JEFF: What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Part two in our series on building up the big lifts by using accessory lifts.
Stuff that people ignore and overlook.
Here with me, K.C.
Mitchell, the one-legged monster.
Hanging out here in the X-Box to go over these big lifts, but more importantly, this is what
you do.
K.C.: That’s right.
Yep.
JEFF: And spend a lot of time doing it.
K.C.: A lot more time on these than actual big lifts.
JEFF: That’s the thing, guys.
Again, it’s either limitation on time, or being afraid that doing these lifts, in some
way, takes away from the energy they could devote to the big lifts?
K.C.: Yeah.
If that’s the case, then do the big lifts first.
Then transfer over to the accessory and workout what you can do.
JEFF: But ultimately, the thing is, if you’re trying to build your big lifts, you’re trying
to build your bench-press; if you’re going to take a little bit away from that so you
will get a bigger lift there, then that’s the goal, right?
I think guys sometimes get a little off track in their training and they think – they
become infatuated with either numbers-
K.C.: Yep.
JEFF: Or even strength that’s not even there.
K.C.: Yeah, the one thing I’ve noticed people do is “Okay, I want to build a big bench.
So, I’m going to go down and bench, bench, bench, bench, bench.
This is all I’m going to do.”
That’s what you see.
You see them just benching.
Then they get to a point where they can’t get over 225lbs and they don’t understand
why.
There are a lot of muscles that need to get stronger, but the bench doesn’t actually
– it turns them into secondaries instead of full on, actual, primary muscle.
Bring yourself over to the accessory side.
Let’s hit the secondary muscles that are going to transfer over into your bench-press,
and your lift is going to get a lot bigger.
JEFF: With that being said, the first one you’re going to do here – that you do
all the time – is a decline from vertical.
K.C.: Yes.
JEFF: Overhead shoulder press.
K.C.: Yeah.
I like that.
The overhead press, slightly angled as you can see.
Strictly because it’s going to take a lot of pressure off the shoulders.
The anatomy is not made to be bowed back like this.
I like hitting the front delts.
To help the longevity of my training and competing, I need to take a lot of strain off my shoulders
as much as I can.
So, for me, putting a bit more of an incline, I take a little bit of that strain off the
shoulders.
And I’m able to push heavy amounts of weight just because of that little bit of an incline.
JEFF: I can see here you’re just knocking out 100s.
But meanwhile, I’ve seen you do a lot more than that.
K.C.: Yeah, I’ve done 130lb presses for reps before.
JEFF: Right.
So, for me, my standpoint, I think what K.C. said here is 100% right.
When you talk about the scapular plane being angled a bit forward, it’s only natural
for your arm to get a little forward by having that slight decline from vertical.
Your shoulders are going to come in, and your elbows are going to come in a bit more in
front of your body.
So, you’re pressing from that position.
At the same time, you want to hit those delts – why?
Why do you want to hit the delts to prepare yourself for that bench-press?
K.C.: Well, my front delts come into play on the bench-press.
Bigger shoulders bring a bigger bench-press.
JEFF: Especially out of that bottom portion.
K.C.: Out of the bottom portion, especially.
A lot of people, the thing they say about me is “How are you so explosive out of the
hole?”
That’s the chest up to about midway.
It’s due to things like this.
This lift, right here.
There are times where, even with this lift, I’ll add small pause reps.
JEFF: Right.
K.C.: And things like that to incorporate more of an explosive, off the chest, up to
midway on the bench-press.
JEFF: So, talking about pause reps actually leads in perfectly to that next exercise that
we do here.
K.C.: Yes.
JEFF: The floor press.
K.C.: Yes.
Okay.
JEFF: That’s it.
Easy.
Control.
All the way down.
Nice.
So, guys, obviously he makes this shit look easy.
The floor press is an incredible accessory lift.
Almost for the exact opposite reasons of what we’re talking about for the shoulder press.
K.C.: Yeah.
JEFF: So, the shoulder press is helping you get out of the hole at the bottom of the lift.
You’ve got the shoulders primarily working there, but when you get to the top, the points-
K.C.: Yeah.
JEFF: Tricep.
K.C.: Yeah, the tricep.
I would say, honestly, probably 70% to 80% of our bench-presses are failed at the top,
where the triceps come into full engagement.
JEFF: But you like to use the pause reps everywhere, or at least pausing at the bottom because
– why?
Because you want that explosion?
K.C.: I want that explosion.
I want explosion on – it’s adding strength.
Anytime you can pause and hold weight for a certain period of time you’re building
strength.
Why make things easy?
I want to train to get stronger.
So, if I can make a lift even a little bit harder it’s going to have its benefits.
That benefit is strength.
JEFF: I think too, the thing that happens is, guys overlook the fact that techniques
actually become part of the accessory.
K.C.: Yeah.
JEFF: Using pause reps, and using deceleration on that last rep there, really controlling
the last one, even in a fatigued state – not necessarily coming out of the box and doing
the low rep, but doing it after doing four, or five explosive reps, and then do it.
K.C.: Yeah.
I don’t see a lot of people doing it.
I feel like that’s something different that I add in.
At the very end when I’m fatigued, I’ll always add in some type of slow, controlled
descent, some type of long pause.
Because the muscles are fatigued and if I can build some type of explosion on the fatigue,
imagine what kind of explosion they’re going to have when they’re full on, ready to go.
JEFF: In terms of loading on this exercise, what do you like to do?
K.C.: As far as what?
JEFF: Loading.
K.C.: Weight-wise?
JEFF: Yeah.
That should be able to load up pretty good.
K.C.: Yeah.
I’ll go 400lbs on these.
This is one of those things kind of like what we talked about with the box squat.
You can overload with this.
