Ranking the Top 5 Techniques to Maximize Chest Gains and Growth | Mind Pump 2540

you want to maximize chest growth you want to maximize the gains in your chest there are techniques you can utilize in the gym to really make this happen today we're going to rank the top five techniques you can do to maximize chest gains and growth I'll start with one bite the negative portion of chest exercise especially presses properly a lot of people don't realize that the pecs bring the elbows together they bring the upper arms together so when you're lowering the bar fite that part the rep fight the separation of the elbows to add more emphasis on the chest can we get the editing team to edit the comment or the take a picture and edit the comment of the guy who did um said nice chess to S old that was you yeah weak chess weak is that what it was it was weak Oh I thought it was a nice chest said weak chest weak you know what it said just looks like it yeah I um I love this because I I think that you mean if obviously if you listen to the show for long enough you've heard me talk about that nobody focuses on the negative um and I remember the first time reading how important uh the Ecentric portion of an exercise is right the negative of of an exercise how much more muscle you can build there and that the right the protocol for that is like 4 seconds down any you walk in a gym you look at anybody doing it and nobody everyone's just dropping the weight down going back up and so just controlling that movement or that portion of the exercise has tremendous value in building muscle yeah what what what when you look at a muscle Contracting it either contracts concentrically it shortens so that's like flexing your bicep eccentrically means it's Contracting as it's lengthening so that would be like opening my arm with resistance and then isometric is just holding a flex well when they study each contraction type the negative portion of a rep sends the the loudest muscle building signal causes the most damage as well damage for sure but it also uh causes or or sends the the loudest growth signal so a low negative is important but really emphasis here is on the technique the chest the pecs among most things they do a couple different things but the main function of the pack is called horizontal adduction of the humorus so the humoris is the upper arm bone here horizontal meaning here in this plane here and what it's doing is it's bringing that upper arm the two upper arm bones humorous together so as I'm bench pressing you can see that it's pulling my elbows together at the top but as I lower if I can think of the action of the pecs and and fight that portion of the rep don't just lower it slowly but rather lower it slowly but also concentrate on that separating part of the elbow it makes a big difference by the way this isn't just based off of feel although you'll feel it more if you try it test it out for yourself but studies show that when people concentrate on a muscle and focus on on its function or even just think about by the way just think about the muscle that they're trying to work they activate more muscle fibers which is cool because bodybuilders have said this for a long time like Arnold used to say this you know when you're doing curls I imagine my biceps growing I think about them growing studies show that if you actually think about influence that yes you can you can actually influence that by just really concentrating and two it provides that signal that your joints are safer and so as you increase that amount of recruitment uh and you can tense your muscles to that degree um that's that's another thing that's beneficial in terms of now uh allowing you to produce more Force the next preceding reps absolutely now what is your take on how different people because you'll see different people uh recommend elbow positioning when they're when they're pressing some will have a uh tighter inward you'll see some with more of a bodybuilding style where they emphasize flaring the elbows um so what's your opinion on uh the different styles of pressing is it uh is one necessarily better than the other is one Superior for building muscle is one better for getting a better lift like what's your thought on the different strategies as far as how to position your elbows in the Press if you're just trying to Target the chest because of the action of the chest elbows flaring out is going to do that however you're going to sacrifice the amount of force that you can generate by doing that so powerlifters don't bench that way right powerlifters don't bench with the elbows flared out their elbows are more tucked um as they're pressing so you'll be able toate that makes more sense yeah but you're also using more leverage better leverage you're using more of your anterior delts the front of the delts in that kind of kind of a press and the shoulder is in a safer position with the elbows slightly tucked so it is a tradeoff that being said if you're smart and you're not trying to both go for a max bench and flare out the elbows right if you're doing this by feel and treating it the way a bodybuilder would which is how can I really feel this in the chest control the rep fight that negative bring the elbows together at the top then you're going to be okay you know of course given that you have healthy shoulders and good Mobility so flaring them out is g to activate the pecs more yeah but if you want a bigger bench that intention that that that makes sense yes well so I this is kind of how I've approached it personally and with clients uh more so with myself though because this is we're starting to get into you know levels of like you know this techniques and changing