need help developing upper chest...

[Pablo escabar jr.]

I was wondering what alterations I could make to my Chest routine to help target the Upper chestand help with mass in this area.

Chest routine:

Incline Bench-4 sets of 12 with roughly 65-70% of 1RM
Incline Flies-4 sets of 8 with roughly 70-75% of 1RM
Dips-4 sets of 20(should I add weight?)
Crossovers(with DB while lieing on a flat bench) 4 sets of 10 roughly 65-70% of 1RM
Front vertical DB presses-4 sets of 8 with roughly 70% of 1RM

What I'd like is to add a little more mass to help with over all body proportion. Should I add heavy Flat bench, or incorporate some other exercise into my schedual? Thanks for all the suggestions, and help.

Pablo Escabar Jr.

[Bob Smith]

Stick with the incline bench (or inc DB press) but use weights in the 80-90% range, which should be roughly 3-8 reps. Try doing inclines for 6 sets of 4 and see how you respond. Also, get rid of the sissy flyes and crossovers.

For dips, if you can pump out 20 reps, then you really need to be adding weight.

[Neodavid]

That seems like a lot of work, as in a lot of reps to get size... I never grow with more than 8 reps (though recently I have to go to 15 to maintain an injury, can't handle the weight).

The flies (grin... okay, FLYES) everyone hates, I think are better for sculpting, bringing out definition, sort of an ancillary exercise. I have never gotten bulk from them. Too much stress on the shoulder, and you can't handle enough weight to stimulate growth (for my body with small joints, anyway). But then I noticed my striations come out a lot when I do flyes at the end of my workout (only once a week though, twice a week hurts my shoulders). My wife loves that cut chest look.

But your are up for mass, and Bob appears to know more about building mass than I do, so I defer to his advice. But maybe you are like me and are addicted to those flyes, so I thought I'd give you my 2 cents.

Originally Posted by Bob Smith

Stick with the incline bench (or inc DB press) but use weights in the 80-90% range, which should be roughly 3-8 reps. Try doing inclines for 6 sets of 4 and see how you respond. Also, get rid of the sissy flyes and crossovers.

For dips, if you can pump out 20 reps, then you really need to be adding weight.

[bigkb]

My upper chest used to be under-developed. Correcting that was simple...train upper chest first. Not only did that get my chest in proportion, it also allowed my incline bench strength to almost equal my flat bench strength.

KB

[Pablo escabar jr.]

Thanks for the advice, just got back from the Gym...chest day baby!!! Well let me tell you, those heavy incline bench kicked my ass. I started out with them right away after a short warm up. I went with 4 sets of 5-8 reps of around 80% of my 1RM. After incline bench I went staright into weighted dips with 35lbs...wow, nice. I just wanted to say thanks for the help, I haven't had a really deep burn like that in a while...time to Grow!!!!

Pablo Escabar Jr.

[Dart]

Originally Posted by Pablo escabar jr.

I was wondering what alterations I could make to my Chest routine to help target the Upper chestand help with mass in this area.

Chest routine:

Incline Bench-4 sets of 12 with roughly 65-70% of 1RM
Incline Flies-4 sets of 8 with roughly 70-75% of 1RM
Dips-4 sets of 20(should I add weight?)
Crossovers(with DB while lieing on a flat bench) 4 sets of 10 roughly 65-70% of 1RM
Front vertical DB presses-4 sets of 8 with roughly 70% of 1RM

What I'd like is to add a little more mass to help with over all body proportion. Should I add heavy Flat bench, or incorporate some other exercise into my schedual? Thanks for all the suggestions, and help.

Pablo Escabar Jr.

I had the same probs Pablo. I am wide, with a large chest palette, I leaned to blast inclines heavy as Bob mentions. Forget flat and flys, pullovers, cables, all that bullshit. Just hit the inclines heavy for 4-7 sets of 4-6 and you will see results. Other thing I can add is, hit less more often : )

.

[Neodavid]

Forget flat? Really?

Wow, we have a gym below where I work (it's sweet, I walk downstairs on breaks and pump iron), and everyone there does incline, flat, and decline... Most of them swear by declines.

Now me, I prefer flat, because my incline is whimpy, and 'seem's to mostly hit my shoulders. BUT, I notice the same advice on the HST site, to just do inclines, so I'm sorta curious.

But then HST site says 'slight incline', which I don't have available, so I'm stuck doing flat for now.

Since I'm on a cycle, I may just do the deep incline (maybe 45 degree angle) we have available, because on juice other guys have said you can do another set (3 instead of 2), so why not train one of them incline...

