You're doing everything right but your chest just isn't growing the way you want it to.
Then make sure you watch this video, because I'm going to show you the two biggest mistakes
that are most likely holding you back.
What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM
Last week I shared my chest workout.
One that I just flipped the lights on, came down here and did last Friday night, to give
you a sneak peak about sort of Athlean training in action.
Now it sparked a lot of questions and comments from you guys.
And one of them in particular came in this week to me and it was a kid named Craig.
Who shared his chest workout with me and basically said, Jeff, I'm doing all the right things.
I'm doing everything that you're doing but I can't get my chest to grow.
What could be the problem?
So he sent in his workout and I jotted down real quick here.
Basically Craig is doing Flat Bench Press, 4 sets.
Ok, standard classic exercise for building mass.
Weighted Dips, I did Weighted Dips in the video, 3 sets.
Incline Flyes, you guys probably know how I feel about Flyes, I'll reiterate that again
here in a second, here 4 set.
And then finally Cable Crossovers, of which I did a variation of that in the video as
well, for 3 sets.
So the first thing I would look at is you know, his total volume.
He's not one of these muscle and fitness guys that's basically reading the magazines and
doing 22 to 25 sets for chest.
Because if he was, my first thing would be to him, you're doing way, way, way too much.
Too much volume to even start to grow.
Again most guys overtraining, especially guys that read magazines like that that recommend
that kind of training.
So 4 sets, 3, 3, 8 and 6, he's at 14 sets that's reasonable.
A little high still for me but reasonable.
The next thing I see is that, he's sort of prioritizing his strength workouts here, I
mean strength exercises.
But I find that there's a huge mistake guys make on their strength exercises.
So before I even get into the next half, I want to show you what that is.
If I come over here to a bench press.
Ok I'll do it on the Smith Machine just so I can talk and explain at the same time.
If I come down here, The tendency is to forget what you are actually trying to do here.
The goal on a bench press, the goal on a Lat Pulldown, the goal on a Tricep Pushdown is
not to move weight from point A to point B. In this case from here to here.
The goal here is to contract the muscle that you are trying to work.
Alright, if I was trying to work my biceps without bending my elbow, I'm not contracting.
Well the problem here is a typical bench press position here, guys will grab outside of shoulder
width, and come up here, come down and press up.
Ok, down and press up.
Yeah, I'm moving this bar from point A to point B, ok rather easily.
But look at the chest, ok.
There is not a lot of contraction and stimulation going on there.
There's probably more going on in my triceps than there is anything here, in my Deltoids
than there is in my upper chest, or chest.
So, what you want to do is start to think about the contraction more.
So we can do that if we bring our hands in narrower.
Now I know guys are going like well wait, isn't that the Tricep Bench Close Grip position.
No guys, it's where the chest will contract better, in here.
So what we can do is get our hands in closer, come down and then squeeze.
Immediately you can see the chest is working far more, squeeze here, than it was on my
reps out here.
Matter of fact, my chest has got a lot of slack out there, rather than in here when
I squeeze it together.
So if you're not, I'm a little narrow there, ok right here.
When you're here and you can actually contract the muscle, well if I contract it, now I can
actually get some eccentric contraction on the way out.
And then with that, do some micro damage, and with that come back and do some repair
and growth.
So if you're not getting that initial contraction.
You can forget all the other benefits.
So guys, you've got to start thinking about your strength exercises in a different way.
It's not just moving from point A to point B.
It doesn't matter if you're squatting, it doesn't matter if you are overhead pressing.
Can you actually contract your Deltoids on an overhead press?
You have to, you have to if you want them to grow.
Alright, so now, let me take a quick break and I'll bring you over to the next concept
where I think a lot of guys are getting it wrong.
And I'll show you how to fix it.
Ok so back to Craig here.
We covered the first half here again, good solid workout maybe, in terms of the way it's
structured.
But extremely flawed when it comes to the execution.
And guys, this is where I sort of think that the importance of a strength coach is to be
able to say, alright, well, he even wrote in that he was benching 250.
So if I look at the way he was lifting, and if I looked at his overall volume, if I looked
at the set structure, it all looks fine, it all looks fine.
But if you're not getting the performance right, then it is all shit, it's not going
to work.
So it's really important to understand what are you doing in the performance of the exercise.
And that as a strength coach and really as a physical therapist, is why I sort of dwell
on it.
And that's what I try to do with my ATHLEANX program, dwell on those specifics, because
that's what drives the results.
You look at this second half, Incline Flyes, Cable Crossovers.
Now, he's prioritizing the strength exercises in the front versus his sort of definition
exercises, if that's what you call them.
We don't look at them that way in ATHLEANX, everything is functional, athletic, right.
But, Incline Flyes, here's what's the problem with them, I've said it before.
It's a good exercise in terms of the fact that you can get abduction across the chest.
That's the only thing I like about it.
But could you do that in another way, where your shoulder isn't as susceptible to damage.
Why?
Because in order to get the most out of these exercises, you can't look at them as small
little isolation exercises.
Because the other factor here is, you need to not only be able to contract the muscle,
but you need to have overload.
It can't be 30 reps of 10 pounds on a Cable Crossover.
Or you know, 20 pound dumbbells doing Flyes, thinking that you're really burning out the
chest.
You've got to have overload.
And overload on a Flye in this position with dumbbells out here, not the smartest move.
And as I said before from a stretch perspective, you don't get extra stretch on the chest from
doing that, not any more than you would with a low point with a bench press.
So, I've got better alternatives.
Now we've covered one before.
It was actually in the workout last week, the 3D Cable Crossover, here.
What I like about this.
is again, I don't look at things as isolation exercises.
I look at them as functional athletic exercises.
I'm ground based here.
Ok, athletic.
I have the ability to work in three planes of motion.
Again, functional.
What I want to be able to do though, is overload.
This is not about lifting light.
So what I do, is I take it here, and come in a little bit so I get a little help from
my bicep just to get it in.
But when I come from here, I'm going to drive this across my body and bring my chest up
into the abducted position.
Ok, across here and then eccentrically come out.
Not to the point I would be with a Flye, but if those damn dumbbells got too heavy, I drop
down that way.
Ok, I've seen far too many athletes tear a pec with one rep done incorrectly that way.
Here, much more control, I've got a lot of help coming from the rest of my body.
Alright, but in here, driving across, ok in here, driving across.
This is not a light weight for me, ok.
Driving across.
This is not.
Cable Crossovers, would be like a walk in the park.
Ok, not when I see when I go in the gym, and I see these guys, you know, not that.
Because sure you're getting contraction and I like that, prerequisite, right, but with
no overload.
So contract, overload.
These are the kind of things guys, that make all the difference in your training.
This is what ATHLEANX is about.
Not just being able to get you the inpath to look like an athlete, but to train like
an athlete.
And training like an athlete means incorporating a lot more than just one dimensional thinking
into your training.
Getting a lot more out of your workouts.
If you haven't already guys, and you want to start getting a bigger chest.
Craig, if you want to start getting a bigger chest, you've got to start training it the
right way.
Come over to ATHLEANX.COM, grab our 90 day training program and see just how much more
effective and how much more growth you'll experience in those 90 days.
Yeah, we're going to train you uniquely but we're also going to train you the right way
as I've showed you here today.
Meantime, if you've found this helpful, leave me a thumbs up and a comment below and we'll
keep it rolling here next week another video.
I'll see you guys back here in 7 days.