little things like this right so when I am when I'm lifting like singles doubles triple triples and I'm going for Max lifts I'm so I'm going to toggle between the two of them I'm going to I'm going to more like a power yeah I'm going to lift more like a powerlifter to get my bench up higher than it's ever been right so to to to get strong enough to carry a load that my that my chest has never done before and build that overall strength M and then I'm going to have phases of training where I'm focused on hypertrophy and I'm going to be doing 8 to 12 reps and the weight's going to be significantly lighter than what that is and then that's where I'm going to flare the elbows more like a body Builder and really slow down the tempo and resist on the way down and so I feel like getting comfortable with the heavyweight doing it in the more uh powerlifter traditional way to get heavy and and loaded and strong that way and then when I lighten the load uh putting myself what you would argue is maybe more at risk for your shoulder CU you're flaring it but then better for the chest is how I would do that right by the way like uh uh machine makers Hammer Strength was the first one to really one of the first ones really uh effectively do this with chest press machines is understanding the action of the chest you know back in the day chest press machines and there's still a lot of machines like this where the where the bar is fixed just like a bar belt right it's fixed but Hammer Strength started angling the handle so that as you press the hands would come together together yeah because of the action of the chest this made Hammer Strength uh chest press still makes them it's smooth very popular because they work the PEC uh the way that the PEC you know needs to be worked so when you're bench pressing I mean you can think just move the bar up there's nothing wrong with that but if you want to maximize and utilize this technique what you think as you're pressing is bring the elbows together and then let the elbows come apart and resist that on the way down and what you'll find is you feel it more in the chest as you're doing the Press um that's funny you're talking about driving the hands together like I I actually um pulled like I focused on the grip really gripping hard and kind of pulling apart on the way down and pushing inward kind of on the way in but obviously they're fixed because you have a grip but the intention of it was that so that's the next technique right so and it's funny cuz you just you just named one for strength but we're talking about building right the chest y the next one is to drive the hands together on all chest presses all right what does this look like on a barbell because your hands are fixed you grip the bar real tight and you almost like you're trying to slide your hands together that's the the angle or that's the direction of tension as you're pressing and as you're lowering you're also simultaneously gripping the bar and trying to bring your an don't actually bring your hands together but that's the direction of tension that'll also activate your chest even more now what you just said was the opposite as you lower pull them apart because you're maximizing Force which is a different conversation so you know uh how you know something like this is so effective when a product is birthed because of it yes have you guys ever seen the sliding bar the bench bar tried it it looks interesting yeah I've never tried it i' I've actually never used it before it seems a little bit ridiculous because it's my hands are sliding back and forth while I'm trying to press but the logic behind it makes sense because of this what you're talking about right now because of what you're telling what you're queuing the audience to do to maximize their their bench this basically is incorporating that where slide it by the way when you try this on a barbell you're going to lift less so you you take your normal weight you know let's say you you use 135 lbs on an incline press or a bench press and 10 reps is usually what you can get and then you're like okay what I'm going to do now is I'm going to grip the bar and drop drive my hands together as I'm doing the Reps you'll get like three less reps it creates that much more tension in the chest as you're pressing and that's the point the point of this is It's a technique that'll activate the chest more create more tension and make your normal exercise more effective from a hypertrophy standpoint by the way dumbbells allow you to do this naturally which is why a lot of people like dumbbells dumbbells yeah when you're doing a chest press with dumbbells you never keep the hands the same distance apart at the top in fact that's kind of weird right you tend to bring them together at the top which which is which is kind of what we're talking about here but from a barbells perspective creating that inward uh I mean the dumbbell also allows you to drop down in your shoulders kind of natural pockets and position to come down too which is why I've always been such a fan of teaching clients on dumbbells for that that that purpose and then as they progress then you could go more advanced with barbell you could load that's the that's the huge benefit the why the bar because then one would argue well then why you just use dumbbells all the time y cuz dumbbells are better for that sit for what you're talking about but the perk of the barbell is you're going to load you're going to be able to load more than what you're going to be able to do what's interesting too about that conversation not that bodybuilders have all the answers but when it comes to hypertrophy that's what they are they're hypertrophy experts