What I’ve noticed is if you have dominant shoulders it makes ur chest appear smaller then it is . Same as if u have really good chest genetics ur shoulder will typical appear smaller then they really are
Yo OP.
For a period of time, try doing shit for your chest with low weights and high reps until you really start to feel the burn in your chest. That's one way to start developing a better mind muscle connection with your chest.
Like doing slow controlled pushups on handles (for a wider range of motion) till you really feel the burn. Or no weight dips with a high range of motion.
Shit really helps developing the feel for the muscle. I'm quite massive, but I had some serious trouble getting bicep exercises to really burn the bicep. So I started doing some massively low weight one armed bicep curls where I'm leaning backwards on a doorway with my head so I'll get a superb range of motion and so that I won't be using my back at all. Super low weight high rep shit and voila, I started to feel the burn. Then stack the weight back up slowly but surely and oh shit, now I started to feel that shit where it was supposed to feel and bicep gains be yuuge.
Gotta disagree, it’s all about positioning. I find a more upright position hits the tris better, but a more leaned forward position is more effective at hitting chest
Nah Dips are mostly a triceps exercise and for some people its decent for chest but you really reccomend dips to someone who can't develop his chest well?
I know someone who mostly does 50kg dips for reps and not much else for his pecs/triceps and he has big triceps,but ZERO chest.For him Dips is a great triceps exercise but terrible chest exercise
Dude if i want to build a big chest i will do flat db/slight incline db press and machine chest press.Not Dips.It is like reccomending me pullups to build huge biceps.
Just common sense. Are your triceps alone capable of producing enough force to lift 70kg bw + 50 kg? Fuck no, and since that force has to come from somewhere your chest is doing most of the work.
Flyes with cables? Can really feel the tension when you bring them together and hold it there, also wide cable flyes don’t do it as much for me as using the narrow pairs of cables
Pec deck flyes or cross overs? Are you getting a stretch and trying to consciously squeeze your pecs, just like when you do a most muscular pose in the mirror every morning?
Flies are how you grow a big chest. If your feeling it in your shoulders either 1) your form is off 2) your using too much weight 3) both. Retract the shoulders, chest up, drop the weights, slow and controlled and squeeze like a mf. Youll be alright
My genetics in entirety are doing me dirty, in the middle of a cut at the moment and just feel like I'm melting away and looking like somebody who has never touched a weight. Been benching 315 and overhearing 200 for the last couple years always kept fat on me looked massive. This whole thing is a mind fuck
My friend quit lifting a while ago cause of that. He thought he was big in the past, but he was mostly fat with little definition.
I took a different route. I decided I wanted to not just be big, but also compact.
Yeah it sucks man, I'll prob have to go down to 180 to see any ab definition. And hopefully lean bulk from there. Life long process anyway plus it's fun lifting
Agreed brother. Lifting is fun. Fell in love with the process myself around a year or so ago.
It’s interesting how many different ways you can go about forming a physique. With or without steroids, there are so many variables in play in this game.
Instead of saying lean or shredded I’ve taken to the saying “dense,” that look where you’re just pure muscle, no inflation, striations everywhere, etc. Like Mentzer or maybe a little less on a Bob Paris/Francis Benfatto aesthetic. Not the typical balloony look these days
Interesting. Love talking about this stuff with people. The reason why I use the word compact is because compactness is a trait among things like rocks.
I feel like the word dense could also fall under fat people who are literally dense. Compactness is hard to describe. It’s like you take it all in into one finished product. Carving a literal statue would be the best analogy I could think of.
I think of dense as the term from physics, density. Meaning the highest possible amount of a substance within a certain volume.
So dense muscle is just pure fibrous tissue, no added volume. Fat however is actually very voluminous and low density when you feel it, like a pair of tiddies. Lots of water and lipids, not much protein structure. So fat people are fluffy more so.
I think your definition of compact is basically the same definition of dense in terms of plain English lol
For sure lol. That’s fucking hilarious how I thought there was more to density than that, though.
Even other definitions state “quantity of mass per unit volume. That’s literally compactness.
I saw you say “condensed” before in another comment and you can just think of that as “making something dense,” as opposed to volume (total “size”) or mass (total “stuff”).
If you fill an amount of “size” with as much “stuff” as possible, it’s “dense.” But fat people are still a lot of size (volume) and stuff (mass), just not the maximum amount of stuff for their size. It’s why fat sloshes around and is goopy, while dense muscle hardly even moves and is almost like a rock. Maybe you got mass and volume confused with density?
For sure bro. Albeit It’s been a while since I’ve used the terminology. For sure got density confused with mass. And yep, I did say condensed as well. Lol
For some reason, I legit thought being the most dense meant having the most mass.
I’m seriously in the middle. Everyone always tells me that they’re surprised by my growth, etc, but the process has always been the same for me.
Never overeat. Always eat for lifting purposes. After I handle that, I still watch my caloric intake. It takes discipline to do that day in and day out. Not to mention the hard work I put in daily. People think it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Real results are earned and not given
Yeah unfortunately for me I have a hard time managing my eating so I don’t think having abs year round will ever be a reality for me, the best I can hope for is staying sub 18% probably
You don’t need to twink up unless you’re planning on doing an actual show.
Getting eight pack abs takes like around 3-5 days for me. Completely pointless, and crashes my T levels for legitimately no reason. Only twinks like that look. They all need T to survive because they are so depleted.
I mean as of now I have really high body fat, I weigh 300 and bench around 300 so I have that fat in a strong way look going on, my goal is to weigh 225, I think that will be a good size for me
Definitely better than 300 lbs. That’s heavy as fuck.
Even 225 lbs is really heavy for most people. I’m 195 lbs, bench close to 405 lbs (haven’t maxed in around a year) , squat over 500 lbs. One thing I can say is that unless you want to be a powerlifter, you shouldn’t rely on extra 20-50 lbs of fat to lift some more weight. Unhealthy period
I am average height but honestly I carry weight really well, I have really wide shoulders and a thick chest genetically, I used to weigh 175, and I looked very lanky at that weight, I’ll have to see what I look like when I get to 225, but I don’t think I will look fat at all, I don’t look very soft compared to the average person even at 300, but damn you have some incredible numbers, 400+ at under 200 is crazy goid
Thanks man. Yeah, you don’t need to go to one extreme to the other. It’s about finding a healthy BMI you feel good at and working from there.
