[quote]Jason van Wyk wrote:
My shoulders get heavily involved when I’m benching, so pre-fatiguing them means my chest has to pick up the slack when moving the same weight. That sort of pre-fatiguing, which PX is talking about, slightly reduces the involvement of a troublesome and over-involved assisting muscle in the movement, placing more stress on the target muscle and allowing better growth.
Pre-fatiguing as a lot of the posters here see it is doing a few isolation sets of the target muscle to firm-up the mind-muscle connection, and where the target muscle is the one that would ordinarily fail last it makes it work harder because it is already tired.
I think both strategies have merit. [/quote]
Exactly. I did it and it worked. People here try too hard to point out faults while literally laughing at sound logic.
I could care less if I got the terminology wrong. To claim what I wrote has no merit at all is a little retarded.
I got the term wrong. Ignoring the advice because of that can only short change others.
[quote]Jason van Wyk wrote:
My shoulders get heavily involved when I’m benching, so pre-fatiguing them means my chest has to pick up the slack when moving the same weight.
[/quote]
If you can bench 315x5 fresh there is no way you’ll be able to bench that much (weight/reps) if you pre fatigue your shoulders.
You would definitely have to drop the weight you bench because your shoulders, which you said are heavily involved and therefor are responsible for lifting a good portion of that weight, would be tired already.
You wouldn’t be able to move the same weight.[/quote]
?? Once again, while this may happen initially, the goal is to teach your chest to become more involved.
Some of you seem to be missing something very simple…while some here got it right off.
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
I think X is wrong just like most in this thread, but it seems like some of you guys are carrying around some previous butthurt baggage.[/quote]
?? You said yourself you noticed this in your own training. What d you think would happen if you did the same thing for 3 months with the goal of making your chest alone stronger?
[quote]hungry4more wrote:
Ok…you do some skullcrushers before bench, your triceps are toasted pretty good. You move on to bench. Once you get to the point where your triceps reach failure (say, at 6 reps rather than 10 reps vs if you were fresh), X is saying that your chest will somehow take over the movement and keep going.
That’s exactly where I have to call shenanigans. You chest CAN’T complete the movement if your triceps are burned out, they are NEEDED for the movement to happen. You’ll get the bar about 2 inches off your chest on the 7th rep, and it’ll plop right back down. Good luck chesty. [/quote]
If the triceps are worn down then the arms wont lock out on a pressing movement. That means if i do a DB press then i will be forced to stay in the ROM near the bottom or midrange of the movement.
That doesnt sound bad to me. I dont lock out reps on anything.Nothing will be lost by not locking out…[/quote]
Exactly.
How is it so many seem to have a problem with this?
The goal is to force your chest to get stronger over time. This focus on what happens in the first workout is ridiculous.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
I do have to laugh at this many posters logging in just to say, “your wrong!!”. lol
The logic is not wrong concerning this concept.
If my biceps are overly involved with lat pull downs, it may help me FEEL my lats more if I fatigue my biceps first.
YES, this will cause a decrease in weight used AT FIRST.
This has been written about 30 times in this thread.
[/quote]
I did shoulders yesterday. In the middle of the routine, I thought about this discussion.
So I tried a few sets of flat bench, an exercise that is heavily dependent on the anterior deltoid.
Yes, I had to reduce the weight considerably. Yes, it was MUCH harder. But I FELT my pecs working more than ever before. I literally had to focus on contracting them to push the weight up. They are sore today.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
I do have to laugh at this many posters logging in just to say, “your wrong!!”. lol
The logic is not wrong concerning this concept.
If my biceps are overly involved with lat pull downs, it may help me FEEL my lats more if I fatigue my biceps first.
YES, this will cause a decrease in weight used AT FIRST.
This has been written about 30 times in this thread.
[/quote]
I did shoulders yesterday. In the middle of the routine, I thought about this discussion.
So I tried a few sets of flat bench, an exercise that is heavily dependent on the anterior deltoid.
Yes, I had to reduce the weight considerably. Yes, it was MUCH harder. But I FELT my pecs working more than ever before. I literally had to focus on contracting them to push the weight up. They are sore today.[/quote]
That is how it works.
So, I do have to ask how I am so wrong if I answered the OP and he benefited from the advice.
Maybe others here should type less and try listening more.
The goal is to teach your body to FEEL the target muscle group working more. Thsi is easier to do if you tire the group that is taking over the movement.
Mind muscle connection is VERY important to bodybuilding.
You can call it what you want…but acting like I don’t know shit is only going to cause newbs to get less help.
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
you should have that focus every time you bench![/quote]
You’re right, but when you are benching heavy, and you have not pre-fatigued any of the accessory muscle groups…how many people reallllllly focus 100% on only contracting their pecs rather than focus on not dropping 300+ lbs on their chest lol.