and so I don't think people should train like bodybuilders necessarily but I do think that there's a lot of um Clues uh in terms of technique and methods that you know most people can utilize and what you tend to find with bodybuilders is they tend to navigate from barbells to dumbbells as they become more advanced you'll notice this bodybuilders will utilize barbells as they're coming up and as they get bigger they start to move more to dumbbells because at some point you get so big and so strong handling max weight the rist versus Ward isn't very good so they go to dumbbells because of the full range of motion and bring their hands together uh nonetheless average person should use both um because they're both valuable state liberty makes Formal Wear in suits for d dudes who lift it's comfortable and it fits good and you don't have to get it tailored click right here if you're interested next is to really focus on the stretch on all fly movements what we now are seeing in the in the data in studies is what old school bodybuilders have talked about for a long time where the stretch is really a great way to stimulate muscle growth for any muscle um what what finding the data is resistance while a muscle in is in a stretch position produces the loudest muscle growth signal of all of the positions of the muscle far more than the squeeze or the mid-range the stretch sends the loudest signal now to be clear all the range of the motion through the chest send a muscle growth signal but when you're doing a fly yeah where you can really emphasize the stretch you're wasting the fly if you don't emphasize the stretch really play with that range of motion so long as you keep yourself safe and that will make it so much more effective well it just seems too in that position it's the most vulnerable and so therefore you know your body is very protective of that range of motion and so it's like you know to build and strength and that must have a cascading effect but but even too just focusing on end range a lot of times you know we don't go through full range of motion and some of these movements and you're missing out on that extra 30 something perent potential of growth in your muscle well I think the two biggest takeaway from this point is that one you do it you incorporate flies right cuz there's some people that you'll catch that you know just bench press all the time or just dumbbell stuff and they don't like cuz flies is lighter it's harder or don't do it whatever uh one do it two when you do it uh don't shorten the range up just so to go heavier you know emphasize the deepest range of motion of the exercise CU that's where the gold is at right cuz that's the other so one I see some kids skip it not doing flies so don't do that make sure you incorporate it and then the other mistake I see is the you know shortening the range up just so they can grab heavier dumbbells because put the weight lighter yeah get full range yes right so that those are the two big take the whole point of a fly in my opinion uh I think there's there's a few points to it few valuable um aspects of a fly one of them is help you know connect to the chest uh but that's a different conversation the biggest benefit in my opinion is the stretch because nothing stretches the chest like a fly presses don't really stretch the chest as effectively you kind of get limited by the shoulder the angle is so much more effective in terms of stretch position or stretch on the PEC with a fly so if you're going to do flies and you don't challenge the stretch it's like why do the fly you might as well stick to pressing uh it doesn't make any sense so go and get that stretch and in my opinion uh sit in the stretch for a good two or three seconds like when you're doing your dumbbell fly or your cable fly or whatever get in that stretch hold for two or three seconds then come together Watch What Happens watch what happens to your progress next up this one's one of my favorites because it's counter to what a lot of people believe and we'll explain why if you're going to rotate your hands on a fly movement okay the way that you should rotate your hands to activate the chest more is to rotate your palms down to bring the index finger and and thumb together not bring the pinky together so when you look at the where the PEC attaches in the humorus it because it attaches a certain point if you want full contraction you actually internally rotate the humorus to make that happen not externally rotate now you'd see some people will do the external rotation thing and bring the pinkies together it's not giving you more of a chest squeeze what you're doing is you're pushing your pecs with your triceps that's what you're feel at the top I'm so glad you said that because some guys will be like oh I feel it more from that you feel is you feel your your biceps are squeezing your your tits together that's what you that's what you feel it's not you're you're not Contracting better than anybody so I mean I always know when someone's either an advanced lifter or they understand biomechanics when I see uh you know a young young guy doing chest flies and he's internally rotating because you rarely see that you you either see a fixed position which is fine yeah totally fine or you see the you know the the pinkies together especially on the dumbbells you'd see guys doing that a lot but every once in a while you might catch somebody do that like oh okay he's either one Advanced or you know and test this out what you'll feel when you're doing this uh like with cables like do cables and as you come together bring the thumb and and index finger you'll feel more especially across the upper chest activation of