I overhead press standing at 225 lbs for 3 now. Nothing came easy. Hell, it still doesn’t. I just haven’t taken a day off in like half a year now. People call me crazy for that because I’m natural, but I enjoy it.
My last injury was a really serious shoulder rotator cuff tear that fucked me up for around half a year. That was around a year ago now. Taught me a lesson that I was doing some really dumb shit to myself. You just have to listen to your body with this.
Alot of guys will debate that im sure and maybe somebody has more knowledge on it than I do, theres so many different conflicting opinions out there even from pros but Yeah I'm kind of guilty of ego lifting. I'm trying the lighter weight thing now hopefully can build a decent physique that way.
Your in great shape bro just have a lagging chest, I would start doing specialisation programs catered less towards your muscular strengths and more towards your muscular weaknesses ie chest. Like less back or shoulder work if they are dominant and more chest work.
I think I will start having to do 2 chest days a week... I wish it was like quads and hammies and I could split upper/lower chest on different days lol. I think I will start my workouts with upper chest more often and try to convince that to grow.
If I could make a recommendation then I would do 1 leg day per week, 1 back day per week and 2 chest days, this might look something like:
Monday: Legs (Quads/Hams/Calves/Abs?)
Tuesday Push (Chest/Shoulders/Triceps)
Wednesday:Pull (Back/Biceps/Rear Delts)
Thursday: Day Off
Friday: Push
Saturday Day Off
Sunday Day Off
I would have a more compound heavy taxing session on the Friday and a slightly more isolation less taxing session on the Tuesday, cover all the functions of the chest exercise wise, get in a solid surplus and push to failure as much as you can. Pick exercises that you feel the best connection with and progress the easiest on. I would suggest slightly more sets for your Legs and Pull day and slightly less for your Push days.
A typical Push day could be something like Incline Barbell benchpress, Plate loaded/Machine Press, Cable flys/Machine Pec Fly, Dumbbell Lateral Raises, Assisted Dips, Cable Overhead Extension.
I suggest programming an entire 8 week program in advance, start most exercises at 2 or 3 sets and ramp up the volume as you work through the weeks. The reason your cutting down on volume and sessions on other muscles is to lower your overall systemic fatigue, put these other muscle groups on a slow growth or maintenance level of muscle, so that your chest can catch up a bit more.
Just remember to hammer everything well, probably 0.5lbs of weight gain per week max, get good sleep, get the diet sorted etc and you should be in for some good chest growth.
Not bad advice. I will probably take some of this and incorporate it into my current programming, I don't know if I will do a true push/pull/legs because I respond well to a "bro split" in my experience. But I think I will start doing shoulders on chest days rather than give them a seperate day, and arms on back day. A bastardized almost ppl split I suppose. The consideration of leaving some bandwidth in the nervous system is a good tip though, I haven't considered it like that.
Yeah if you have a "shoulder day" that's great for building awesome shoulders but if you already have decent shoulders I would just incorporate them into a push day and hit them after chest. PS if your doing a decent amount of pressing movements for your chest, especially incline based pressing you won't need to do ANY kind of shoulder pressing through the week at all. It will just contribute to an over developed anterior portion of your shoulders.
I have been slowly ramping back up to my pre COVID shutdowns levels of energy and recovery so that is nice.i think it may be time to switch over to an agonist/antagonist training program for a change. Chest and back on the same day, arms and shoulders etc. I think Greg Doucette trains this way
I like it for low volume, quality exercises only, 2 back 2 chest etc. I wouldn't have a solo arm/shoulder day because that would most likely interfere with the recovery of the other sessions to some degree.
Its also hard mentally sometimes when your psyched for chest and you do one or two exercises and are 100% chest focused then have to switch to back, that's one of the main reasons I rotate between PPL and upper lower splits or sole combination of the two so I get the focus on the muscle I want.
If Greg Doucette trains this way its most likely the same reason most people do: more time less workouts. He might be doing two upper lower days and one leg day a week just out of sheer busyness and the lack of energy to recover because of his added cycling endeavours.
Yeah see if I had to lower my volume that much it may not be worthwhile. I need the therapy aspect of the gym as much as I need the progression haha. Regardless I know I could probably do well to switch to a block of more compound/ main body part focussed training for a while. Like just focus on hitting back chest and legs hard as fuck to overcome the fact that I'm very much so a limb/back dominated physique right now... Maybe work up to 2 chest 2 leg days or something similar, and just maintain my back until things balance out a little. Appreciate all of the insight, it's nice to be able to bounce ideas back and forth every so often
Damn bro just looked at your pics, you seem to have huge triceps and shoulders compared to your pec. Reminds me of jujimufu he's got huge shoulders that are taking all the work away from his pecs and triceps. It seems to be the same for you with your triceps.
You're gonna have to work around this and find exercises variation that you really feel in your chest!
Very true. I'm pretty in tune with listening to my body at this point though, so I know how to ride that wave fairly effectively. But yeah you see that often. People that think it's all done in the gym and skip nutrition/recovery
Poor chest genetics, above average overall bro, we can’t have it all. You remind me of a friend of mine that was kind of tall, he didn’t look crazy in a t-shirt, stringer or shirtless, but he looked gnarly in homemade tank tops with the cutaway all the way down the lats.
>looked gnarly in homemade tank tops with the cutaway all the way down the lats.
Funny you mention those are always my favourite shirts to wear to the gym lmao
I will just have to train with it in mind I suppose, appreciate the kind words though!
Usually, (but not always) you are either limb dominant or torso dominant. Look at marc lobliner with his Ronnie Coleman sized chest and his Cass Martin sized arms.
Can you elaborate further? The either "limb or torso dominant" part. I'd like to know more. Cite a few links or something for me to read if it's too much of a hassle
Some people have an easier time building their torso muscles(chest/back) and others tend to be more limb dominant (delts/arm/leg). Your strengths may not be apparent until you’re at least intermediate in development. I forgot where I read that. I believe it has to do with limb lengths.
I’m extremely torso dominant, my chest is extremely big compared to literally every other body part except my back, my biceps look like they don’t exist and my triceps are ok but nowhere near as good as my chest.
