Flex UK - June 2017

THE

WORKOUT

Take most (if not all)

sets to failure.

Building muscle requires

intensity, so taking working sets

to full muscle fatigue is critical,

even if that means doing 11 or 12

reps when 10 are listed. You’ll

need a spotter on barbell flat and

incline presses to achieve this.

On the later sets, rep counts of

15 and 20 are just a guide; select

a moderate weight (not too

heavy, not too light) and go to

failure. On subsequent sets,

increase or decrease weight if

you went significantly over

prescribed reps or fell short.

Change exercise order.

Alternate bench presses and

incline presses every other

week so that you’re not always

doing flat bench first. However,

if you have a particularly weak

upper chest, start with incline

presses in every workout.

Introduce different

equipment.

After the first week, start

swapping in dumbbell

exercises—for example,

do dumbbell presses

instead of barbell, and do

dumbbell flyes instead of

cable crossovers. Likewise,

Smith machine inclines

can be included in place of

Hammer Strength, and

dumbbell pullovers can be

subbed in for pulldowns.

Perform this workout

once a week for four to

six weeks.

If you’re an advanced trainee

who can handle high volume,

feel free to train chest another

day during the week with at

least 72 hours between the

two workouts. Otherwise,

make this your only chest

training for the week.

here are no secrets to building

a bigger chest. Press heavy

barbells and dumbbells; take sets

to failure in hypertrophy-friendly

rep ranges (anywhere from 8 to

20, even up to 30); isolate the

pecs with single-joint movements like flyes,

pullovers, and pulldowns; and make sure you’re

doing all of this with ample volume—at least

15 quality sets for chest per workout, once or

twice a week. Done.

Pretty straightforward, but that doesn’t make it easy. The following

chest workout, with proper exercise form demonstrated by IFBB

pro and 2017 Arnold Classic third-place finisher Maxx Charles, is just

the type of meat-and-potatoes chest routine we like. The movements

are basic and foundational (particularly the barbell flat-bench and

incline presses), the rep counts are ideal for building muscle, and the

volume is right in the sweet spot at 16 total sets. Throw in a single

intensity-boosting technique smack dab in the middle of the workout—

a pre-exhaust superset of cable crossovers and Hammer Strength

incline presses—and your pecs will have no choice but to grow.

T

THE DETAILS

EXERCISE SETS REPS

Bench Press 4 10

Incline Bench Press 4

Cable Crossover Superset with

Hammer Strength Incline Press

3

3

15

15

Straight-arm Cable Pulldown 2 2020

122 FLEX| JUNE 2017