the p cuz that's where you're getting more of those muscle fibers from that rotation now it's a small technique but again we're talking about techniques that you can use in the gym to maximize growth and if you're already doing flies you're already doing cable ex even a machine for example you know a lot of machines the pec deck machines will have the handles like this sometimes they'll give you the option to grab a top handle yeah um try that and see what happens when you face your palms down it's actually a greater uh connection to the pecs lastly when you're putting together your chest workout the order that tends to develop the most balanced well-developed chest goes like this go upper chest exercise mid chest exercise if you're going to do a lower chest exercise here's where you put it and then do your isolation I think that order is great I I I love this and I love talking about it because I actually don't think it's popular I think the most common order is to do something that's middle first and then somebody goes to Upper or even upper being third yep and I always loved starting with my incline bench and I think this is just because most people have a much stronger flat bench and so they they don't want to go lighter on that and they don't want to have to go lighter on that but I've made the case on here many times that I think for overall chest development that the the uh the incline chest is already the incline press is already Superior and if I want to get good at that I want the most energy towards that we've talked about this before like you want to get good at an exercise you put it at the front of your workout um I this is actually a probably a small tip that can make a big difference in a lot of listeners right now is just how many of you have ever ordered your chest in this order where you you start with incline just go start with incline for a while and I bet you you see improvements just by doing that because most people use most their gas for flat bench so they can say they lifted more weight when you get more value I remember you telling us um when we first met you said there was a point in your lifting career and I don't know if it's when you became Pro or before you became a pro where you your goal was to get your incline as strong as your flat yeah and you saw huge changes huge that was on my road to Pro so it was when competing uh when I was already competing and on the road to getting my Pro card and that was just kind it was like a year-long goal uh of putting a lot of emphasis on that and it was the the most developed my chest had ever been and they were neck and neck I still had a little bit better um which leverage wise biomechanically you flat you should be able to press yeah yeah so I I still yeah I could still squeeze out a little but it was close I was I was able to move 315 on incline and so I was probably doing 350 375 on flat at that time uh but close I mean very rarely do you see guys that close and I was I was that close so made a huge difference a good by the way good exercises for this order would be like an in Incline barbell press a flat barbell press a dip I love dips for lower chest especially for that range of motion same for you and then isol isolation would be either a flat fly or a cable fly I think is great I know some people like decline bench uh I really don't like decline bench when yeah if you compare it to dips it just doesn't come it feels weird yeah it's just not as it's like it's uh it's the the least beneficial part of the dip M so what makes a dip so good okay how deep you are and that you we just talked about the benefits of you know the muscle growing the muscle from the stretch position the dip gives you a a very good deep stretch position on the chest better than any other press does so that's what makes it so great it's like a press but you're in that position on that dip bar it actually makes it almost feel like a stretch from a fly that's why it's so great and you can load it so you can put weight on it so it's awesome if you do a decline bench press which a lot of young guys love to do it's the wor it's the worst part of the dip it's the end it's so it's like you're not even getting you're getting it's you're it's you're hitting at the bottom it's funny you guys ordered it this way cuz intuitively I did exactly that I did like the uh incline bench the flat bench and then I did like ring dip for really low and so I'm getting the stretch but I'm also getting that low position and you missed that on a uh I'm not a fan I don't I don't is there anybody that's a big fan of the the decline B it's become less popular thankfully but back in the day it was really popular it was really popular because you could load it most guys that could bench two plates could do three plates on Decline and so you love to be able to put way more weight than you could do on a flat bench on the decline but as far as the benefit uh it it doesn't even come decline machine presses are still popular because you can load the hell out of them the ones where you're leaning back and you're doing this real short range of motion not a fan dips if you flare your elbows out and lean forward and get that stretch so much more stretch I mean it's a it's a great exercise uh for the chest of course there a way to do it for shoulders or for triceps but it's a great one but yeah in this com in this order this is a really good order to give you nice welldeveloped PCS okay so you've gone through the five right now rank them as like the number one tip then two then three on here what how would you how would you order these number one would have been the last one for me upper middle lower and isolation I think