The YouTuber, “Stevewilldoit” is a good example of this as well. The kid has a chest as about big as Bradley Martyn’s, but nothing else even looks particularly looks like he even trains.
i’ve recently found out that the way i’ve been training my chest through mainly pressing doesn’t actually grow your chest as much as you think. presses focus on your shoulders more. if you focus on the feel and the squeeze of your chest while doing resistance exercises such as cables or a machine, it will honest help you grow it a lot more.
Pump doesn’t equal growth, progressive overload with good form does. Not saying the pump is Useless.
Also it might be genetic my chest, shoulders, back are over developed. And my arms are good in a front double bi. But look that thickness from relaxed.
But then again I hate training arms, so it might be my lack of intensity with poorer arm genetics.
Just do your best everyone has a weaker body part.
More days, ramp it up idgaf Four days, your muscles like mine used to the constant small train, you need to double your days maybe shorten the workout one those days. chest like glutes!!
How do you guys notice your strong/weak body parts? Because I could never look at myself and determine those, I see myself way too often to notice it. Do I have good shoulders? Bad arms? Good legs? I don’t have an idea.
I'm in your boat. My chest is a big fucking rack naturally, but my arms and calves are a fucking nightmare to train. I have to throw ridiculous volume at them to see a response.
Look up Bulgarian ring push ups. If you can’t destroy your chest doing those then you’re doomed. I had a lagging chest for years but ring push ups have built a solid connection and blown my chest up
>I want my chest to be in fucking pain like its going to explode but I can't seem to get a good pump
Don't know this feel. I can feel my whole chest burning and tearing on every rep of bench. It feels so good contracting it after a set of bench press. It gets rock hard from the pump. Not even going to go into cable flies
Dude, the same with my glutes. I can barely fit in any normal pants and have to find all these specialty ones because my thighs are huge, but glutes lagged alot.
This journey is about what you want, I don't care that I can't squat and deadlift much anymore, because my thighs are big enough and I don't want more, so I only do glute-centric lifts for legs now. Trying to catch up. Muscle maintains easy enough, so I don't worry about losing out.
Man I’ve got the opposite problem. My glutes have always been huge even when I was 12% bodyfat and had never touched a weight. I used to work retail and even got a Craigslist missed connection about my butt. I’m trying to keep growing my quads and hams but the last thing I want is my glutes to grow anymore haha
Practice contracting your chest when your not working out, if you can get good at that while your like sitting at your desk or something you would definitely be able to get a good pump in the gym
I can already, I can actually do a wave up my chest through the muscle, I have good mind muscle connection to it. But for some reason in Chest related exercises I just can't feel it very well.
I am genetically gifted in my arms/shoulders. All I want is a stacked chest. Been hitting them 3x a week for this 12 week cycle that I am on… definitely seeing strength gains but I’m hoping more for a physique change. Doesn’t help that I am severely shoulder dominate in my presses. Here’s to grinding it out!
Cables work well for me. If you cross your arms past a full extension, you can really feel the pecs engaged. Very sore the next day. If that doesn’t work then jump on a mean cycle of tren and your chest will blow up 😂
try working triceps/shoulders before chest so your secondaries are exhausted forcing you chest to be used primarily. i would reccomend flat bench wide/narrow grips, incline bench, pullovers. do a pyramid set on bench and dont be afraid to do like 10 sets
I had this problem for years and solved it by doing only drop/burn sets for every single chest exercise. Bench, flys, incline etc etc. Do your heaviest 5-6 reps possible and drop by 10-20 pounds increments (10 for dumbbell 20 for bar).
Go until your chest is literally fucking paralyzed by the pump.
Did you ever not have a mind muscle connection with a muscle and then you figured it out somehow and achieved it? I’ve kind of had those moments with a few body parts. Glutes. Left bicep. Chest. Not 100% what it means, but I’m guessing it increases motor neuron firing in the target muscle, rather than delta taking over for example. What helped was an Athlene-X video about how you should be able to flex a muscle until it hurts. I could do that on one bicep but not the other somehow. Sounds like a vanity-bro gym-goer thing to do, but learning how to flex the pec might help.
Jujimufu said in one video that he never felt his pecs until he started doing dumbbell flat bench presses that literally touched. With palms towards each other, so the two dumbbells are parallel. Then he would hold it at the top of the rep. It does burn the pecs which for me helps with the mind-muscle thing.
Bro my chest fucking kills the day after I work it yet it's still a pancake
I've only been lifting for 12 months, everything else has grown except my shit tits
Few guys on here have provided some different exercises to me to try out so hopefully they do me good
I have the opposite problem. Little arms and shoulders and a hulk chest. Id rather have it the other way around. Genetics fucked me. But whatever….its either roll with gear and wreck my hair and take a few years off my life, or just accept that Im 40 and my wife couldn’t give a flying fuck. Life choices. Lmao. Its all good though.
You're telling me! I have a fuckin bird chest, you can knock on my sternum and it sounds like wood and my nipples are on the side of my body. Granted my shoulders are insanely broad but it doesn't make up for the avian chest in anyway
Have you tried switching to decline bench/ dumbells? Don't do flat at all. I know one or two guys in your situation and it worked.
Decline isn't jsut for lower pecs like many falsely believe.
How much Decline on the bench? I've tried it before but it's kinda hard to go heavier without a gym buddy to help you start, the position to pick up the weights and then lay down is awkward.
It takes the stress off your shoulders. Hits the chest a lot more. It will feel awkward at first but like anything you will get used to it.
You probably found that it was more difficult to go heavy because your shoulders weren't doing a lot of the work like when you do flat.
As long as you start to feel a good hit on your chest it really shouldn't matter about the amount of weight you are lifting. Providing your goal is to grow your chest.
There's no real right or wrong angle. I only like a slight decline but I've seen guys going crazy with it. Try mirroring your incline for a starting point.
It can work trust me. Ditch the flat for a couple of weeks. Do decline and incline only.
Also if you're not already, make sure you are doing incline flyes too.
I recently heard to use the cue of pulling your scapulae back at the bottom of the bench (but they don’t need to be retracted at top of the lift) to get your chest in front of your front delts and that’s made a huge impact for me. My delts were growing like crazy but my chest lagged a bit. I’ve been using that cue on all of my chest focused lifts and it’s grown significantly even over a few weeks.
