its pushing into the extreme. i'm squatting 400 now, but dropping 60 lbs dumbells on myself. i get an ok pump during most of my chest workouts, and sometimes get pretty sore. ive gained a bit of size (minimal in comparison to the rest of me) but stood still with strength.

i work with dbs as i dont feel comfortable with a bar and no spotter. recently ive been doing 4-6 sets of inc press (12,10,8,6,6,4 reps), and then 4 sets of dips (10 reps). i really feel the dips in my chest, but less so for the press. flat bench is no different, but my upper chest is lagging so i concentrate on that. how can i better exhaust the muscle? pre-exhaustion? some sort of other trick? thanks

I had this problem for a while when i was starting out. Basically what i was doing is pressing forward and rolling my shoulders forward.

To help you hit your chest a bit harder, when you lie down, bring your shoulder blades together and squeeze to keep them there. While on the seat, keep your lower back ON the bench, but slightly arch your upper back up and sort of puff your chest up. From there, get a good deep negative in and drive up, keeping your shoulder blades back and your chest out.

Incline DBs are a wonderful exercise, and as soon as you really hit your groove you'll really enjoy them. Update us with how you go.

[Mikey1]

recently ive been doing 4-6 sets of inc press (12,10,8,6,6,4 reps),

your on the right track.....my upper chest used to be lagging also because i always did flat bench first, as my main chest exersise.....then i switched and made incline DB press my priority chest exersise, it did wonders for me.....

keep doing incline DB first

[Jay Bisto]

dbs are better in my opinion, they are bringing my chest up to speed with the rest of me, I know what the guy means i can leg press 7 plates either side so 7 x 20kg = 140 x 2 = 280 x 2.2 for conversion for pounds 616 pounds and go heavy on my squats. well actually squating 400 does sound a lot to only be pushing 30pound dumbells.

anyway, people have advised me go with dbs first cus it isolates your chest more and I believe it does, people say yeah I perfer barbell its a better chest builder cus I can use more weight, yeah you can use more weight because it recruits your front delts into the lift a lot.

my current routine is,

flat db, 2 warmups, then 3 working sets 10, 8, 6,
seat hammer strength press(works you like an incline press) 3 set, 10, 8, 8,
incline flyes 3 sets, 15, 12, 12,
pullovers, 2-3 sets, 12-16reps

[Tim_G]

use your brain. imagine someone loading 8 plates on the bar and burying it with good form and then walking over to the bench and putting 155 lbs on the bar and not knowing if he should stop at 8 or 9? or maybe he's a t- rex? i'm not saying he made it up, i'm saying he doesn't know what a real squat looks like.

Use your brain, where does he express a concern about his squats? If you don't have something positive to add to this thread and offer him advice on bringing up his chest, move on.

[Tim_G]

Try training your rotator cuffs to give your shoulder support and strength and prevent them from exhausting before your chest does.

Internal and external rotations with a bungee cord or light dumbbell.....

Also work your postural muscles (inner and lower traps, rhombus, serretus anteriour, rear delts) this will help pull your shoulders back into correct allignment and make your chest do more work on the presses. keep your shoulder blades dowm and withdrawn and focus on a strong mind-muscle connection!!

preexhausting will also have his chest failing before tri's or delts.

[bass generator]

do barbell benches in a power rack,then you dont have to be scared of getting crushed.

i had trouble with my chest for a long time,it always lagged.
i fixed it by raising my rep range to 12-15,using a wider grip(pinkies on the rings),and slowing down the negative.(around 4 secs),i always finish on the negative,when i know its my last rep i lower it very slowly,training in the power rack enables me to do this confidently,my training partners then re rack it for me while i rest 20 secs then grind out 2-3 more reps in the same fasion,finising on the negative,takle another 20 secs then do another 1-2

immedietly afterwards i take some moderatley heavy dumbells and hold the stretch position of the fly for 60-90 seconds,this literally brings tears to my eyes.i made massive improvements to my chest with this routine.
try in faithuly for a month,tring to use more weight,or do more reps each week and i can guarantee in 4 weeks your chest will be much fuller and rounder

[farfie]

Use your brain, where does he express a concern about his squats? If you don't have something positive to add to this thread and offer him advice on bringing up his chest, move on.

i'm sorry. i'll try and behave.