that would be the most important one AG out of all of them next I would say would be the stretch y fly movements third would be fight the negative and fourth would be uh and uh Drive hands together and then rotating The Palms will be last [ __ ] I thought I was hoping we would argue I know we all we all the same yeah I mean to me I I just when we were talking that I bet most people listening to this will get a huge benefit just by making incline bench their first thing cuz it's just not common it's not common and it'll give you the biggest bang for your buck so I definitely agree with that and then the the next the number two you said is the negative portion the negative portion which 100% I think said was number three also the argument I make on this podcast all the time is that nobody does negative yeah slow negative concentrate on resisting it like so that's that's easy one and two the other ones are I like the stretch for three you know focusing on the stretch driving the hands together would be four and then five would be rotating The Palms down you guys agree yeah I wanted to have beef with you about it but I don't I think that's a I think that's I thought at first you put the negative well to be honest with you look here's the deal when we all agree that's because it's most true right when we debate tried all these there's a lot of nuance but I think with these ones it's pretty clear what the the biggest impact's going to be well so I I we we can't help but think of our experience and you've also ordered them what you you thinking of like a 100 people you've trained that want to build a chest like what are the areas where you've been able to impact them maximize like I I've never had someone who's like I I just can't grow my chest I'm like oh we just got to internally rotate we just got to internally rotate those hands like dude that's never happened but but I have I have got a client who I go how often you incl like well I don't really incline that much and I'm like okay we're going to start inclining they're like holy [ __ ] blows her mind right so I I think that's why we're all in agreeance is everybody's thinking the same thing is like okay I've never had anybody who I've done the internal rotation or uh what was the other one that was probably our last what was our fourth uh dve Drive hands together yeah yeah yeah I mean that's a cool queue but again but one and two are good that's a technique one and one and two are game changers for The Listener right now so if one and two you're not doing you implementing that and I guarantee you within months you'll see a difference in your chest hey sorry to interrupt you look are you lifting weights eating a ton of food and struggling you're not packing on any muscle you're not building any muscle at all you're not getting stronger well check it out we have a hard Gainer guide this can be your ultimate resource to turn that around pack on some muscle mass with our hard Gainer guide it's totally free you can get it by downloading it clicking on the link in the description below got some questions here the first one does a big bench press equal a big chest NE no I'm evidence of that I you know when I was younger when I was younger I focused so much on I I like look I like muscle development but I like strength more okay it just it's just more exciting to me and so for most of my lifting career up until I would say my mid to late 30s okay it was all about strength how much can I bench press and I have really strong uh triceps and shoulder especially triceps and I got my bench press significant I got it up there 375 or 365 at one point definitely over 300 lb and my chest always lagged it wasn't until I decided later on in my lifting career as a full-on grown adult where I changed my technique and I moved away from maximizing leverage and weight to feeling the chest and the best chest development I ever got throughout all my lifting has happened in the back half uh in the far back half I'd say the last quarter of the time I've been working out well I mean the other best way to explain this or show this as an example without picking on yourself is look at the the greatest powerlifters that exist in the bench and compare him to your average bodybuilder yeah I mean you're your your best powerlifter in chess he's going to have a chess like you don't put a th000 pounds up and it'll build somewhat but I mean it's nothing compared to a any pro bodybuilder like if you're a if you're a pro bodybuilder your chest development I guarantee is better than the best benchers in the it won't hurt though having a good bench won't hurt no no no no I think especially in the first three years of training it's important no I I agree but it doesn't necessarily equate to uh a big chance no especially because it's such a complex lift and the way you you know drive through the you know with your feet in the ground tuck your elbows keep your chest real high maximize leverage um you could really take I've seen some wiry guys put up some numbers that always blows my mind but yeah there's definitely a lot more to building strength I think sometimes than um you know really building side eyes and hypertrophy is a kind of different Pursuit it I I'm the opposite of you s like I didn't care about the strength thing and I actually and I and my chest was one of my weakest points I had I talked about this I had an uneven chest I was very weak if you've heard me tell stories of when I first started in high school and my buddies one there was three guys two of them spotting me one guy pushing my shoulder down I was a mess right I couldn't even put a plate up um and I I built a pretty good chest uh without having to lift