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
you should have that focus every time you bench![/quote]
You’re right, but when you are benching heavy, and you have not pre-fatigued any of the accessory muscle groups…how many people reallllllly focus 100% on only contracting their pecs rather than focus on not dropping 300+ lbs on their chest lol.[/quote]
…which is why you notice guys with small chests saying how huge they bench…while guys with HUGE chests may say the same but not use the same weight.
The guy feeling his chest work more will get the greatest benefit. That is my goal when training…NOT just moving a weight.
That is why people focusing on a decrease in strength in the first damn workout are missing the boat here.
I am sure this thread was read more though because of it so it don’t really matter.
do you use 300 lbs when fresh as well as fatigued? if so that’s impressive
If I’m benching with a focus on the pecs I just widen my grip, reduce the ROM to the bottom half, and focus on squeezing the pecs. I don’t worry much about getting crushed unless I’m doing more of a PL style bench and am going for lower reps + heavier weight
it seems pretty simple to me, if the OP wants to feel his chest more for the effect of Chest development I would fatigue the synergistic muscles that may take some of the pressure off the pecs doing the work. If the goal is chest development and not weight lifted it seems to me to be the way to go. I dont understand why you would want to fatigue the muscle that you are trying to stimulate.
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
do you use 300 lbs when fresh as well as fatigued? if so that’s impressive
If I’m benching with a focus on the pecs I just widen my grip, reduce the ROM to the bottom half, and focus on squeezing the pecs. I don’t worry much about getting crushed unless I’m doing more of a PL style bench and am going for lower reps + heavier weight[/quote]
Dude, if you bench 300 and your chest isn’t at least pretty big, my guess is you don’t have a great muscle mind connection either.
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
do you use 300 lbs when fresh as well as fatigued? if so that’s impressive
If I’m benching with a focus on the pecs I just widen my grip, reduce the ROM to the bottom half, and focus on squeezing the pecs. I don’t worry much about getting crushed unless I’m doing more of a PL style bench and am going for lower reps + heavier weight[/quote]
300 lbs was just a figure I threw out there lol. On normal bench days, I usually work up to a set of 5 with 405. Yesterday I was already heavily pre-fatigured and 275 felt like 405 lol!
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
it seems pretty simple to me, if the OP wants to feel his chest more for the effect of Chest development I would fatigue the synergistic muscles that may take some of the pressure off the pecs doing the work. If the goal is chest development and not weight lifted it seems to me to be the way to go. I dont understand why you would want to fatigue the muscle that you are trying to stimulate.[/quote]
Hey…I said that at first…but it took a whole site of guys screaming I’m wrong before anyone listened.
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
do you use 300 lbs when fresh as well as fatigued? if so that’s impressive
If I’m benching with a focus on the pecs I just widen my grip, reduce the ROM to the bottom half, and focus on squeezing the pecs. I don’t worry much about getting crushed unless I’m doing more of a PL style bench and am going for lower reps + heavier weight[/quote]
Dude, if you bench 300 and your chest isn’t at least pretty big, my guess is you don’t have a great muscle mind connection either.[/quote]
I never said my chest wasn’t big lol. I’m just trying to improve it and more importantly improve my MMC!
[quote]LankyMofo wrote:
I think X is wrong just like most in this thread, but it seems like some of you guys are carrying around some previous butthurt baggage.[/quote]
?? You said yourself you noticed this in your own training. What d you think would happen if you did the same thing for 3 months with the goal of making your chest alone stronger?[/quote]
I think my chest would get lackluster workouts because my triceps would be failing a lot earlier.
The crux of your theory assumes that pre exhausting the triceps will force the lifter to fix the mechanics of the movement in order to allow the lifter to focus on the chest while pressing. I think you can work on the mechanics of the movement without even worrying about pre exhausting the triceps.
But at this point we’re talking in circles. The point of my last post was to point out butthurt, not reiterate my disagreement with you.
[quote]browndisaster wrote:
do you use 300 lbs when fresh as well as fatigued? if so that’s impressive
If I’m benching with a focus on the pecs I just widen my grip, reduce the ROM to the bottom half, and focus on squeezing the pecs. I don’t worry much about getting crushed unless I’m doing more of a PL style bench and am going for lower reps + heavier weight[/quote]
Dude, if you bench 300 and your chest isn’t at least pretty big, my guess is you don’t have a great muscle mind connection either.[/quote]
I never said my chest wasn’t big lol. I’m just trying to improve it and more importantly improve my MMC![/quote]
That wasn’t directed at you…but yeah, pushing 300 with a small chest implies weak mind muscle connection.