Personal Trainers Forum

[Personaltrainer]

Five secrets to a bigger chest and arms

I have never seen an athlete in a gym who was not interested in putting another inch or two of size on his chest and arms. Over the years I have seen innumerable workouts offered that are supposed to do wonders for building a bigger chest or
putting more muscle on an athlete’s triceps or biceps. When I go into a gym and see athletes working out I am always amazed at the mistakes being made and the time that is wasted. I see some athletes doing five or six chest exercises, followed by four or five exercises each for triceps and biceps using various weights. They complete an inclined bench press with 200 pounds, then cable crossovers with 80 pounds then dumbbell fly with 30 pounds in each hand.

Why?
Variation in exercise types is not a prerequisite for stimulating muscle growth. An athlete who does 10 chest exercises will not necessarily get better results than an athlete who does two chest exercises. So why do 10? They are just wasting their recovery capacity with work. The same thing happens with arm exercises. Athletes perform set after set with barbells, dumbbells and machines, all with different weights. And the real tragedy with these athletes is that when I ask them what measurable progress they have made in recent months they usually admit they have virtually nothing to show for their hundreds of repetitions.

What works?
If you want muscle to grow bigger and stronger you have to literally force it to adapt. And muscle adapts to a very specific stress. It adapts to performing a great amount of work per unit of time. We shorten this concept to the single word, ‘intensity’. Unfortunately the word ‘intensity’ is often misused in the gym. It is used loosely and without exact numbers attached to it. So a set of ‘intense’ barbell curls are considered about equal to ‘intense’ dumbbell curls.

Test it for yourself and you will discover that these exercises will deliver the highest intensity of overload

But in the realm of science we use exact measurements in order to be more certain of what we are doing. In the interest of knowing which exercises really delivered the highest intensity, I conducted a study that measured the intensity of common chest and arm exercises. Over a period of several weeks, subjects performed the most popular exercises and measurements were taken of how many total pounds per minute could be lifted. For example, subjects might have averaged 350 pounds per minute of biceps intensity performing dumbbell curls compared to averaging 890 pounds per minute performing barbell curls. So once it is established (and it is!) that dumbbell curls do not deliver the highest intensity to the target muscles, what would be the point of doing them? There isn’t one. It is a waste of time and effort. Lower intensity exercises represent work that will only deplete your recovery ability but will not stimulate new muscle growth. All work undertaken by the muscles of your body creates waste products that your organs have to process. So every low intensity exercise that you do actually digs a deeper hole from which you need to recover. Every wasted repetition decreases your ability to fully recover and for new muscle to develop... if you managed to stimulate growth, which you probably did not.


The ‘secret’ that is not a secret
So now I will tell you five secrets to getting the best possible results on your chest and arm workouts. But these secrets are
something that any person can absolutely, positively verify in any gym. Do not take my word for it. Test it for yourself and you will discover that these exercises will deliver the highest intensity of overload.

1. Chest: complete one set of 8 to 10 repetitions with a wide grip bench press or wide grip inclined bench press. These two exercises are very close and some people score higher with one than the other.

2. Biceps: complete one set of 8 to 10 repetitions of barbell curls while seated on a bench.

3. Triceps: complete one set of 8 to 10 repetitions of narrow grip bench press.

4. Forearms: complete one set of 8 to 10 repetitions of seated barbell reverse wrist curls.

5. Forearms: complete one set of 8 to 10 repetitions of barbell wrist curls behind your back.

How much weight?
Use a weight that is so heavy that it takes everything you have to squeeze out eight repetitions. If you complete more than ten repetitions you have selected too little weight. Each time you perform this workout try to add 5 to 15% to the weight. (Weight will go up dramatically at first then the rate will slow to 5% or so.) If you cannot lift more weight it means you have not fully recovered so just take a few extra days off between workouts.

Static contraction training
If you know about static contraction training you can perform the same exercises using more weight (50% to 150% more) but holding the weight statically in your strongest range for 5 to 10 seconds. This method will deliver even better results with less wear and tear on your recovery ability.

Summary
Focus your efforts on the specific exercises that will deliver the greatest intensity to your chest and arms. Space your workouts far enough apart so that you make progress with every workout and you will develop the biggest chest and arms you have ever had.