crazy weight I got up to lifting weight later on where I could Ben decent but um I was never a really strong uh bench presser and yet developed a pretty good bench through a lot of the techniques that we're talking about how many sets per week should I do for chest you know the studies on this are quite interesting it's probably because it's yeah 12 to 20 about 12 to 20 per week now does that mean less than that not going to grow your chest no uh a lot of people six sets a week you'll get great chest development especially the first few years of lifting if you're consistent with it and you have good workout programming also there's a lot of people that 12 sets is too much you're going to overtrain you're burnt out uh because you're stress in your life your diet isn't great uh or you just haven't trained uh in a long time and then there's some people where they go up upwards of 30 sets or 40 sets per week but most people is probably around I would say between 9 to 12 is probably going to cover like 85% what do you guys think yeah this is a really uh interesting conversation because I've seen such a wide spectrum on this and then I have my own experience too that's that's also evolved and changed what I mean by that is like there's periods of time where I know I was doing 253 sets of of Chess before um and I'm my volume of Chess workouts right now is hardly anything now what's cool is that once you've built a really solid base of a chest and strength the amount to to to keep that like so for so to maintain it you can go way down oh way down way way remember what it took to build it building is a different story yeah it took it took a it felt like it took so much to build it and so there you tend to go through like so there's like that's what I met by there's this wide range just like it felt like I needed to do so much volume when I was younger we need all that contacts to really answer that question I would think so yeah in terms of like where they're currently at where are you at in your career right now yeah yeah how much of a beginner are you how how much time under the iron have you have you had before and like what are you currently doing and then we we can kind of craft and alter it from there in terms of you know better diagnosis but yeah it's because sometimes it's like just a change of format you know like you could you get a lot of output in terms of you know changing the tempo or or changing the the acute variables around what I will say though and I like s's answer of most people to be like this 9 to 12 is what what I can tell you is is a mistake somebody listening right now that thinks they're the person who needs 25 sets probably also is doing 25 sets of a bunch of other things too and and they're they're in a plateau because they're applying so much volume to everything and they just want to keep adding on top of the volume and so from somewhere else so be careful if you're that person who thinks you need 25 sets to just to to build a chest at all and you're doing 25 sets of almost everything this because this I fell in that c that mess too of like thinking just more more more more of everything and honestly most people your first probably 5 years of lifting 9 to 12 maybe 15 is going to build one hell of a chest especially if you if you break those sets up right I think 15 done over 3 days is far better than 15 in one workout for this situation too so uh yeah I would want to know more information be sure but just be careful because I think a lot of time there's other variables that make people think they need a certain amount when they don't really and I'll say the average person right now who's who's you know kind of getting started otherwise healthy for the next three years if you just did six to n per week they know three sets twice a week or three sets three days a week for your chess you could progressively you would progress pretty consistently for at least a couple years without having to add any more don't get caught in the Trap of O this is working more is going to work better that almost always isn't the case sometimes especially s okay if you know that all the research points to the best way to progressively overload is volume over time right as far as building muscle you naturally do that just cuz you're stronger yeah cuz you're stronger so if you're just doing six to9 like you're saying and I'm getting stronger volume's going up volume's already organically going up I don't need to add another set on top of that I'm going to ride that wave as long as I can until as that 6 to9 sets makes a plateau and I'm no longer anymore and I've Peak strength say for months okay now maybe I'll add a set or two and then and you keep doing that don't rush right away to keep adding sets like probably a lot of kids do should women worry about chest training yeah you know what's interesting about this is I used to get women would tell me this all the time like I don't want to work out my chest I don't care about developing my chest first off there's function there it's a muscle it's important for the health of the shoulder girdle it's important for overall you know just Health but you know developing your pecs you're not going to get these massive uh like women in Period end of story unless you're like a pro bodybuilder with very rare genetics and on steroids you're not going to get these massive PEC muscles but if you do train your chest what you'll find is it'll give you uh it'll lift the breast a little bit and it'll actually make you look better yeah I've never had a woman I've trained train chest and say I don't like the way it looks they almost all say this looks great so I never skipped chess training with with female