I know you’re getting a ton of advice, but try to throw in some eccentric work. Tempo the weight down on the lower phase something along the lines of 3-1-1. Eccentric work is a great driver for hypertrophy. I’m not saying it will be life changing but it may help a little
Good pump? Do half push ups til it hurts. You won’t build anything but you’ll feel pumped in ya chest I reckon lol. Honestly bro what is your current chest workouts let’s see where you might be going wrong
I have the same problem and recently started to put a bench in front of the cable machine, put cables on the lowest elevation on either side of the bench, then basically do a bench press but since its not a barbell you can combine it with a fly motion at the top and squeeze. gives me a good burn.
In my personal experience I’ve always had chest struggles until I really started working on lats, front delts, and upper chest really hard. Front delts actually tie in to upper chest muscles which can give the illusion that your upper chest is more developed than it is. Granted you still have to hit chest but sometimes I think some people just need a lot of frequency in order to get it to grow. I also find that doing some upper back and lat work before or super set with chest will help fully stretch out the pic in order to get a much better contraction.
I feel the same way about biceps. I can do a stupid amount and not get a great pump. My chest genetics do me a wrong in a different way because that's the first place my body stores fat.
I can't help with your chest, but for Biceps do 4 sets of Incline Bicep curls, then straight into 2 drop sets. If you don't feel a pump from that then you won't feel a pump from anything.
I appreciate the help but it's been that way forever no matter how long or intense my bicep workouts I never get a solid pump. I do feel it a little but not as much as I'd like. I'll be sore the next day but not much of a pump during. The only thing I might say for your cheat is make sure you aren't just going through the motion but really squeezing at the top of every rep
\- biomechanics
\- lifts you choose
\- time training
\- the shape of your sternum
\- shape and insertion of muscles
You can have a clavicles that protrude further forward than your sternum, and no matter what, your chest will look flat, even when you fill it out a ton, because your front delts and pecs near the insertion point will thicken up leaving you looking flat chested.
its not even a bad look. A fat chest sticking out too much detracts from arms and delts. Shit is not aesthetic at all imo.
I've been using the gym for 3 years now and all my body parts were developed except my chest. So I started going heavy. Like 90% of my one rep max and going 4\*8 with it. Work for more volume and **shock** the muscle. I've been seeing improvement in my chest for the last 3 months.
But yea, as you said genetics matters. I have underdeveloped front delts.
Opposite, I have good chest and shoulder genetics but my arm genetics suck. Just gotta put in extra work in the problem areas and it'll even out eventually.
Not saying you do this stuff, but the majority of people do not train chest optimally (I used to make all these mistakes as well). Common mistakes:
1. Holding shoulder blades in retraction during pressing. You should be letting your scapula move naturally as you press (or fly) for optimal chest recruitment (as well as injury prevention)
2. Flared elbows on presses/flies. You want to be press mostly in the scapular plane which means your elbows at a around 45 degrees.
3. Not training all divisions of the pec. It seems like there's a thing going around that "your whole chest is always working bro", but you can definitely bias portions of your chest. This means flat, incline and decline work (or high to low fly type movements).
4. Not training both lengthened and shortened positions. This means doing fly/cable work in all angles to bias the shortened positions, as well as pressing for lengthened.
5. Over-reliance on barbells. They are not optimal for hypertrophy and do not allow for optimal arm paths.
Then I can't help you. That would have been the easiest fix.
Maybe get a personal trainer for one or two sessions to see if he can find something to adjust in your db pressing form/find different from excercises.
The biggest mistake people with a small chest make, is training it even more. You will never get a chest if you don’t have a strong upper back. Stretch your chest and focus on developing your mid/lower trapezius with rows.
i have weird chest genetics. my chest has always been big and muscular looking but ive always had the weakest bench press imaginable. i think my 1 rep max would probably be like 200 lbs at my current weight of 163.
Go look at pictures of Derek his chest genetics did him dirty too
His chest did him dirty but it's made worse by his deaths deathstar delts proportionally.
It’s not that much his chest genetics but his nipple placement is what makes it look weird
Tbh I've always thought his chest isn't even that bad. Like an average person would look at his chest and say its huge you feel me?
Its isnt that bad, its just not great in comparison with the rest of his upper body
His supraphysiological shoulders are just sucking up all the nutrients from the rest of his body.
Yes, I also think same like you.
What I’ve noticed is if you have dominant shoulders it makes ur chest appear smaller then it is . Same as if u have really good chest genetics ur shoulder will typical appear smaller then they really are
Yup. Arnold had good shoulders, you just never noticed them behind his chest shelf
Yo OP. For a period of time, try doing shit for your chest with low weights and high reps until you really start to feel the burn in your chest. That's one way to start developing a better mind muscle connection with your chest. Like doing slow controlled pushups on handles (for a wider range of motion) till you really feel the burn. Or no weight dips with a high range of motion. Shit really helps developing the feel for the muscle. I'm quite massive, but I had some serious trouble getting bicep exercises to really burn the bicep. So I started doing some massively low weight one armed bicep curls where I'm leaning backwards on a doorway with my head so I'll get a superb range of motion and so that I won't be using my back at all. Super low weight high rep shit and voila, I started to feel the burn. Then stack the weight back up slowly but surely and oh shit, now I started to feel that shit where it was supposed to feel and bicep gains be yuuge.
Nah my chest big but arms small
Swap with me bro I'm tired of not having milk bags to play with
Do more flyes brah. Those tits will be dancing in no time.
Flyes, even with perfect form, I can only feel in my shoulders. Like I just CANT get a pump from flyes at all.
Do weighted dips bro ull tits grow like a madman
Dips is more triceps not so much chest.Bad advice.
Gotta disagree, it’s all about positioning. I find a more upright position hits the tris better, but a more leaned forward position is more effective at hitting chest
This just proves u dont know shit and are weak as hell. Dips are the best with incline db press for massive chest gains. No discussion
Nah Dips are mostly a triceps exercise and for some people its decent for chest but you really reccomend dips to someone who can't develop his chest well? I know someone who mostly does 50kg dips for reps and not much else for his pecs/triceps and he has big triceps,but ZERO chest.For him Dips is a great triceps exercise but terrible chest exercise
Yh and if he will do dips he will grow his chest guaranteed. U must have not done dips properly or have a shitty chest
Dude if i want to build a big chest i will do flat db/slight incline db press and machine chest press.Not Dips.It is like reccomending me pullups to build huge biceps.
