[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
[quote]winkel wrote:
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
I don’t know if our situations are similar since I was much stronger than you and still had a shit-tastic chest lol but my chest HAS finally been growing and while it’s happening slowly, it’s getting there. I lift much lighter and put all my focus into the negative, stretch at the bottom and the contraction of my chest throughout the exercise. I’ve essentially turned it into a time under tension kind of deal and while the weight I’m using looks retarded for my size, it keeps me from involving my shoulders/triceps which has always been the issue.
so…in closing, I would still work on getting stronger first. Saying you are at a 270 lb bench press and can’t grow is wayyyyy too early to be called. For instance, I was doing 405 with solid reps on incline, 455 reps on flat bench and still had a shitty chest. At that point I knew something had to change. [/quote]
This here is interesting.
I am cursed with ridiculously long arms which is great for deadlifting but horrendous for chest and it shows. I tried upping chest training frequency to two - sometimes 3 times a week in the hope that it would make a difference but all it did was give me severe shoulder problems. AC joints hurts on anything LOWER than 30 degrees incline but oddly enough shoulder press and steep incline is no issue… Except from the fact that I do not feel anything in my chest - its all tris and shoulder…
I might want to try lowering the weight and see what that does… Could you give an indication on how much you reduced your weight? 50%? I assume you increased reps and/or sets dramatically then? Which exercises did you keep in your chest routine? (I assume you threw out flat BB bench)
[/quote]
Well for instance, I’ll do either 275 or 315 on incline smith, Incline DB’s I’ll use 100’s, HS machines where in the past I’ve done the whole stack+added extra weight onto the handles I’ll do maybe half that weight now. So a large reduction in weight.
Yah I definitely increased volume, usually 4 working sets per exercise instead of 1 or 2. I do incline DB press, cable fly, smith incline, incline DB fly, decline HS. I hit chest once every 5 days.[/quote]
What your weekly split like? I think hitting Chest every 5 days would help me. Do you hit everything every 5 days or just chest and the rest every week?
[quote]its_just_me wrote:
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Arguing strength and weights used, or even bf% is pointless and has nothing to do with pec development. Like some of the other guys noted, strength gains can, and often do precede size gains, and usually if viewed as the sole indicator of progress, are misleading. Within my 1st year of training I was benching 315, but I had only put on about 2 lbs of bodyweight, and my my chest would continue to suck ass for many more years to come.
Now, I don’t even bother tryng to put up 315 (although I can do it on an incline, I don’t!). I’ve learned to actually recruit my muscles through proper form and positioning, learned to pre-exhaust stronger muscles groups that prevented proper pec development by taking the brunt of the work, learned how to balance my workload and my nutrition and recovery outside of the gym to ensure proper growth is allowed to occur, and learned to not give a sh-t about how much weight I lift or what anyone else in the gym thinks if I look to them like I’m moving p-ssy weights.
The answer you’re looking for is ^here. It may take a while, and will undoubtedly take a bit of effort on your part, but solving YOUR puzzle is the game. Not how much weight you lift, not how much bodyfat you have, but how to unlock what works for you. No one else can give you the answer. Blaming genetics is the ultimate cop-out, and the guy who coined the term ‘hard-gainer’ should be shot. While everyone has different potential, and starting points, NO ONE cannot make some progress if they are doing everything correctly.
S[/quote]
I was going to say something along those lines, then I shied away since it seemed that some of the built guys put more emphasis on the numbers.
If an intermediate lifter has crappy development in any bodypart like the pecs (vs. other bodyparts), telling them to get much stronger on a bench press (or just eat more) is gonna do crap all for their pec growth if there isn’t enough over-load on them. Of course strength for reps is essential…on the target muscle though.
Agreed with Waylander, focus on the negative, keep good tension on the pecs. Play with the grip, hand placement, elbows, ROM etc until you get a good feel on the target muscle. Or like Stu said, pre-exhaust with an isolation exercise first (followed quickly by the multi-joint movement). Or as some do, get a pump in the target muscle first (gives a better mind-muscle connection).
For myself (almost same height as you) I took a medium grip (just outside shoulder width), slowed the negative (lowered weight on bar for the first few sessions), kept elbows out more, and on the second chest exercise/2nd set, I didn’t lower the bar all the way to the chest to keep shoulders out of it. Also, like you seemed to notice, I have to train my chest roughly every 5 days to get decent development (for me, chest seems to progress better from brevity and frequency vs other bodyparts like back and legs where it’s more volume and plenty rest).[/quote]
Same question bro