What s up guy's Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. What you're about to watch is the most effective chess
workout you've ever done. As a matter of fact, I'm going to lay it out for you step-by-step so
that there's no guesswork at all. And we call this the 100 Chest Workout. We're kicking off a
brand-new series here that is going to become your go to and favorite chest workout. Now, guys, how
does this workout work? Well, because we focus on effective reps. And if it's not something you've
done before in your training, you've likely left a lot of results on the table there. Now guys,
the concept of effective reps is actually nothing new. As a matter of fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger
knew all about this years ago. So how can we increase the number of those effective reps
that we do and eliminate a lot of the work that we use to get to those effective reps? Well, that's
where the 100 Workout series steps in now. Now as always, guys, we're going to put the science into
everything that we do. So, for a chess workout, we're going to want to follow the fibers and hit
the three different areas of the chest. First of all, we're going to hit that middle sternal
area of the pec. And we're going to do that with exercises that both take you to an across midline.
We're going to hit the upper chest as well, the clavicle fibers. And once again, we're going to
take exercises that take us through this low to high and up and across position of the arm.
And then finally, we're going to hit those abdominal fibers or the lower portion of the
chest. And once again, we're going to bury the arm angle to go from a high to a low position.
But again, that's just the anatomy covering the bases. How do we do it is where it really
counts. And the first exercise up is going to be a standard Dumbbell Bench Press. Now,
what you want to do is you want to take a weight that will cause failure in the 12-rep range.
As you see me here, I'm going to lay down and perform my first set. This is called the ignition
set. All you're doing is taking the set to a failure. Now, when I get to the end of the set,
I'm going to sit up and stay in place, but rest for 15 seconds. Everything from here on out
is going to be a rest/pause. As soon as the 15 seconds are up, I'm going to lay back down and
start repping out again. Now, obviously, I still have the fatigue that accumulated from the first
ignition set, which is going to limit the number of top end reps that I can do. But it's going to
put us into that effective range much quicker. I perform as many reps as I can here until failure,
and I rest another 15 seconds. I get right back into the next set and I rep out again. Again,
this time likely fewer reps to failure. Maybe three, maybe four, even maybe less.
It doesn't matter. Your goal for the exercise is to accumulate 20 ERs or 20 effective reps. Once
you've hit your 20 reps, you're done with that exercise. Now, how does this compare to, let's
say, a standard four sets of 10 reps? Usually in those 10 reps you get those last two that
are the hardest. Well, that would give you eight effective reps in a standard four sets of 10.
In this case, you're getting right back into those effective reps every single time you get out of
your 15 second rest/pause more quickly accessing those type two fibers and inducing more growth.
Now, here we go now to the next exercise. And here I always talk about having to complement any type
of pressing exercise for your chest with some sort of cross midline adduction. Because I know
that the chest has that function and capability, we have to tap into it. So, I'm going to have
a standard Cable Crossover and we're going to do it again at the level of the chest. Keep in mind,
you still want to make sure that you get those hands all the way across midline and not just
to midline to fully engage the chest. Now, once again, I'm performing an ignition set
with a weight that will take me to 12 rep failure. As soon as I get there, I'm going to wait that 15
seconds, put myself right back in position again and start counting out those effective reps and
continue until you've reached 20 once again. Now we go to the third exercise in this workout,
and this is now back to the bench press for an incline bench press variation that we have that
we call the Thumbs Up Dumbbell Incline Bench. And what we're doing by driving our thumbs up as
we lift is we're allowing for more adduction or a closer proximity of the dumbbells to each other as
we press. You should feel a heightened engagement in the pecs. And also, because we're going from
that low to high position on the incline of about 30 degrees, we're going to more effectively target
the upper chest fibers. Now, for some reason if you don't have access to an incline bench,
you're not getting out of this one. Scott Free. You've got an alternative. Perform the flat bench
with the underhand grip position like I've shown you before, to effectively target the upper chest
fibers and maybe even stick one plate under the bench to create somewhat of a slight incline.
Once again, the key to the effectiveness of this exercise and the entire workout, for that matter,
is to choose the right weight for that 12-rep failure to start that ignition set. Now, every
subsequent effort is going to be your all out maximum and that's part of the reason why, guys,
we call this the 100 Workout, putting everything out there. For the third time in a row here,
guys, we're going for those 20 accumulated effective reps. Now we move on to that lower
chest. Right, because we still have to hit that, and we want to do that with our classic Dip.
But what I want you to do is choose a Weighted Dip if able, because I want you to take that
12-rep failure mark. If bodyweight alone is enough to cause you to fail in that rep range than body
weight is fine, but perform the way to dip and as always, rest those 15 seconds. Now from here,
we're going to change the number and change the effect. I want you to go down and perform a Pause
Dip at the bottom three second holes with that same weight, obviously. And we're going to find is
that that stretch tension, which is a great driver of hypertrophy, is going to take this to another
level of intensity. So, you may only get one or maybe two reps after reaching failure and resting
only 15 seconds. And that's fine because I'm going to accommodate that by lowering the effective rep
count from 20 down to 10 on this exercise. And then we move on to the fifth exercise here, which
is actually one of my favorite ways to perform a crossover. And it's something that I came across
recently. We call it the Omni Crossover, so I set one cable high and one cable low. The one
that's low is going to come up and across my body more effectively targeting the upper chest. And
the one that's high is going to be brought from top down across my body to more effectively hit
the lower chest. Now, what I do is I make an accommodation in the weight. I have at least
20% to 40% more weight in the hand that's going from the top down than the one coming up.
The upper chest is going to be weaker than the lower chest operating from top down, so make the
adjustment in the stack accordingly. And what I do is I'm going to take that first set and perform
these crossovers to failure. Once I've reached failure, as always, arresting those 15 seconds and
the action begins until I accumulate 15 effective reps in that combination. But of course, I'm not
done because I have to change the orientation of the arms to put whatever one was high to low
position and whichever one was low to the high position and work the same thing. Do another
ignition set and follow it with 15 effective reps of that combination. But the 100 Chest Workout
isn't done just quite yet because for those truly psychotic out there that want that final nail in
the coffin, I got it for you, we call it Hell on 100. So, what you're going to do here is perform
20 Static Hold Pushups. And this is effectively a metabolic burnout that's not only going to test
your muscular endurance, but more importantly, your mental toughness. And what we're going to do
here is perform a pushup by lowering yourself down into that static hold position for 5 seconds.
After you've held for 5 seconds, you come up and perform your first pushup, lower yourself back
down for five more seconds. After 5 seconds, you come back up to perform your second pushup.
The goal here is to accumulate 20 pushups, which means you're going to have to have a cumulative
100 seconds of static holding. Now, keep in mind, this does not have to be done all in one shot.
You can rest/pause your way to that goal as you did throughout the rest of the workout. Again,
these are optional and not for the faint of heart. But remember, guys like Arnold,
if you want to get the most out of your workout, you've got to be willing to push yourself there.
And we say, don't count the reps and make the reps count, well, I think here you can count
the reps that actually count. And when you do that, guys, the results will be next level.
If you're looking for more in this series, guys are going to make sure I link them at
the end of these videos as they come out. But in the meantime, if you want to take a screenshot,
here's your opportunity. As always, guys, I want you to have the chance to take this with
you to the gym so there's no guesswork and you can get the results that I know
you're going to get if you put the work in. Guys, if you're looking for a full program,
you can find them over at Athleanx.com. If you like this series, tell me the other ones you want
me to make next. And also, if you haven't done so, click Subscribe and turn on your notifications,
so you never miss a video when I put one out. All right, guys, see you soon.