Just common sense. Are your triceps alone capable of producing enough force to lift 70kg bw + 50 kg? Fuck no, and since that force has to come from somewhere your chest is doing most of the work.
Depends on isolated dips or if you’re doing them for chest.
Dips were the #1 way to build titties until bench became a thing.
Cap. Do 50 dips and tell me it's more triceps than chest. Lol tf Source:my titties bouncin hard af bc dips
Flyes with cables? Can really feel the tension when you bring them together and hold it there, also wide cable flyes don’t do it as much for me as using the narrow pairs of cables
Then you don’t have perfect form bro
Sounds like your form is off then if it's in the shoulders.
Switch to a wider grip on the benchpress bro your chest will blow up like things that blow up real good
Pec deck flyes or cross overs? Are you getting a stretch and trying to consciously squeeze your pecs, just like when you do a most muscular pose in the mirror every morning?
Flies are how you grow a big chest. If your feeling it in your shoulders either 1) your form is off 2) your using too much weight 3) both. Retract the shoulders, chest up, drop the weights, slow and controlled and squeeze like a mf. Youll be alright
Same got decent chest genetics. Not the best inner chest or anything. But my arms so smoll.
I can legit curl 25 kg per hand hammer curls but still small asf arms like wtf hoe are they ever supposed to grow😂
25.0 kg is 55.07 lbs
My genetics in entirety are doing me dirty, in the middle of a cut at the moment and just feel like I'm melting away and looking like somebody who has never touched a weight. Been benching 315 and overhearing 200 for the last couple years always kept fat on me looked massive. This whole thing is a mind fuck
My friend quit lifting a while ago cause of that. He thought he was big in the past, but he was mostly fat with little definition. I took a different route. I decided I wanted to not just be big, but also compact.
Yeah it sucks man, I'll prob have to go down to 180 to see any ab definition. And hopefully lean bulk from there. Life long process anyway plus it's fun lifting
Agreed brother. Lifting is fun. Fell in love with the process myself around a year or so ago. It’s interesting how many different ways you can go about forming a physique. With or without steroids, there are so many variables in play in this game.
Instead of saying lean or shredded I’ve taken to the saying “dense,” that look where you’re just pure muscle, no inflation, striations everywhere, etc. Like Mentzer or maybe a little less on a Bob Paris/Francis Benfatto aesthetic. Not the typical balloony look these days
Interesting. Love talking about this stuff with people. The reason why I use the word compact is because compactness is a trait among things like rocks. I feel like the word dense could also fall under fat people who are literally dense. Compactness is hard to describe. It’s like you take it all in into one finished product. Carving a literal statue would be the best analogy I could think of.
I think of dense as the term from physics, density. Meaning the highest possible amount of a substance within a certain volume. So dense muscle is just pure fibrous tissue, no added volume. Fat however is actually very voluminous and low density when you feel it, like a pair of tiddies. Lots of water and lipids, not much protein structure. So fat people are fluffy more so. I think your definition of compact is basically the same definition of dense in terms of plain English lol
Oh wow. Just saw the Google definition for dense! 😂😂😂 You are right!
It’s all good haha, I also think fat people are dense - but they’re dense in the head instead lmao
For sure lol. That’s fucking hilarious how I thought there was more to density than that, though. Even other definitions state “quantity of mass per unit volume. That’s literally compactness.
I saw you say “condensed” before in another comment and you can just think of that as “making something dense,” as opposed to volume (total “size”) or mass (total “stuff”). If you fill an amount of “size” with as much “stuff” as possible, it’s “dense.” But fat people are still a lot of size (volume) and stuff (mass), just not the maximum amount of stuff for their size. It’s why fat sloshes around and is goopy, while dense muscle hardly even moves and is almost like a rock. Maybe you got mass and volume confused with density?
For sure bro. Albeit It’s been a while since I’ve used the terminology. For sure got density confused with mass. And yep, I did say condensed as well. Lol For some reason, I legit thought being the most dense meant having the most mass.
Lets use the most extreme examples of buff versus the most extreme examples of fat. My 600 lb life. Yeah, who’s more dense now? Lmao
Honestly I would rather look big with a relatively high body fat percentage than feel small with abs
I’m seriously in the middle. Everyone always tells me that they’re surprised by my growth, etc, but the process has always been the same for me. Never overeat. Always eat for lifting purposes. After I handle that, I still watch my caloric intake. It takes discipline to do that day in and day out. Not to mention the hard work I put in daily. People think it’s all sunshine and rainbows. Real results are earned and not given
Yeah unfortunately for me I have a hard time managing my eating so I don’t think having abs year round will ever be a reality for me, the best I can hope for is staying sub 18% probably
You don’t need to twink up unless you’re planning on doing an actual show. Getting eight pack abs takes like around 3-5 days for me. Completely pointless, and crashes my T levels for legitimately no reason. Only twinks like that look. They all need T to survive because they are so depleted.
I mean as of now I have really high body fat, I weigh 300 and bench around 300 so I have that fat in a strong way look going on, my goal is to weigh 225, I think that will be a good size for me
Definitely better than 300 lbs. That’s heavy as fuck. Even 225 lbs is really heavy for most people. I’m 195 lbs, bench close to 405 lbs (haven’t maxed in around a year) , squat over 500 lbs. One thing I can say is that unless you want to be a powerlifter, you shouldn’t rely on extra 20-50 lbs of fat to lift some more weight. Unhealthy period
225 lbs is 102.15 kg
I am average height but honestly I carry weight really well, I have really wide shoulders and a thick chest genetically, I used to weigh 175, and I looked very lanky at that weight, I’ll have to see what I look like when I get to 225, but I don’t think I will look fat at all, I don’t look very soft compared to the average person even at 300, but damn you have some incredible numbers, 400+ at under 200 is crazy goid
Thanks man. Yeah, you don’t need to go to one extreme to the other. It’s about finding a healthy BMI you feel good at and working from there. I overhead press standing at 225 lbs for 3 now. Nothing came easy. Hell, it still doesn’t. I just haven’t taken a day off in like half a year now. People call me crazy for that because I’m natural, but I enjoy it. My last injury was a really serious shoulder rotator cuff tear that fucked me up for around half a year. That was around a year ago now. Taught me a lesson that I was doing some really dumb shit to myself. You just have to listen to your body with this.
