Jan 5, 2011

The Pecs routine

One of my readers asked my about chest training and how I work my pecs with different exercises. The chest is undoubtedly one of the favorite body parts among many  athletes because it gives the body a dramatic athletic impression. I try to work my pecs in several different angels, with various load and reps, and even with various speed. My fastest chest exercise is the Plyo push-up and my slowest exercise is probably the superslow dips.

Due to a shoulder injury in the rotator cuff muscle group, I can not perform all my regular Chest exercises at the moment. The routine I do is also not fixed. I do switch between exercises all the time, but here is the Plyo Blueprint of chest training. Link to video of the exercises is located below.

1st exercise is always the benchpress, decline benchpress or the incline dumbbell press. I do swith between them regularly. I try to do about 4-6 reps in my heaviest set on the first exercise. I also do several warm-up sets with gradually increasing load until my final set to failure and beyond.

2nd exercise is usually one of the same exercises mentioned above. As told I alternate which exercises I do first and second. My rep range is a little higher for my second exercise, and I do about 8-10 reps

3rd exercise is always a flyes movement. I alternate between dumbbell flyes, cable flyes, machine flyes, and incline cable flyes. Rep range is about 10-12

4th exercise is another press, but with less load and higher reps. I often do push-ups, Plyo push-ups, dips or machine chestpresses  with drop set. Reps is between 12 and 20 for my fourth exercise.

A chest workout might look something like this:

Decline benchpress - 12x190lbs, 10x210lbs, 8x230lbs, 6x250lbs, 4x270lbs
Incline dumbell press - 12x80lbs, 10x90lbs, 8x100lbs, 8x100lbs
Cable flyes - 12x100lbs, 12x100lbs, 12x100lbs
Dips+push-ups - 10+10, 8+10, 8+8, 8+6 (every set to failure)

Decline benchpress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTrGrEPQzs4
Incline benchpress: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWPNnxwL0Ak
Incline dumbbell press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekZ86fUJk_c
Cable flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaCwbLan5v0
Dumbbell flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouRzcFheMUQ
Kettlebell flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bMF4tPdDks
Machine flyes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIhHVVnq39w
Machine press: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCK_ZzIbdkk
Dips: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjCUFl5hY4E
Plyo push-ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3Yl-UpoDfk
ROM push-ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ8bUz9myRM
Decline push-ups: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GocHnUPeyQ0

And here a sample from yesterdays workout:

8 comments:

  1. Thanks for the info Stale. Awesome pecs and strength. I'll give it a try.

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  2. You're welcome Ray. Tell me about it when you've tried to workout :-)

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  3. thanks for the workout for chest bro,been following ur routine this week,,can u post ur shoulder workout bro,,

    thx

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  4. Hi Cody :-) I'll post my shoulder routine today or tomorrow :-) Let me know how it's working out for you.

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  5. You wrote that you do decline bench to avoid droplet shaped pecs. By this do you mean rounded at the bottom as opposed to flat. I was completely unaware decline could combat this. Have any more info or input on what exercises achieve what shape for pecs?

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