CraigieBon

You lost me there fantom... what is pre-exhauting isolation with a compound?

CraigieBon

P.S - You've all convinced me.... i'm going to start eating more. I think it was Majestics bird comment that finally did it!

Tall

Pre Exhaust = Flies before Bench

Majesticpower

This is the reason many people become confused with the advice they recieve on many inernet forums- So forgive me but i feel compelled to comment for the save of confusion to the member requesting advice.

Simply - There is absolutely no need for him to be doing pre-exhuasting excercises. None whatsoever. You are only now overcomplicating something very simple... Compounds.

Also, you cannot isolate with a compound, so asking him to 'pre-exhuasting isolation with a compound' is only going to cause him confusion in the future. In other words, you cannot isolate with a compound.

Theres just no need.

Dont worry about it mate.

Simply put- Pre-exhaustion is a method to max out (fatigue) the target muscle. Its main advantage is that you can, IF done properly, fatigue your larger muscle before your support muscles fail- Thats one of a few benefits those that believe in the method claim.

Thats basically simply put, theres alot more to it then that, but right now you dont need to know about pre-exhausting. Just like theres no need for you to do drop-sets, giant sets, 21's or anything in between.

MP.

Tall

Hmmmm okay as we are all friends here... () I thought I'd dive in...

It was just a case of a bit of bad grammar / punctuation in Fantom's post.

What he should have said was "before doing your compound exercise, try pre-exhausting your muscle with an isolation exercise".

But yes MP - if you don't know what a pre-exhaust is the exact post Fantom did would lead to some confusion.

Not the time or place to dive into a pre / post exhaust / drop sets debate so I'll leave that for the time being

+1

CraigieBon

Right..... so the debate is between whether it is worth exhasting the target area (upper chest) with an exercise like flys, before/after doing an excercise that works the broader area and the smaller muscle groups such as triceps!? This makes a sort of logic...

Majestic - are you suggesting that I just do standard sets of several broader exercises rather than trying to focus on a smaller area? Or is there no point knackering out that smaller area as this would be overtraining?

Tall

I think MP is saying just stick to hitting heavy compounds for the time being.

Majesticpower

Exactly..

Stick to basics mate.

Build the mass before you start overcomplicating matters by trying different training methods - These are only really useful once you have built a solid foundation of muscle mass, and your body muscle fibres are in need of somthing fresh to re-ignite growth.

Keep it as simple as...
Rainman.

MP.

CraigieBon

Any view on how much I should be training my chest? Is once a week the most I should do? i.e can I fit in a couple of extra (different) chest exercises with shoulders tonight given that I did my main chest session on Monday and my muscles feel fine now?

Tall

Keep it simple.

Once per week is fine for you IMHO.

CraigieBon

Ok... I can appreciate keeping it simple till I start seeing results but would it help or hinder me in terms of progress if I added a second chest second a week? Or are you saying that it will make next to zero difference?

Thing is that i've been doing one session a week for years on my chest and it hasn't really moved on at all. As well as looking at alternative techniques, diet and exercises, i'm also keen to up my game in terms of sessions if it makes a difference.

Majesticpower

Rather then upping the sessions i would up the intensity you put into your workouts.

Now im only assuming your intensity could be improved because of the fact you are even suggesting of doing chest twice per week. This is not needed.. You shouldn’t even be able to train your chest twice per week if your putting the kind of intensity in that you should to make good gains.

Assuming your diet and rest is good, then you will make progress. How quickly you make that progress is entirely in your hands.

Now everything we do differs from person to person, as far as how we react to certain methods of training, and you may well react well to training a specific bodypart twice per week... However you shouldn’t have to be doing that for at least a good couple of years or so.

You’re more likely to start hindering and even overtraining yourself by doing so.

Stick at it for a couple of months at least, and then we can start looking at ways of trying to manipulate growth in your chest if you’re still finding it a problem.

So impression i get is that your chest isn’t a great responder from what your saying.. However without knowing how you react to certain types of training (ie- volume, load, sets, reps etc) it’s hard for any of us to really be able to advise you correctly to your personal problem area.

