The Chest, the Bench Press, and "Feeder" Training to
Improve the Two
By: Alton Hare
In this article I'd like to discuss training the
chest and increasing the bench press. I see a lot of
questions about how to improve the bench press and
chest muscles. I gained 55 lbs. on my bench press in
four months, from 260 to 315, and 3 inches on my
chest. My partner also did this with me, and he was
completely plateaued at 330 for the past several years
(he's 24, weighs 165) and he destroyed that plateau
and got to 365. This is, I believe, the perfect
workout for chest size and bench press power. Here it
is:
Week 1:
Monday
*Bench Press with three sets of eight, all taken to
failure, 3-5 minute breaks
*Dumbbell Press first set for eight, and stay with that
weight for 2 more sets to failure 2-4 minute breaks
*"Heady" presses (named after my partner, Jason Heady)
these are basically a superset, you take a weight
about half what you dumbbell pressed, and do
alternating flyes and presses with it, but with the
presses keep your elbows in and your palms facing each
other. Alternate the two for 12 reps each, take a
minute break, then see how many more you can pump out.
*Superset flyes and French presses for two sets of
8-12 reps rest a minute before the next
*Superset parallel bar dips and rope pressdowns for
8-12 reps -if by this time you cannot do bodyweight
dips, put your feet on the floor and assist as little
as necessary to bring yourself up. Looks retarded but
its what I did for my first month and at the end of 4
months I was strappin' on a plate-
*Finally, do two sets of dumbbell kickbacks. You
shouldn't use much for this, I only use a 15 or 20
depending. The important thing is to keep your elbow
high, your back straight, and get a good squeeze at
the top. Do continuous sets since one muscle gets to
rest as the other is working.
Thursday:
This is the "feeder" workout. You'll do all incline
movements because they do not activate as many chest
fibers, preventing you from overtraining, but they
also activate enough to flush the muscle with blood,
get a pump, and consequentially improve your recovery.
Alternate free weight incline and smith machine
incline each week for 12, 10, and 8
Dumbbell Inclines with the same reps
Cable flyes with the arms high to focus on the upper
chest for the same reps
I usually train shoulders on this day, I think its a
good time to. I usually did lateral raises, behind
the neck presses, bent lateral raises, an Arnold
presses. The reps aren't vitally important, as long
as your fatiguing the shoulders and going to your max.
On the incline movements you should go till you feel
a good burn, but not to failure.
Week 2
All the same except bench press reps change to 10, 8,
6, 4
Week 3
Bench reps change to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Week 4
Bench starts over but on dumbbell presses you will not
do a fourth drop set where you lay down the dumbbells
you have and grab some about half that weight.
On successive weeks change out some of the auxiliary
exercises. Like instead of heady presses do EZ curl
bar presses, with a close grip. These are fantastic
for improving the striations in the inner pec and
bringing out that "diamond". Also, in place of rope
pressdowns you can do straight bar, reverse V bar, or
diamond push ups. Instead of flyes their are cable
flyes. A key factor in this program is flexibility,
always keep the same number of exercises, but switch
them out for similar ones. Also one thing I liked to
do at the end was a set of incline push ups to
failure, that'll be harder than anything but if you
really want what your after you'll do it. Sometimes,
on incline day you may start with incline dumbbell
presses, then do incline barbell/smith machine
presses. Variety is important and with this program
AND varying your auxiliaries from week to week, you
can continue to make gains on this program for quite a
while. I've been off this program for about 2 months,
I've been concentrating on improving my lats, which I
have because I put another inch on my chest
circumference. I'm planning on going back to this
program and include my killer lat workout I'm doing,
which I'll write about also.
I realize I didn't fully introduce myself in my first
article, I'm Alton Hare, I'm 16, bodybuilding for 8
months. I bench 315, weigh 180, have 16 inch arms, 26
inch legs, 43 inch chest. I've gained 15 pounds these
last 8 months also. My fav guy here is Locke, and I'm
chasin' after him, I know I'm about as big as he is
but I'm not as cut, he has much more muscle, my
body fat is higher, I wanna get that big and be as
lean! That way my muscle will be much more visible.
I want to enter a teen competition next July/August, I
believe I'll be ready by then. If anybody knows of
any in southeastern US (preferably NC) send me an e
mail, I'm interested.
- Alton
beautifuldisaster420@yahoo.com
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