As any long time reader of this blog knows I do like to experiment with different advanced bodybuilding workouts from time to time. What sounds good on paper very often doesnāt quite translate to the gym, and vice versa. The chest and arms advanced bodybuilding workout detailed below ended up working quite well given the circumstances. This phrase āgiven the circumstancesā is one that we would always do well to think about when it comes to constructing workouts. I should have been at the end of a series of twice a day training sessions (and due to go into a de-load next week) with the goal of getting up to 125kg (I am 122.5kg right now and was hoping for a nice rebound on the back-off week) but fate was conspiring against me today. Iāve had a sore throat for a few days, my kids have been waking me up in the night and I feel āunrestedā rather than actually tired, my stress levels with work are naggingly high (Iāve pretty much worked full days every single day for the last 5 weeks), my diet has been too loose and when that happens I get more aches, pains and general symptoms of feeling poorly, and to cap it off I woke up with an upset stomach. Letās just say that I didnāt feel like training. At all.
However, for me and the way I operate a goal is a goal and if I donāt try then I beat myself up for being a loser, so there was no way I was going to bail. But I knew that a twice a day training session would be overkill, and I also realised as I was driving into the gym and stuck in a 30 minute traffic queue, that I didnāt have that spark in me to push properly heavy weights and that it was probably going to take me 10-15 minutes of training to start firing properly regardless of how heavy I was training (normally I can jump right into a super intense session if itās a lighter load day). But I also wanted to hit some decent volume and get as big a pump as possible as I really wanted to have a proper back off (in volume, not in effort or intensity) next week and was so full of glycogen that a āsqueeze and stretchā blood flow workout was exactly what I needed for hypertrophy.
All that long-winded exposition is to set the scene as I donāt like giving any workout in total isolation, especially a more advanced bodybuilding workout. Without context a workout really means nothing.
Nick Mitchell Using a Watson āPoliquin Barā
Advanced Bodybuilding Workout ā Chest & Arms Training:
Alternated Exercise (see point 4 for explanation): 45 Degree Incline Dumbell Press
No rest
Alternated Exercise: 45 Degree Decline Dumbell Press
30-60 secs rest / 10 sets of 10-15 reps
I really couldnāt face a multi-exercise ordeal like some of my giant sets workouts Iāve written about in the past, so I kept this simple so that my less than focused brain could deal with it better today. Here are a few of the tricks I used to make it work:
1. On the incline press, I really pushed my elbows back to get a maximum stretch on the pec minor (think upper pecs).
2. I paused in the bottom position for 1-3 secs on the incline press, whilst ensuring that maximum tension was still on my chest muscles (so no relaxing at all), and then for at least 6-8 reps I only pressed the dumbells halfway up before bringing them down. As I fatigued Iād go higher in my range, but what I did this time was rather than draw the dumbbells slightly across my body as I normally do in order to get more of a squeeze and peak contraction, I simply pressed them straight up. I found this worked really well and will be incorporating this into my training more.
3. In order to change muscle fibre recruitment as much as possible I used a semi-supinated grip on the decline press and kept my elbows tight into my body whilst doing a very full rang of motion and squeezing my pecs as hard as possible (and by as hard as possible I really do mean squeezing them as if they owe you money) at the very top of the movement.
4. To provide a different range of stress rather than do the usual A1/A2 sequence I alternated the order with each set. So the first set was incline followed by decline, and the second set was decline followed by incline, and so on for a total of 10 sets. I did this across the workout today and itās a great tool for hypertrophy that Iāve never really seen anyone else put into practice.
5. I should also note that I pyramided the weight, starting extremely light (15kg dumbells) and using a very slow tempo along the lines of 3330, and then as things got progressively heavier the tempo shortened considerably.
Alternated Exercise: 45 Degree Incline Dumbell Curls
No rest
Alternated Exercise: Reverse Fat EZ Bar Curls
No rest
Alternated Exercise: Overhead Cable Rope Extensions
No rest
Alternated Exercise: Barbell Triceps Extensions To Neck
30-60 secs rest/10 sets of 10-15 reps
Because I was already very well warmed up I jumped straight into reasonable weights and kept the weights the same for all the sets. To make it harder in the first few sets I might slow the tempo down to something silly like a 5050 tempo, but as the sets progress that was forced to change.
I am actually wrapping up the writing of this workout a few days later and I am still sore, especially in my arms. If you give this advanced bodybuilding workout a try, ensure that you are very well hydrated before hand (this will help blood flow, which is really one of the main aims of this type of session), and donāt blame me if you need a friend to help you clean your teeth for the following couple of days!!
If you have any questions on deltoid training please fire away in the comments section below, and if you like this post Iām always extremely appreciative of LIKES and SHARES via the social media buttons on the left of this page. And if you donāt live near a UPĀ London Personal Training GymĀ and want to work with our team, maybe you should check out our very popular, one-to-one coaching,Ā online personal trainingĀ service ā it is designed to coach and teach you all the fundamentals, as well as inside tricks, tweaks, and tips, that I try to get across in my blogs.