Upgra
Br
■Lie back on a bench
set at 30° holding two
dumbbells in a standard
grip by your shoulders.
Press them up, rotating
them 180° as you do,
until your arms are
straight. Hold in the
“reverse” position at the
top of the move for two
seconds, then lower,
twisting the weights
back to the start
position.
Sets 3 Reps 8How to do itDOUBLE HEADER Your chest is made up of the clavicular head and the sternocostal one. You want to train both. Here’s how
HIT THE INCLINE
Doing your bench press at
a slight incline — 30° or less
— hits your upper chest
(clavicular) more than flat
benching. Use a narrow grip
— hands just outside shoulder-
width gives the best results.GRAB A BAND
Research shows that pushups
can match benching for
muscle gains if muscular
activation is high enough. To
add resistance, wrap a band
around your back and loop
the ends under your hands.ALL OF THE ABOVE
For best results, do all three
of these moves in the same
workout, either as single moves
(with serious resistance) or
as a three-way tri-set. Try
five incline bench presses,
ten twisting presses and 15
banded pushups, four times.
Words Joel Snape Photography Danny Bird Model Deke WalkerRock the bells
Want a better chest? Ditch the trad bench press.
What do you bench,
bro? Sorry, trick
question: if you’d
rather score a big chest
than bragging rights,
it barely matters.
The trouble with the
traditional bench press
is that, unless you’re
careful, your triceps
and shoulders can take
over. Bad news if you
want to fill a T-shirt,
and worse if you’re
juggling any sort of
shoulder injury.
The fix? Add
a twist. According to
a study in the Journal
Of Strength And
Conditioning Research,
when lifters used areverse grip during
an isometric hold of
the flat bench press,
it resulted in increased
activity for the upper
portion of the pectoralis
major compared with
a normal grip. So try
the twisting chest press
for unprecedented
muscle growth.22 MEN’S FITNESS AUGUST 2016
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