You want to overload this because there is going to be a point when you need to get your
top used to holding max loads.
So, I would definitely do hypertrophy style training, which is high volume, but don’t
be afraid to add those one-reppers, or three-rep heavy loads in there as well.
You’re going to need them.
JEFF: All right, cool.
So, we’ve got one more, which actually hits the back.
Right?
K.C.: Yep.
JEFF: That’s an area no one ever thinks about, a lot of times when it comes to the
bench-press.
K.C.: It’s one of those things – yeah.
A lot of people think ‘chest, bench-press, okay’.
Chest.
Some people will thing “tris”.
But the next one I’m about to show them, a lot of people don’t realize it’s a big
engagement, as far as bringing the bench-press and building a big explosion out of the hole.
JEFF: Let’s go do it.
All right.
So, we talked about the back.
It’s a lat pulldown variation where it becomes one of those key accessory lifts of the bench-press.
But as the case is, it’s how you do the exercise.
There are so many ways to do the exercise here.
But when we’re talking about accessory to building a bigger bench, there’s one good
way.
One ‘best’ way.
K.C.: Right.
JEFF: It’s how you do it here.
You call it the laid-back pulldown.
K.C.: Lay back pulldown.
JEFF: Right.
So, let’s see what it looks like.
And we’ll talk it through, as you go through and rep it out.
First thing, this level of recline here that he’s got.
It’s almost similarly to – as you move the bar, go ahead.
It’s almost a reverse bench-press, right?
So, what he’s really trying to do here is, he’s keeping his body locked in as the bar
wants to pull his body up.
He’s not allowing the body to go up.
What’s doing that?
What’s allowing that?
Stability through here, right?
Good.
You can come up, K.C..
So that’s your key, right?
When you’re doing that what are you focused on the most?
K.C.: My lats.
I’m really – the thing is, with the bench-press, when I’m setting up for my big bench-press,
tightness is a huge thing.
Lats engaged.
We have a nice arch.
So, when I’m out, I’m locked in.
If I’m sitting and squeezing the bar and the lats are immediately engaged.
The lats come into play on the bench-press.
So, when I’m doing these, my key is to lean back, full extensions, and pull the bar, while
squeezing the lats.
Basically, controlling the bar coming down, and then allowing it, and controlling it as
you’re coming up because as long as you have weight it’s going to want to pull you.
So full control both ways.
That’s basically what you need to do on a bench-press.
Control all the way down, big explosion coming up, lats tight in both directions.
JEFF: Right, and while on a bench-press the bar is certainly not going to pull you off
the bench, at the same time your lats can disengage.
K.C.: Exactly.
And if your lats disengage on a bench-press, you’re going to end up – unless it’s
just light.
But if you’re going for that one-rep max in your bench-press and your lat disengages,
you’re probably going to miss the lift.
It’s happened to me many times.
JEFF: Not only that, what usually happens is when the lats disengage the instability
of the shoulder comes in.
K.C.: It’s basically called “getting loose”.
You get loose, the stability goes away, and you’ll end up losing the lift.
JEFF: So, even guys that have a problem with bench-pressing and shoulder pain itself, one
of the first things you really need to check is how well you’re able to engage your lats.
K.C.: Absolutely.
JEFF: Because the stability of your shoulders is going to be compromised if you can’t.
K.C.: Absolutely.
JEFF: Instability of shoulders during a bench-press is one of the quickest ways to get pain.
K.C.: Absolutely.
JEFF: So again, one last thing, when guys do this – you know I hate when people rock
during a pulldown.
Again, if you’re going to set this exercise up and do it this way you can’t let it pull
you up.
It’s not about this.
Even though it looks right when you’re down here, you’ve screwed up here.
Plus, to get back in that position, now you’re using all kinds of momentum to get it back.
K.C.: You’re getting a little something out of it, but you’re not getting what you
need to get.
You’re not getting full contraction of the muscle.
JEFF: Right.
So, guys, there are your big three accessory lifts when it comes to the big bench-press.
I can’t underscore it enough.
If you want to get a bigger bench-press, this guy’s got a big bench-press.
He actually – it’s your best lift, right?
K.C.: 473 is my best lift.
My bench-press is my best lift, out of the three.
JEFF: Yeah.
The fact is, I said it in the beginning, I’ll say it 1000 times as we do this series; it’s
because you don’t just bench-press.
K.C.: Yeah.
JEFF: And you don’t just spend all your time doing it.
You spend a lot of your time doing some of the smaller things.
K.C.: Yeah.
I honestly can tell you right now, I do one big bench-press movement, and then I have
the accessory.
In a whole week I’ll have it where I do bench-press, but then immediately after that
it will be dumbbell work, overhead presses.
Like, we did lat pulldowns, and then there will be a day where it’s my secondary bench-press
is close grip bench-press.
Close grip floor press.
Floor press like we showed.
That’s an accessory day.
That’s my secondary bench-press day of the week.
So, if you think about it, I’m really only benching once a week.
JEFF: One time a week.
Yeah.
K.C.: Then I’m probably getting 15 to 20 accessories a week for the bench-press.
JEFF: Yeah.
So, guys, there you have it.
Straight from the one-legged monster.
You guys, let’s keep this thing going.
We’ve got another lift to cover here.
In the meantime, I always say it.
If you’re looking for programs that don’t overlook the smaller things – these all
matter.
The small things always matter because there are no unimportant muscles.
If there were, we wouldn’t have them.
K.C.: Absolutely.
JEFF: ATHLEANX.com, guys.
Go over there, check out our programs.
In the meantime, let me know if you’ve found this video helpful.
If you like this series, we’ll continue to make more.
We’ll be back here again in just a couple days to get another video.
See you soon.