I seem to have a problem with gaining size in my chest. I seem to do alright with all my other muscle groups, but I seem to be in an 8 month plateau when it comes to chest, both size and strength wise now that I think about it.
Right now I’m on ws4sb 3 and do chest movements whenever the template allows for it.
If I had to say why I’m like this, my best guess would be because my shoulders and tris overpower my chest. Genetically I have larger triceps so I think that has caused my chest to forever lag behind.
I don’t want to eliminate regular flat bench on ME upper body days , but I’m sick of not upping my strength and size in my chest also.
I do eat well. Well enough to make good strength and size gains in other muscle groups. I get plenty of sleep, also.
So please, if you would, offer up some ideas or movements that i could inject into my routine that would help me gain some mass in my chesticles.
After your set of flat benches, why don’t you superset it with some DB or cable flies? You can go even further than that. How about trying CT’s HSS-100 chest specialization program, or any chest spec program for that matter?
I would gladly do that, but like I said I’m only a week or three into ws4sb 3 and would really like to do that for a while. I’ll have to consider adding a superset though, only thing is the ws already has a couple. Thanks for the advice, though.
well the regular barbell bench isn’t really a great movement to build up the chest. Have you tried doing gironda dips? Those have worked out exceptionally well for me. I believe Waterbury and CT have both released articles specifically talking about chest hypertrophy as well.
this is Waterbury’s… you’ll have to look for CT’s article yourself http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459382
I haven’t tried gironda dips, but I did do gironda neck press for a while and that seemed to help for a bit. I’ll give those a try. thanks for reminding me!
Some good suggestions so far. Why not try doing DB bench instead of BB bench. Personally I’ve found that DB bench builds my chest better than BB bench.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Some good suggestions so far. Why not try doing DB bench instead of BB bench. Personally I’ve found that DB bench builds my chest better than BB bench.[/quote]
I actually only did dumbell bench up until a week or three ago when I started ws4sb
[quote]Rugby_Owns wrote:
Sentoguy wrote:
Some good suggestions so far. Why not try doing DB bench instead of BB bench. Personally I’ve found that DB bench builds my chest better than BB bench.
I actually only did dumbell bench up until a week or three ago when I started ws4sb[/quote]
And, how did it work for you? Were you going up in weight every workout? Did it put size on your chest? If so, then why wouldn’t you continue using it?
Something that’s helped me recently has been to use bottom benches in a power rack. Because I have trouble finding a groove on a flat bench, I set the bench at its lowest incline setting, which greatly helps. Setting the pins at just above chest level, I start the movement at the bottom, and let the bar rest briefly on the pins at the completion of each rep.
This way it’s less of a triceps exercise and more of a chest exercise for me because my triceps do not tire out so much quicker than my chest. Since you are using the WS4SB3 template, this movement could easily work as your max upper body movement.
Use dips, declines, and inclines as two of your ME exercises that you cycle through and make sure you are doing the chest assistance exercises on Monday. Add weight to the bar and eat, your chest will grow.
[quote]Sentoguy wrote:
Rugby_Owns wrote:
Sentoguy wrote:
Some good suggestions so far. Why not try doing DB bench instead of BB bench. Personally I’ve found that DB bench builds my chest better than BB bench.
I actually only did dumbell bench up until a week or three ago when I started ws4sb
And, how did it work for you? Were you going up in weight every workout? Did it put size on your chest? If so, then why wouldn’t you continue using it?[/quote]
It went alright. I didn’t really gain any size, but I did go up in weight; although I seemed to stall at 90lb DBs.
Thanks to all you other guys who have offered suggestions. I think I’ll add flys and gironda dips and see how that goes.