Hardcore Specialization Programs

Training
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I’m seriously considering a chest specialization program. Most of the articles I’ve found on these amount to some form of maintenance of all but the muscle you’re specializing in and last 3-6 weeks. I’m considering a chest specialization program. I’ve been working out for 15 years and never tried a specialization program, let alone one this concentrated. Any insight on these? I think they’re fine for folks not on anabolics but at any rate, any general experience y’all have had with these would be great. Here are some examples of the programs (perhaps to your own benefit):

http://www.t-dnation.com/free_online_article/sports_body_training_performance/specialized_training_one_bodypart_at_a_time

2

[quote]aur462 wrote:
I’m seriously considering a chest specialization program. Most of the articles I’ve found on these amount to some form of maintenance of all but the muscle you’re specializing in and last 3-6 weeks. I’m considering a chest specialization program.[/quote]
That’s one way to specialize on a bodypart, basically making it the number one focus for a month or two while taking it relatively-easy on the rest of your training for a bit. By compromising and dialing down the intensity and/or volume on the non-priority bodyparts, the idea is you’re “saving” all available training energy and recovery resources for the target part.

Another (probably more common) way to go about a bodypart specialization is to juggle your weekly training split so the target muscle is simply being worked more frequently than other parts. This opens the door for more exercise variety, different set/rep schemes, and/or different intensity techniques on the second/focused training day.

You see this “version” a lot more with guys trying to bring up their upper chest (often with one day of all incline work), hamstrings (basically having two leg days), back (one day of row variations and one day of pulldown variations), and it’s very common for arms (having one day of just arms and hitting bis with back and tris with chest). The other simple way to set this up is to train the bodypart heavy/lower rep in one session and relatively-lighter/moderate to higher rep in the other.

FWIW, that’s not exactly a “specialization program” as much as it’s a “don’t forget anything” program.