[Tim_G]

do barbell benches in a power rack,then you dont have to be scared of getting crushed.

i had trouble with my chest for a long time,it always lagged.
i fixed it by raising my rep range to 12-15,using a wider grip(pinkies on the rings),and slowing down the negative.(around 4 secs),i always finish on the negative,when i know its my last rep i lower it very slowly,training in the power rack enables me to do this confidently,my training partners then re rack it for me while i rest 20 secs then grind out 2-3 more reps in the same fasion,finising on the negative,takle another 20 secs then do another 1-2

immedietly afterwards i take some moderatley heavy dumbells and hold the stretch position of the fly for 60-90 seconds,this literally brings tears to my eyes.i made massive improvements to my chest with this routine.
try in faithuly for a month,tring to use more weight,or do more reps each week and i can guarantee in 4 weeks your chest will be much fuller and rounder

sounds intense. i might try that.

[bass generator]

it is very intense,i am usually deeply sore the next day,but the program works very well for me.

[farfie]

ive always been a lopsided individual (strong legs, week upper body), but now its pushing into the extreme. i'm squatting 400 now, but dropping 60 lbs dumbells on myself. i get an ok pump during most of my chest workouts, and sometimes get pretty sore. ive gained a bit of size (minimal in comparison to the rest of me) but stood still with strength.

i work with dbs as i dont feel comfortable with a bar and no spotter. recently ive been doing 4-6 sets of inc press (12,10,8,6,6,4 reps), and then 4 sets of dips (10 reps). i really feel the dips in my chest, but less so for the press. flat bench is no different, but my upper chest is lagging so i concentrate on that. how can i better exhaust the muscle? pre-exhaustion? some sort of other trick? thanks

sorry about earlier. is it that your entire upper body is lacking or is it your chest in paticular you'd like to bring up. my chest has always lagged behind my arms and shoulders. in fact, i've only had an upper chest until recently and i've lifted most of my life excluding 6 years as a cyclist;i'm 40. i've done nearly every program i could get my hands on including supersquats,cybergenics,pre-exhaustion,heavy-duty,bulgarian power burst training, german volume training,basic power routines and ever type of imaginable split there is. i've tried lots of dumbbell work and/or putting incline bench first and, oh yeah, larry scott's chest routine(very unconventional).and at one point became a real fatty and got my bench up to 330. which was actually pretty average considering i was hovering around 220 bodyweight.all that said, there was only one routine in which the chest actually changed shape and that was the bulgarian power-burst routine. i'm not recommending it to anyone as it was a 3xdaily 6 days a week routine. really. i had a commercial gym at the time and it was doable albiet a little silly.the pemise was you could workouy frequently if the workouts were short enough(under 40 min). it was sortof a combination of gvt and hst. and if you don't know what either are ,you should check out their websites.although i've never tried hst,i'm anxious to ,but first want to see if i can continue making chest gains. let me send this and make sure it got saved and i'll continue later

[farfie]

ok here's the rest of it. there is no disputing that alot of different things work for alot of different people but almost nothing worked for me(when i say "worked" i'm referring to an undeniable change in chest mass, nothing else) here's what did work. everyone is familair with priority training but noone takes into account that you may actually have to train something else not as hard to see the desired effects. this routine evolved out of moderate motivation levels and frustration with my chest and calves.it is a combination of high-intensity and gvt. first the gvt component, i'd tried it before ,the old 10x10,but never really saw the increases, in part,because i don't think training a bodypart once a week worked for me and secondly, i'd stuck with the 10x10 formula as that was all the information i'd had at the time. the weights i was using we're rediculously light and i became frustrated and bored. as for the high-intensity aspect, i'd always liked the supersquats program and would refer to it on occassion when i needed a swift kick in the pants. this program wasn't an experiment as much as i did what i wanted to and started getting really good results and stuck with it. here's the split:mon and thurs,gvt for chest and on tues and fri back,bis,and legs. it becomes to be a lot of volume for the chest in a week but i think by doing less for other bodyparts you can get away with it. i don't know if it would work otherwise.i'm sure that some could get away with it more but i chose to do less. so for back,bis,legs, i really make sure to get my calves in first(i love to start with 50 reps)then squats, then stiff-legs or sumo, and maybe a set of back or bis but don't do any pushing.o.k.back to the gvt, i started with 10x10, flat bench only with 60 sec. between sets. and progressed from there. playing with progressively heavier weights,less reps and more rest between sets but always be consistant on your rest intervals whether it be 60,75,or 90 sec. In six weeks, when you are doing 10 sets of 3with 90 sec between sets, and you've really been pushing it,i think you'll be really impressed with your results.that's all the pressing you should need. i always finish off with stiff-arm pullovers to really target the upper chest,keep your form tight on these, 4 sets should do it. that's about it. good luck

[Gr8Ape]

also remember that some people are just not made structurally for bench press