Advice on Chest Routine

i do a 5 day muscle group split:

monday: chest and bis
tuesday: compound leg exercices
wednesday: shoulders and tris
thursday: isolation leg exercises and calves
friday: back

making good gains overall but my chest seems to be becoming dwarfed by the other gains especially in my arms and back.

so my question is “is the workout too much and overtraining my chest?” or anything else like not the right amount of reps and sets.

  1. Incline bench/db press - sets: 4 reps: 12, 10, 8, 6 (try to increase weight each set)
  2. Flat bench/db press - sets: 4 reps: 12, 10, 8, 6 (try to increase weight each set)
  3. DB flies either slightyl incline or flat depending on how the first to exercises felt - sets: 3 reps: 10
  4. Cable crossovers - sets: 3 reps: 10

If you’re gaining everywhere else, and assuming you train other bodyparts with similar volume, I would wager it’s much more likely that you just aren’t activating your chest as well as you could be. I found working on getting a solid stretch at the bottom has helped bring up my chest a lot (it is still lagging but is a LOT less laggy than it used to be)

cheers buddy.

From the fact that your arms are growing more I think you may be tricep dominant.

What does your tricep work look like?

Close grip bench: 4 sets of 10
weighted dips: 4 sets of 10
tricep extensions (cables): 4 sets of 10
reverse tricep extensions: 4 sets of 10

I’m rather small and may not be the best to give advice, but well take my advice with this in mind.

Cable cross over and fly never did anything for me.

I would rather do more sets of Incline and flat bench and increase the weight for each set and not doing more than 4-6 reps for the first set, to keep my energy level for the heavy lasts sets.

Workout would look more like (number are # of reps):

Incline: warmup(10), 6, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 5
Bench: 6, 5, 5, 5, 3, 3, 5

Always using a higher weight set to set and not too much rep on the firsts ones to keep your strength for the last one. You may respond well to lower rep with heavier weight. Nbr of set is not that important, it may be more or less, as you feel it on each training session. Just stop when you can’t do more than 3-5 reps on the last set.

Hope this help.

one thing that has helped me alot over the last 8 weeks has been starting my chest workout with 3x3 barbell bench lockouts @ about 65%. I put a flat bench in the squat rack and set the pins at a height close to my chest and lockout from the stretch position.

I read a bit about how taking the stretch reflex out of a lift and forcing your targeted muscle group to rely only on the concentric portion of a lift forces your nervous system to get a bit more activated. It sounds like for whatever reason your triceps/shoulders are dominant in pressing movements. Try starting your chest workouts with some neural activation stuff.

I started doing this at the beginning of every lift and have noticed an increased rate of growth.

good luck.

I am tricep dominant and was having issues growing my chest…My 1 rep max was 405 on flat bench at 198 lbs, but my chest still wasn’t growing…Triceps, rear delts, and back were developing greatly, but still no chest…After talking to some people and tossing ideas around, I moved away from doing flat bench and focused on inclines, declines, cable flies/pec dec and crosses and have gained more thickness in my chest in the last three months than for several years before…It may not work for you, but it has for me

For instance today- (rest pause sets)

Incline- 315 for 8 reps, 15 breathes 4 reps, 15 breaths 1 rep
2 15 second static presses and 3 sets of light negatives

Hammer Strenght Decline- 4 plates on each side for 8, 15 breaths, 6, 15 breaths 4
2 15 second static presses and 3 sets of light negatives

Then the same repeated for cable flyes and I’m done for the day with chest other than a good stretch-Oh these are also max effort lifts, failure at 8-12 reps

Hope it helps

Try using a weight that doesn’t require you to limit your reps to 6 on the last set (try for at least 8 reps again on fourth set). Be sure you feel your chest squeeze every time (which will also help avoid letting your triceps do all the work).