clients I mean I have uh I don't ever recommend it and uh I won't intentionally go program that unless somebody asks me or say they don't want to I've had a lot lot of uh women before that have uh that's the only case yeah I've had sometimes that can cost well not only that but also here's the logic behind that uh we all we're already in this closed position of you know forward shoulders forward head and then you also get breast implants and so that kind of tightens and brings everything forward one of the things the doctors that you're in anyone who's ever had somebody who's gone through that surgery you're in this kind of rolled position for a good six weeks or so after that surgery and then you have to slowly work those muscles in your back and very few girls I've met do the work necessary to get their posture back to where those of them stay rolled I've met a lot of girls that end up doing breast implants frz and they have yeah they have this rolled shoulder because they didn't put the kind of and it should be Physical Therapy they don't they don't really prescribe it but they should go through well what's happening there isn't what you what what a lot of them say so it's not that you're tightening the chest and causing your shoulders roll forward and exercise muscle properly through for range of motion will actually give you more range of motion so it's not going to tighten but what happens when you have under the muscle implants Contracting the pecs really hard can move the implant and cause the capsule where the implant sits inside to become wider and so what some women get with under the muscle implants is if they're really benching heavy and hard over time is they'll go to lift and their implants will move sh shift that's the risk I've always looked at it as it's less about the chest it's more about the weakening of the upper back yeah so what it's like I'm not worried about chest pressing that client because that I'm worried that it's going to shorten up or tighten their chest more back I want their back strong so the the amount of volume that I probably would have put put say let's say for a male client towards their chest I just add that volume to their upper back to try and get them TR into optimal posture again yeah so that's kind of the the thought process and then if I get them there then I'm like hey we can include chess or if they don't care I don't care but that's the only Cas but I would never just not do that with somebody unless they specifically asked or had a situation like that we have a special in February Maps anabolic and the nobs six-pack formula together these program were actually created to be run together great for building muscle boosting metabolism burning body fat get them both both of them for $59.99 you can check them out at maps february. comom all right back to the show are push-ups a good chest exercise yeah they're not bad they're not the greatest chest developing exercise but they're not they're not bad you know what they're good for they're good for trigger sessions volume getting a little pump so what I mean by that is like not too damaging oh yeah days off in between like and you want to add more volume to your chest let's say you could rep out 50 push-ups all at once do 10 push-ups three times that day that's it 10 10 to 15 three times at day get a little bit of a pump add that to your routine Watch What Happens I I love them a lot more than I used to and I think that's and it might be this might be me getting older or something I don't know uh movement yeah it's like uh we we we lack movement so much um and you know obviously I would love my clients and myself to get into my garage and get a full lift every single time but it's like sometimes just like between like a commercial watching the Super Bowl the other day and just like you know just get down there and mess around with my son and bust out 25 push-ups like that it's like just so good and if you can create those habits as a uh with your clients to do that man I I just think that's there's tremendous value and it it's it's just a signaler yeah it's a great it's a great little tool that you can just and I do that with my son all the time we get competitive with it and we just drop and get get push-ups in and it's like well it's not too damaging you can really build volume with that quickly they see those numbers go up and it's exciting for new you know new people to Fitness because it's like you see that strength gain almost immediately it's it and it it is it's so simple to get the average person to just kind of do it it reminds me of kind of how we the way we communicate walking today versus how we used to like if you ask young trainer me too I be like a [ __ ] push-ups aren't going to do [ __ ] you build a chest you need to L you know I would be like that but what I think now it's like it's such a uh easy way to get somebody into moving and doing active stuff and so walking in push-ups and body weight squat stuff like man I'm so I love that and I wish if you had a desk job and every other hour you did a body weight exercise for 3 minutes like how exceptionally I mean I wish our culture was uh better about this like I I wish we all grew up where like teachers did it in school and like it's just like a thing that everybody did like can you imagine everybody like just did that before school in the middle of the day and like it was just I mean it would just be so good for us to do that and so for those Reasons I'm a huge fan for in the pursuit of I'm trying to build the most ultimate chest like just doing that we're going to need some more stuff but I mean it's good for you any chest training advice for those with shoulder