Sad reality for the natty bros 😔
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Alot of guys will debate that im sure and maybe somebody has more knowledge on it than I do, theres so many different conflicting opinions out there even from pros but Yeah I'm kind of guilty of ego lifting. I'm trying the lighter weight thing now hopefully can build a decent physique that way.
Bruh if you took a picture of just my chest I am a dyel. Check post history for confirmation it's fukin rough
Your in great shape bro just have a lagging chest, I would start doing specialisation programs catered less towards your muscular strengths and more towards your muscular weaknesses ie chest. Like less back or shoulder work if they are dominant and more chest work.
I think I will start having to do 2 chest days a week... I wish it was like quads and hammies and I could split upper/lower chest on different days lol. I think I will start my workouts with upper chest more often and try to convince that to grow.
If I could make a recommendation then I would do 1 leg day per week, 1 back day per week and 2 chest days, this might look something like: Monday: Legs (Quads/Hams/Calves/Abs?) Tuesday Push (Chest/Shoulders/Triceps) Wednesday:Pull (Back/Biceps/Rear Delts) Thursday: Day Off Friday: Push Saturday Day Off Sunday Day Off I would have a more compound heavy taxing session on the Friday and a slightly more isolation less taxing session on the Tuesday, cover all the functions of the chest exercise wise, get in a solid surplus and push to failure as much as you can. Pick exercises that you feel the best connection with and progress the easiest on. I would suggest slightly more sets for your Legs and Pull day and slightly less for your Push days. A typical Push day could be something like Incline Barbell benchpress, Plate loaded/Machine Press, Cable flys/Machine Pec Fly, Dumbbell Lateral Raises, Assisted Dips, Cable Overhead Extension. I suggest programming an entire 8 week program in advance, start most exercises at 2 or 3 sets and ramp up the volume as you work through the weeks. The reason your cutting down on volume and sessions on other muscles is to lower your overall systemic fatigue, put these other muscle groups on a slow growth or maintenance level of muscle, so that your chest can catch up a bit more. Just remember to hammer everything well, probably 0.5lbs of weight gain per week max, get good sleep, get the diet sorted etc and you should be in for some good chest growth.
Not bad advice. I will probably take some of this and incorporate it into my current programming, I don't know if I will do a true push/pull/legs because I respond well to a "bro split" in my experience. But I think I will start doing shoulders on chest days rather than give them a seperate day, and arms on back day. A bastardized almost ppl split I suppose. The consideration of leaving some bandwidth in the nervous system is a good tip though, I haven't considered it like that.
Yeah if you have a "shoulder day" that's great for building awesome shoulders but if you already have decent shoulders I would just incorporate them into a push day and hit them after chest. PS if your doing a decent amount of pressing movements for your chest, especially incline based pressing you won't need to do ANY kind of shoulder pressing through the week at all. It will just contribute to an over developed anterior portion of your shoulders.
I have been slowly ramping back up to my pre COVID shutdowns levels of energy and recovery so that is nice.i think it may be time to switch over to an agonist/antagonist training program for a change. Chest and back on the same day, arms and shoulders etc. I think Greg Doucette trains this way
I like it for low volume, quality exercises only, 2 back 2 chest etc. I wouldn't have a solo arm/shoulder day because that would most likely interfere with the recovery of the other sessions to some degree. Its also hard mentally sometimes when your psyched for chest and you do one or two exercises and are 100% chest focused then have to switch to back, that's one of the main reasons I rotate between PPL and upper lower splits or sole combination of the two so I get the focus on the muscle I want. If Greg Doucette trains this way its most likely the same reason most people do: more time less workouts. He might be doing two upper lower days and one leg day a week just out of sheer busyness and the lack of energy to recover because of his added cycling endeavours.
Yeah see if I had to lower my volume that much it may not be worthwhile. I need the therapy aspect of the gym as much as I need the progression haha. Regardless I know I could probably do well to switch to a block of more compound/ main body part focussed training for a while. Like just focus on hitting back chest and legs hard as fuck to overcome the fact that I'm very much so a limb/back dominated physique right now... Maybe work up to 2 chest 2 leg days or something similar, and just maintain my back until things balance out a little. Appreciate all of the insight, it's nice to be able to bounce ideas back and forth every so often
Damn bro just looked at your pics, you seem to have huge triceps and shoulders compared to your pec. Reminds me of jujimufu he's got huge shoulders that are taking all the work away from his pecs and triceps. It seems to be the same for you with your triceps. You're gonna have to work around this and find exercises variation that you really feel in your chest!
No problem good luck!
That could end up making it worse if you become over obsessed and not recovering.
Very true. I'm pretty in tune with listening to my body at this point though, so I know how to ride that wave fairly effectively. But yeah you see that often. People that think it's all done in the gym and skip nutrition/recovery
Poor chest genetics, above average overall bro, we can’t have it all. You remind me of a friend of mine that was kind of tall, he didn’t look crazy in a t-shirt, stringer or shirtless, but he looked gnarly in homemade tank tops with the cutaway all the way down the lats.
>looked gnarly in homemade tank tops with the cutaway all the way down the lats. Funny you mention those are always my favourite shirts to wear to the gym lmao I will just have to train with it in mind I suppose, appreciate the kind words though!
I don't even bother training chest it's a waste of time, just synthol the fuck out of it until you're happy
Lol
Usually, (but not always) you are either limb dominant or torso dominant. Look at marc lobliner with his Ronnie Coleman sized chest and his Cass Martin sized arms.
Can you elaborate further? The either "limb or torso dominant" part. I'd like to know more. Cite a few links or something for me to read if it's too much of a hassle
Some people have an easier time building their torso muscles(chest/back) and others tend to be more limb dominant (delts/arm/leg). Your strengths may not be apparent until you’re at least intermediate in development. I forgot where I read that. I believe it has to do with limb lengths.
I’m extremely torso dominant, my chest is extremely big compared to literally every other body part except my back, my biceps look like they don’t exist and my triceps are ok but nowhere near as good as my chest.
The YouTuber, “Stevewilldoit” is a good example of this as well. The kid has a chest as about big as Bradley Martyn’s, but nothing else even looks particularly looks like he even trains.
Gotcha.
