Pecs that pop: five strength-training experts weigh in on the best methods for building a massive chest

Muscle & Fitness, July, 2005 by Jim Stoppani

CLOSE YOUR EYES AND PICTURE THIS: You place your palms together in front of you, pressing them forcefully into each other. The contraction spreads up your forearms, through your biceps, triceps and shoulders, and explodes across your pectorals, rippling from outer to inner edge. Your chest rises, clenching into a searing knot of muscle, popping your shirt buttons off, one by one. How would it feel to have pecs that big, brawny and powerful? Three words: Pretty damn good. [paragraph] As you probably realize, that kind of size isn't built without a lot of effort. And even clockwork consistency in the gym won't totally do the trick, as you can't keep throwing the same battery of exercises, sets and reps at your body workout after workout and expect to achieve the superhuman results you seek.

To succeed, you need an array of solid training options at your disposal. So, to help, we've collected five hardcore techniques you can use to shake up your workouts from experts whose business it is to help people get huge and strong. Use these at your own risk--sewing kit not included.

TIP 1 INSTABILITY TACTICS

"One trick that works well to build the chest is called Stabilization Equivalent Training," says Rodney Corn, MA, PES, CSCS, director of education for the National Academy of Sports Medicine. "For example, you follow a stable chest exercise like the dumbbell flye on a flat bench with an unstable equivalent move--a dumbbell flye on an exercise ball with one leg bracing you."

Most guys steer clear of exercise-ball moves because they have to drop to a much lighter weight than they're used to handling. But by doing so, you grow much stronger in the long run performing both stable and unstable moves. "Stability training places a greater demand on your body to internally stabilize itself," Corn explains. "By training the brain how to work the pecs while stabilizing the body, you increase the potential of your pecs to produce more force." By doing the ball exercise immediately after the traditional version (with little to no rest between sets), the lighter weight now becomes more of a challenge for the chest because those muscle fibers are prefatigued.

DO THIS: Do a set of flyes on a flat bench with dumbbells that allow you to get no more than 8-10 reps. After little to no rest, grab a pair of lighter weights and do 10-15 flyes on an exercise ball. Rest two minutes and repeat the superset twice more.

TIP 2 PARTIAL REPS

"Doing partial reps at the end of a set will take your chest to a place it's likely never been before--total fatigue," says Guillermo Escalante, MBA, ATC, CSCS, president of Sports Pros, a sports medicine, fitness and rehabilitation center in Claremont, California.

A partial rep is a rep that stops short of the typical range of motion for that exercise. If you gauge your fatigue by the inability to complete a full repetition, you aren't taking the muscle to its true limit. If you continue with partial reps until you can no longer budge the weight, you know without doubt that you taxed the muscle to its upper limits.

"For chest training, partial reps are perfect on press exercises like the bench press or machine press," Escalante notes. "The reason is that the triceps play a monumental role in the top half of the exercise, Often you surrender on the bench press when your smaller triceps muscles fatigue, not the chest." By doing reps in the lower three-fourths of your full bench press range of motion, you minimize the role of the triceps and maximize the use of the pectoral muscles--ultimately leading to bigger pecs. Be careful when using this technique; it's very taxing. Use it on only the last set of an exercise.

DO THIS: With a spotter close by, do three sets of incline barbell presses. When you can no longer do complete reps on the third set, continue repping in the lower one-half to three-fourths of the range of motion until you can no longer push the weight to the halfway point.

TIP 3 ECCENTRIC TRAINING

To get a bigger chest, you'll need to develop stronger pecs. David Sandler, MS, CSCS, professor of exercise science at Florida International University (Miami), says one way to increase your strength on an exercise immediately is to overload the eccentric portion of the lift, in which you lower the weight. "The heavier the weight that you're lowering, the stronger you'll be on the lifting phase of the exercise," he adds. This is due to the potential energy that builds in a muscle as you stretch it. When you release the stretch as you begin to lift the weight, that energy is transferred to the contracting muscle fibers.

DO THIS: Do three sets of decline bench presses with a weight that limits you to 6-8 reps. On each rep of the third set, have a spotter push on the bar as you resist it down to your chest. Then your spotter lets go and you push the weight up with your newfound strength.

TIP 4 MAX OUT FIRST

Another trick for gaining immediate strength and long-term muscle mass is to first max out on an exercise, then go for reps, states Tim Scheett, PhD, an exercise science professor at the University of Southern Mississippi (Hattiesburg). With this max-out technique, you'll use a weight with which you can get only about 2-3 reps and do one rep with it, then follow with a lighter set for more reps.