pain yeah you know um if you work on shoulder mobility and stability um you should be able to get to the point where you can do pretty much any chest exercise um common areas to look at are is your midback strong are you able to pin your shoulders down and back has your bench pressing do you have strong stabilizers uh we often refer to some of the stabilizers like the rotator cuff right the muscles that attach to the rotator cuff do are those you know your supinatus infraspinatus muscles are those strong enough to stabilize your arm while you're pressing does your scapula move freely with your upper arm or is kind of stay pinned down or out um like shoulder Mobility movements like handcuffs with rotation is Great Wall circles are really really good um stick uh dislocates are really good all of that are great ways to really improve I mean I I I have almost 100% record with people coming the times when it's difficult when people have like a real limitation like I have this removed or this bone was you know whatever reected yeah but I have almost 100% record with clients who had oh I can't bench cuz the shoulder shoulder pain and we would you know so long as nothing was torn I was able to get lot of it is is mobility related in terms of stability and really creating that uh you know the your muscles responding you to force and keeping them in place and um you know to to go through in the drills and make sure yeah you're not protracting too much in your lift because that's going to be problematic you're going to end up with impingements um and you know just in terms of setting yourself up correctly too uh and and getting a little more retraction there like before performing heavy lift like all these things matter because now the force can evenly distribute and it's not going to stay in those concentrated areas where you're going to get pain I'm so glad this was a question because I feel so passionate about this that if I could go back and do this episode this goes number three oh yeah I I think that even if you don't have shoulder pain reinforcing The Joint stability in your shoulder such a limiting factor is such a limiting factor for the average gim bro who wants to build his chest that this goes number three for me hit a wall like predictably yes and I wish somebody would have told me that so if I could go back and redo this episode this makes it to the to top five points and it and it goes number three for me like I literally think right now if you're listening and you don't put any attention towards shoulder mobility and stability same thing right if you don't put any emphasis there you start incorporating that watch your bench go up 10 15 pounds that that by itself so I think that this is that important even shoulder pain you have to I mean that's like a no-brainer but even if you don't have shoulder pain and you're listening to this it will limit you if you don't focus on it yes you got to do you know what funny if you don't have shoulder pain now you eventually will if you don't put that working as you get stronger in your chest so may as well start practicing it now because you'll get the you'll reap the benefit from it and you'll need to no matter what down the road can you please compare dumbbells versus barbells versus machines for chest yeah so you know barbells are great for a lot of load uh there's a balance component involved uh which means some stability is involved dumbbells even more so than barbells and they also have a greater range of motion machines are good for isolating concentrating and creating less damage like a a a chest press on a machine to failure is going to cause less or or require less recovery than with a barbell or a dumbbell but you know when people ask this question it's like know versus versus versus but really it's like use them all um know most lifters are probably better off 80% of their workouts are going to be free weights 20% machines this can change depending on the lifter but they're all good there's there's no reason why you have to pick just one I I think I think barbells and dumbbells should be the the Cornerstone of your chess workouts and then machines uh a great like I think you broke it down good with a 20% 20% is machines and the way I always liked incorporating machines was uh based off of like so we we talked a little bit about ideally how you broke your chest up right in the 9 to 12 sets over 3 days right the way I use machines is let's say I went a little too hard on Monday and Wednesday on my chest Friday I might do machine because I'm still recovering so that's like that's a perfect example of like how and let me tell you you lift long enough you're going to overreach you're going to have time or you're going to think that that wasn't that damaging and it's going to do more damage than you than than you expect it and so I love incorporating machines when my chest it still feels like it's recovering from the heavy dumbbell or barbell work that I've done before great time to slide in machine work and so I think that organically just kind of makes 20% when you when you when you program it like that 100% how I used to do it all right I know you like that episode if you did check this one out 30% body fat for men this is way too high this is actually a bit high for women as well so in today's episode we're talk about how you can go from 30 to 10 what is 10% body fat this is when you have a visible six-pack can you go from 30 to 10% yes it's possible but not if you guess along the way so we're going to talk about how you can do that in today's episode now there's a huge range right of like body types some people can run uh a little bit heavier uh and or a little bit higher body