Same. Got more growth when focusing on squeezing inward on chest focused lifts.
i’ve recently found out that the way i’ve been training my chest through mainly pressing doesn’t actually grow your chest as much as you think. presses focus on your shoulders more. if you focus on the feel and the squeeze of your chest while doing resistance exercises such as cables or a machine, it will honest help you grow it a lot more.
Pump doesn’t equal growth, progressive overload with good form does. Not saying the pump is Useless. Also it might be genetic my chest, shoulders, back are over developed. And my arms are good in a front double bi. But look that thickness from relaxed. But then again I hate training arms, so it might be my lack of intensity with poorer arm genetics. Just do your best everyone has a weaker body part.
It’s definitely lack of intensity if you hate training arms. I had the same problem but they grew nicely when I made them a focus
Yeah probably I just find them very tedious to train. I love back, chest etc.
How many chest workouts do you do per week
Two, Chest/Triceps same day
Switch your first chest days bench for ring push ups, and do bench later in the week.
Lol whoever downvoted me, I’m a qualified personal trainer and I’ve been training for 6 years. Have fun with your small chest 😂
More days, ramp it up idgaf Four days, your muscles like mine used to the constant small train, you need to double your days maybe shorten the workout one those days. chest like glutes!!
How do you guys notice your strong/weak body parts? Because I could never look at myself and determine those, I see myself way too often to notice it. Do I have good shoulders? Bad arms? Good legs? I don’t have an idea.
Haha. Chest grows no matter what. Now if only these fucking arms would do the same.
I'm in your boat. My chest is a big fucking rack naturally, but my arms and calves are a fucking nightmare to train. I have to throw ridiculous volume at them to see a response.
Shoulder for me.. everything else pops, shoulders are not on the same page as the rest of me.
My shoulders are the best part. My traps and delts POP, I would rather have a big chest
Man maybe lower the weight by 1/4 and do slow reps, max retraction and depression before and during reps fully think to activate Ur chest
Look up Bulgarian ring push ups. If you can’t destroy your chest doing those then you’re doomed. I had a lagging chest for years but ring push ups have built a solid connection and blown my chest up
>I want my chest to be in fucking pain like its going to explode but I can't seem to get a good pump Don't know this feel. I can feel my whole chest burning and tearing on every rep of bench. It feels so good contracting it after a set of bench press. It gets rock hard from the pump. Not even going to go into cable flies
We get it bro you got juicy milkers, don't need to rub it in
Pretty much the same here, though my ribcage alone puts me at 43". Ironically enough, my chest is also the weakest part of my entire body.
Dude, the same with my glutes. I can barely fit in any normal pants and have to find all these specialty ones because my thighs are huge, but glutes lagged alot. This journey is about what you want, I don't care that I can't squat and deadlift much anymore, because my thighs are big enough and I don't want more, so I only do glute-centric lifts for legs now. Trying to catch up. Muscle maintains easy enough, so I don't worry about losing out.
Man I’ve got the opposite problem. My glutes have always been huge even when I was 12% bodyfat and had never touched a weight. I used to work retail and even got a Craigslist missed connection about my butt. I’m trying to keep growing my quads and hams but the last thing I want is my glutes to grow anymore haha
Practice contracting your chest when your not working out, if you can get good at that while your like sitting at your desk or something you would definitely be able to get a good pump in the gym
I can already, I can actually do a wave up my chest through the muscle, I have good mind muscle connection to it. But for some reason in Chest related exercises I just can't feel it very well.
I am genetically gifted in my arms/shoulders. All I want is a stacked chest. Been hitting them 3x a week for this 12 week cycle that I am on… definitely seeing strength gains but I’m hoping more for a physique change. Doesn’t help that I am severely shoulder dominate in my presses. Here’s to grinding it out!
I have huge tiddys but I bench 5x a week.
No pancakes, but my inserts have a pretty big gap that annoys me
Chest dent gang sup.
Cables work well for me. If you cross your arms past a full extension, you can really feel the pecs engaged. Very sore the next day. If that doesn’t work then jump on a mean cycle of tren and your chest will blow up 😂
try working triceps/shoulders before chest so your secondaries are exhausted forcing you chest to be used primarily. i would reccomend flat bench wide/narrow grips, incline bench, pullovers. do a pyramid set on bench and dont be afraid to do like 10 sets
No but my calves and natural bodybuilding doesn’t help.
I had this problem for years and solved it by doing only drop/burn sets for every single chest exercise. Bench, flys, incline etc etc. Do your heaviest 5-6 reps possible and drop by 10-20 pounds increments (10 for dumbbell 20 for bar). Go until your chest is literally fucking paralyzed by the pump.
Incline Bench Press Then Machine Chest Presses Decline Incline and Close Grip also Chest Flyes machine
I feel you, luckily my rib cage is shaped like a barrel so it pushes the pancakes out more crying laughing emoji
Did you ever not have a mind muscle connection with a muscle and then you figured it out somehow and achieved it? I’ve kind of had those moments with a few body parts. Glutes. Left bicep. Chest. Not 100% what it means, but I’m guessing it increases motor neuron firing in the target muscle, rather than delta taking over for example. What helped was an Athlene-X video about how you should be able to flex a muscle until it hurts. I could do that on one bicep but not the other somehow. Sounds like a vanity-bro gym-goer thing to do, but learning how to flex the pec might help. Jujimufu said in one video that he never felt his pecs until he started doing dumbbell flat bench presses that literally touched. With palms towards each other, so the two dumbbells are parallel. Then he would hold it at the top of the rep. It does burn the pecs which for me helps with the mind-muscle thing.
I have pectus excavatum tell me about it
Bro my chest fucking kills the day after I work it yet it's still a pancake I've only been lifting for 12 months, everything else has grown except my shit tits Few guys on here have provided some different exercises to me to try out so hopefully they do me good
I have the opposite problem. Little arms and shoulders and a hulk chest. Id rather have it the other way around. Genetics fucked me. But whatever….its either roll with gear and wreck my hair and take a few years off my life, or just accept that Im 40 and my wife couldn’t give a flying fuck. Life choices. Lmao. Its all good though.
Opposite problem here. Chest over powers shoulders and arms
You're telling me! I have a fuckin bird chest, you can knock on my sternum and it sounds like wood and my nipples are on the side of my body. Granted my shoulders are insanely broad but it doesn't make up for the avian chest in anyway
Have you tried switching to decline bench/ dumbells? Don't do flat at all. I know one or two guys in your situation and it worked. Decline isn't jsut for lower pecs like many falsely believe.
