A Nice Fix for Lagging Pecs

Exercises for Bigger and Thicker Chest

It has been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing repeatedly yet expecting a different result.

When it comes to attempting to improve a lagging body part, I think the above statement is supremely relevant. Most of us, at one time or another, will have a body part that is not responding as well as we would like it to. So we ask ourselves, what do I need to do in order to make it grow? While there is no simple, one-size-fits-all prescription to this dilemma, you can be sure of one thing. If what you are doing isn’t working, you need to do something different!

I’m often asked how often one should change exercises, routines, splits, etc. Rather than fire off some random span of time like six or eight weeks, I always say, “Change when whatever you are doing fails to produce results.” In other words, if it ain’t broke, don’t go and fix it. Ronnie Coleman went from an amateur to an eight-time Mr. Olympia without hardly altering his workout regimen at all in over 15 years. Why would he? He kept growing and improving, so it would have made no sense for him to switch things up much.

But many of us will reach a point, either with our physique as a whole or with specific areas, where we finally realize that we’ve reached a standstill. Regardless of how well a certain type of training or group of exercises has worked for us in the past, it’s not working anymore. I’ve watched my friend Jose Raymond climb the ladder of the pro ranks as a 202 and then a 212, becoming one of the very top men in that division for several years now. Still, I am a critic and a perfectionist when it comes to physiques. A couple of years into his pro career, I saw that an area he needed to bring up if he wants to be the best 212-pound bodybuilder in the world was his chest. Of course, Jose was also well aware of the situation.

I’ve trained chest with Jose before, and he is tremendously strong. He’s done flat barbell bench presses with 405 for eight to 10 reps, and the same with 365 on the incline barbell. I’ve seen him do good sets with 160s on incline presses just a couple of weeks away from a contest, on very low carbs. But I suspected that his shoulders and triceps have been robbing stress away from his pecs. His shoulders and triceps are enormous, while his chest— not so much. It’s not weak by any means by normal standards, but to be the best 212 pro in the world he needed to get past David Henry, Kevin English and Eduardo Correa before challenging the man who would ultimately dominate the division, Flex Lewis. All of those men have extremely thick pecs.

I used to train with Jose a couple of times a month. Jose has done the basic heavy, heavy stuff for years and is damned strong, but clearly his pecs needed something different. Here is what we did at a recent chest workout back in early 2010 that I made notes of at the time:

Pec Flye Machine (to pre-exhaust the chest)

2 sets of “21s” – 7 reps last third range, 7 reps mid-range, 7 reps from stretch position.

2 sets at full range.

Incline Dumbbell Press – 4 sets – starting with hands facing in, rotate so palms face away at top – kind of like an Arnold press.

Hammer Strength Decline Press

3 regular sets, fourth set a drop to total 25-30 reps – final portion of the drop done as “speed reps,” as quickly as possible.

3 supersets of cable crossovers, changing cable height from high, middle and low for each set, with push-ups to failure.

DC style stretch – hold bottom position of incline dumbbell flye for 60 seconds.

Our pecs were all smoked at the end of this! I’m not claiming to be some kind of training guru like Charles Glass or Hany Rambod. All I did was give Jose a few new ideas to incorporate. I have seen some things he does for back, shoulders and legs that I tried. Some I liked, some I didn’t, but the point is none of us know it all and we can all benefit by keeping an open mind. At the gym I am always on the lookout for new exercises, new twists on exercises, or anything I may want to try. The day you think you know it all is the day you cease to ever improve again. True, Ronnie Coleman didn’t have to try new things out in the gym, but if you had genetics like him you wouldn’t either. And I doubt there are more than a handful of men on this planet of 6 billion humans with genetics quite like Ronnie’s. Most of us need to constantly continue to experiment to make the most of our physiques, and you should never give up until you have tried absolutely everything. Do I really need to add that there will always be something else to try?

Epilogue: Jose kept working hard on his chest and trying new methods, and it eventually did become substantially thicker and fuller.

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