I personally like to know the last 6-12 months of someone’s training schedule, and how they reacted to each routine, method of training in order to be able to confidently devise a suitable training routine that should hopefully help push them onto newer gains.

Hence why we re-iterated the point of keeping it simple.. For now lets see how you react.. Up your intensity.. EAT MORE.. Then if that fails in two months time.. We can start getting a little more complicated.

MP.

CraigieBon

Cheers MP... I appreciate the advice. Number 1, I need to eat more and take my protein and creatine for a sustained period of time to see if this works.

Re intensity - I don't know man... we work seriously hard in the gym. I think (from what i've picked up recently) that we were maybe going for quanity over quality (the word atrophy is a common theme). I mean we have been doing chest for way over an hour, once a week, for at least the last year. Maybe we should have reduced our time in the gym and focused on some core exercises? We had a rough schedule, which invloved a spot and going beyond failure on each set. Each week there was with a bit of variation of order of exercises and had maybe two peripheral excercises changing on a weekly basis. It was basically something like this:

3 x 8 Flat or Decline Bench (occasional super set press-ups)
3 x 8 Incline Bench
3 x 8 Flat or Slight Incline Flys
3 x 8 Cable Flys
3 x 8 Pec Dec

Peripheral:
3 x 8 Slight incline DB press (what was I thinking... DB should have been core!!!!)
Drop Set - Narrow grip seated Chest Press
Medicine Ball type press-up things

I'm beginning to think that we were overtraining and the result was that we were lifting too light and getting indurance rather than size and strength!? Make sense? Also, clearly not enough focus on my upper, which is my real problem area.

We changed to Jock's suggesting on Monday night just gone and really felt a difference in terms of the muscle working when we were there. We did it to failure. It was as intense as we could make it. But it's now Thursday and the pecs aren't really feeling it anymore... maybe a wee bit... but not really. My muscles seem to recover quickly from exercise as a rule! Never more than two days of pain.

Does this change any of your views?

Cheers

Kezz

you can sack the last 2 , start with inc flyes then inc press and then flat press, no point in doing cable and pec deck mate...... intensity is the key mate

Majesticpower

Quote:

Originally Posted by CraigieBon Maybe we should have reduced our time in the gym and focused on some core exercises?

Exactly. So you know what you should be doing.. Follow through with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by CraigieBon the pecs aren't really feeling it anymore... maybe a wee bit... but not really. My muscles seem to recover quickly from exercise as a rule! Never more than two days of pain.

This does not matter. Doms is not an indication of recovery time. Even though you do not feel pain in your muscles anymore, they still have micro fibre tears that are being repaired by your body.

As a general rule, do not follow DOMS as an indication to how go a workout you have had.

Ok.. you want mass... Drop Pec dec and cable fly’s.. We do not need isolations here. Not yet. Once you have good mass gains in your chest, then isolations can be used to further breakdown muscle fibres that compounds may not always best stimulate.

This is kind of where the old saying of 'keeping the body guessing' comes from.

So.. Instead try,

Inclined Dumbell press 3x6-8 (8 would ideally be your first set, with your third set being a big push for that 6th rep).
Declined barbell press press 3x6-8
Flat barbell press 3x6-8
Dips 2x8-10

That’s a much better rounded compound mass builder then that you were doing. Try that if you will for a couple of months, and see how you go.

Ofcourse, when doing 6-8 reps, as i mentioned, ideally your first set would see 8 reps achieved at a push. If you feel you can JUST do another rep.. DONT.

Reserve yourself for your larger load. Try to always do this on your exercises’. If you first set you feel you can do 10-12 reps, obviously you have started on too lighter load.

The key is to work within your optimum range. You want to just about achieve that 6th rep, so next week around you can increase your load slightly, and aim for that 6th rep again.

If you only say manage 5 reps, this is fine, the aim the week next is to go one better.

Doing an extra rep is effectively like doing a heavier load anyway. However, always try to improve upon your load, within your target reps, before you try going for silly reps.

Hope that makes sense.

MP.