Curious, did you ever do declines?

I wonder if it's mostly physiological skelatal/attachment that affects this. There is a guy here who has a HUGE upper chest, and can do more weight on inclines than he can on flat, but my situation is the reverse. Most of my muscle is in the lower pec, and I can do much more decline or flat than I can incline.

However to be fair, I just don't do inclines because my shoulders hurt too much when I go heavy (for me). That's obviously limiting... and that's why I do flyes, cause I can do them on an incline without pain. Go figure.

Originally Posted by Dart

I had the same probs Pablo. I am wide, with a large chest palette, I leaned to blast inclines heavy as Bob mentions. Forget flat and flys, pullovers, cables, all that bullshit. Just hit the inclines heavy for 4-7 sets of 4-6 and you will see results. Other thing I can add is, hit less more often : )

.

[Dart]

Originally Posted by Neodavid

Forget flat? Really?

Wow, we have a gym below where I work (it's sweet, I walk downstairs on breaks and pump iron), and everyone there does incline, flat, and decline... Most of them swear by declines.

Now me, I prefer flat, because my incline is whimpy, and 'seem's to mostly hit my shoulders. BUT, I notice the same advice on the HST site, to just do inclines, so I'm sorta curious.

But then HST site says 'slight incline', which I don't have available, so I'm stuck doing flat for now.

Since I'm on a cycle, I may just do the deep incline (maybe 45 degree angle) we have available, because on juice other guys have said you can do another set (3 instead of 2), so why not train one of them incline...

Curious, did you ever do declines?

I wonder if it's mostly physiological skelatal/attachment that affects this. There is a guy here who has a HUGE upper chest, and can do more weight on inclines than he can on flat, but my situation is the reverse. Most of my muscle is in the lower pec, and I can do much more decline or flat than I can incline.

However to be fair, I just don't do inclines because my shoulders hurt too much when I go heavy (for me). That's obviously limiting... and that's why I do flyes, cause I can do them on an incline without pain. Go figure.

I stop using declines. Didn't notice a change in my structure at all.

Years ago I used some hard foam (foam core) to prop my back/shoulders up because the bench I had wouldn't adjust slightly over 90 either. I think 45 is too much IMHO. After a while it became useless and started fucking with my back however. Really should find a good bench that has various degrees of incline.

I also had a problem whereby I would get pain in my shoulders doing inclines years ago. I used a shoulder press machine made by Cybex (I think?) that hit the front delts (palms pointed inward). This not only helped shape my delts, but got them a little strong and took pain from my inclines.

Changing the degree of the banch to just over 90 will most likely make the big dif. Why? There are a TON of bro's on this board who can explain Kinesiology to you much better than I can.

Good luck bro!
.

[Neodavid]

Been years since I tried a shoulder press... Maybe I'll give it a shot after my HST cycle, depending on how that goes.

Interesting on the decline, no difference, eh? hmm...

Thanks for the reply man.

Originally Posted by Dart

I stop using declines. Didn't notice a change in my structure at all.

Years ago I used some hard foam (foam core) to prop my back/shoulders up because the bench I had wouldn't adjust slightly over 90 either. I think 45 is too much IMHO. After a while it became useless and started fucking with my back however. Really should find a good bench that has various degrees of incline.

I also had a problem whereby I would get pain in my shoulders doing inclines years ago. I used a shoulder press machine made by Cybex (I think?) that hit the front delts (palms pointed inward). This not only helped shape my delts, but got them a little strong and took pain from my inclines.

Changing the degree of the banch to just over 90 will most likely make the big dif. Why? There are a TON of bro's on this board who can explain Kinesiology to you much better than I can.

Good luck bro!
.

[Dart]

Originally Posted by Neodavid

Been years since I tried a shoulder press... Maybe I'll give it a shot after my HST cycle, depending on how that goes.

Interesting on the decline, no difference, eh? hmm...

Thanks for the reply man.

Naw bro, didn't really see any change EXCEPT that it was at a time where I drastically reduced my volume and I blew up. Meaning it could be possible that the gains I experienced outweighed the lack of the exercise?

Who knows, never went back to the though. I great big bro at another local club told me one night that the declines hit a LOT of shoulder and he hated them. I never looked back.

But that ME.

...

[Pablo escabar jr.]

I've never done decline bench as a serious workout because I can go extreamly heavy due to very strong sholulders...Should I? Any advice that will lead to better syemtry, or over all chest growth is apperciated.

Thanks again

Pablo Escabar Jr.