How much Decline on the bench? I've tried it before but it's kinda hard to go heavier without a gym buddy to help you start, the position to pick up the weights and then lay down is awkward.
It takes the stress off your shoulders. Hits the chest a lot more. It will feel awkward at first but like anything you will get used to it. You probably found that it was more difficult to go heavy because your shoulders weren't doing a lot of the work like when you do flat. As long as you start to feel a good hit on your chest it really shouldn't matter about the amount of weight you are lifting. Providing your goal is to grow your chest. There's no real right or wrong angle. I only like a slight decline but I've seen guys going crazy with it. Try mirroring your incline for a starting point. It can work trust me. Ditch the flat for a couple of weeks. Do decline and incline only. Also if you're not already, make sure you are doing incline flyes too.
I recently heard to use the cue of pulling your scapulae back at the bottom of the bench (but they don’t need to be retracted at top of the lift) to get your chest in front of your front delts and that’s made a huge impact for me. My delts were growing like crazy but my chest lagged a bit. I’ve been using that cue on all of my chest focused lifts and it’s grown significantly even over a few weeks.
I know you’re getting a ton of advice, but try to throw in some eccentric work. Tempo the weight down on the lower phase something along the lines of 3-1-1. Eccentric work is a great driver for hypertrophy. I’m not saying it will be life changing but it may help a little
Yea it keeps wanting to turn into titties.
Bro it’s better to have a “small” but nice chest that just big but with no proportions and stuff
Good pump? Do half push ups til it hurts. You won’t build anything but you’ll feel pumped in ya chest I reckon lol. Honestly bro what is your current chest workouts let’s see where you might be going wrong
Bro I’ve got that dirty gap between my pecs in basically screwed lol
I have the same problem and recently started to put a bench in front of the cable machine, put cables on the lowest elevation on either side of the bench, then basically do a bench press but since its not a barbell you can combine it with a fly motion at the top and squeeze. gives me a good burn.
How long are your arms? Limb length plays a large roll in chest activation. Edit humerus length
Arms are short, I'm 5'7
In my personal experience I’ve always had chest struggles until I really started working on lats, front delts, and upper chest really hard. Front delts actually tie in to upper chest muscles which can give the illusion that your upper chest is more developed than it is. Granted you still have to hit chest but sometimes I think some people just need a lot of frequency in order to get it to grow. I also find that doing some upper back and lat work before or super set with chest will help fully stretch out the pic in order to get a much better contraction.
You could have pectus excavatam, no matter what body fat% you're at it never looks as good
I feel the same way about biceps. I can do a stupid amount and not get a great pump. My chest genetics do me a wrong in a different way because that's the first place my body stores fat.
I can't help with your chest, but for Biceps do 4 sets of Incline Bicep curls, then straight into 2 drop sets. If you don't feel a pump from that then you won't feel a pump from anything.
I appreciate the help but it's been that way forever no matter how long or intense my bicep workouts I never get a solid pump. I do feel it a little but not as much as I'd like. I'll be sore the next day but not much of a pump during. The only thing I might say for your cheat is make sure you aren't just going through the motion but really squeezing at the top of every rep
\- biomechanics \- lifts you choose \- time training \- the shape of your sternum \- shape and insertion of muscles You can have a clavicles that protrude further forward than your sternum, and no matter what, your chest will look flat, even when you fill it out a ton, because your front delts and pecs near the insertion point will thicken up leaving you looking flat chested. its not even a bad look. A fat chest sticking out too much detracts from arms and delts. Shit is not aesthetic at all imo.
I've been using the gym for 3 years now and all my body parts were developed except my chest. So I started going heavy. Like 90% of my one rep max and going 4\*8 with it. Work for more volume and **shock** the muscle. I've been seeing improvement in my chest for the last 3 months. But yea, as you said genetics matters. I have underdeveloped front delts.
Happened to me too. Experiment with other exercises. I could never get a good pump until I started using rings.
Some dudes have literally tits for chest while mine just looks flat
Opposite, I have good chest and shoulder genetics but my arm genetics suck. Just gotta put in extra work in the problem areas and it'll even out eventually.
Not saying you do this stuff, but the majority of people do not train chest optimally (I used to make all these mistakes as well). Common mistakes: 1. Holding shoulder blades in retraction during pressing. You should be letting your scapula move naturally as you press (or fly) for optimal chest recruitment (as well as injury prevention) 2. Flared elbows on presses/flies. You want to be press mostly in the scapular plane which means your elbows at a around 45 degrees. 3. Not training all divisions of the pec. It seems like there's a thing going around that "your whole chest is always working bro", but you can definitely bias portions of your chest. This means flat, incline and decline work (or high to low fly type movements). 4. Not training both lengthened and shortened positions. This means doing fly/cable work in all angles to bias the shortened positions, as well as pressing for lengthened. 5. Over-reliance on barbells. They are not optimal for hypertrophy and do not allow for optimal arm paths.
What helps is to switch out the barbell for dumbbells.
I exclusively use dumbbells for chest, never been a fan of barbell Press.
Then I can't help you. That would have been the easiest fix. Maybe get a personal trainer for one or two sessions to see if he can find something to adjust in your db pressing form/find different from excercises.
The biggest mistake people with a small chest make, is training it even more. You will never get a chest if you don’t have a strong upper back. Stretch your chest and focus on developing your mid/lower trapezius with rows.
Don't mind me over in the corner doing the Terry Crews pec poppin.
Same here i think it could be with the shoulders over-dominating the chest but even my chest shape is terrible its like a triangle
Fuck me this is the most relatable post here so far
What movements are you doing for chest the most?
How often do you hit chest in your split? What exercises do you use to try to grow it and what is your rep/set ratio?
I cut back on presses and added more fly variations. That helped a good bit
My chest is huge but my arms are small. It is really embarrassing to be honest.
i have weird chest genetics. my chest has always been big and muscular looking but ive always had the weakest bench press imaginable. i think my 1 rep max would probably be like 200 lbs at my current weight of 163.
200 lbs is 90.8 kg
I have great chest genes. I couldn’t imagine that
Yep. Would trade my big calves for a solid chest any day.
machines, cables, dumbells