Are you bench pressing the same weight you were a month ago? Or perhaps you are benching the same amount you were in high school? Might sound silly but a lot of my friends rave about the bench press while never really pushing it beyond the “testosterone teen” levels. This article will show you how I take my bench press to all new weights quickly and safely with a few simple techniques.

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1. Go from flat to incline

The thing about the flat bench press is that it works a lot of your shoulders. I know a lot of you “pure” bench press lovers out there are going to disagree with me but the incline bench is a better option if you want to hit more of your pectoral muscles. While you might not be able to handle as much weight as you did on the flat bench, the incline will work areas of your chest you have long neglected with your addiction to the flat bench.

Once you spend a few weeks pumping out incline bench presses you will find you are able to handle more weight on the flat bench.

2. Drop the weight and do 100 reps

The 100 repetition set is something I like to do every now and then. I remember talking to a strong man in India when I was on holiday and he told me that uses 100 rep sets quite often as a secret to boosting his strength levels.

I took that secret home and applied it to the bench press. All you need to do is get a weight small enough to pump out 100 reps and see if you can do it.

I bet 99% of you can’t.

Many strength trainers are limited in that they think strength does not include endurance. It does. Put your muscles to the test with the 100 rep set and see how you strength improves on the low rep sets.

3. Stop using a barbell, dummy

If you are still using the old barbell for the bench press you are living in the past. Get over your nostalgic habit and switch to a couple of dumbbells.

The reason I find dumbbells to be superior is that they allow a deeper stretch and more mobility. The mobility means you will be working more stabilizer muscles and you will have to put more work into keeping your technique pure. These are all things you will need to push your bench press weight upwards.

4. Add weight every single time

If you go to the gym and whack the same plates on your bench press for more than one week then you are going to stagnate. Make sure you are adding weight every single time you do the bench press.

People do not get this idea very well. They have a general concept of “Oh yeah, I should increase my weight often” but if they actual kept track of those increases they would realize it just isn’t happening.

Do not worry if you can only pump out three or four reps with your new weight. It is important that you do it. After a week or two you will be up to five reps and then you can add more weight and keep on going.

5. Dip out of the bench press race

If you are a real strength trainer you will know about the weighted dip. This killer exercise is one of the best ways to build upper body strength and has a real emphasis on the pecs, shoulders and triceps.

And they are murder when done with a heavy weight attached to your weight belt.

Take a month off of bench press and hit the dips instead. When you go back to the bench you will notice a strength you never had before.

6. Get negative with your partner

If you don’t have a training partner, get one. You need one to be able to go to the next level.

Perform your set as normal but when you get to the point of failure get your partner to help you lift the weight up and then do the negative by yourself. Do this as many times as you can even if you end up chucking up at the end of it. You will only need to do it once to really power up that strength.

7. Decline like you are a sloth

Now when I say sloth I don’t mean a lazy animal. I mean one that moves in slow motion.

Many strength trainers pump out the decline part of the rep like it doesn’t matter, like it is something just procedural.

Wrong.

The decline is the most important part of the rep and if you are forgetting about it you may as well forget about leveling up on the bench press. Each time you do a decline it should be for no less that five seconds. Count them. Don’t cheat. Take your time and really feel those muscles.

8. Get serious and exhaust those pecs

If you really want to add more weight to the bench press then you need to get serious about pumping those pecs like chest training is going out of fashion.

One way to do this is to pump out a set on the bench press and then head over to the dip station without any rest. Pair up two of your favorite exercises and work them one after the other without rest.

9. Get your food right

Something that a lot of strength trainers fail to realize is that what they eat makes a huge difference to how you lift weights. Everyone knows that protein is important for growing muscles and recovering, but how many of you plan your pre-lifting meal so that you can lift with maximum energy?

Not many people I know do.

Start thinking about what you eat one hour before your weight lifting session. What food should you eat? What drink should you have? Should it be low gi or a sugar rush? It is important to get that right.

10. Rest, properly

When I say rest I mean really rest. Take a whole month off of weight training at the end of the year. You have been thrashing your body for 11 months and it needs a rest. Muscles grow in this time. The immune system and recovery processes re-ignite themselves and you will come back to weight lifting a much better (and stronger) person.

Add pushups to your chest workout for bigger pecs

A big impressive chest can be quite a sight. The pectoral muscles are also very important if you are playing any sport that involves the arms such as martial arts, basketball, baseball or football. Some of the greatest bodybuilders of all time have attributed their success to having large, defined pectoral muscles.

Bench press ain’t the only way to grow pecs

Many people think that the standard bench press, fly, cable routine is the only way to get big pecs. And, for the most part, they are right. These are very important mass building exercises and you should never forget them. However, the humble pushup should not be discounted as a beginner exercise because it has amazing potential to boost your strength, power and muscle gains. It has been used by warriors for thousands of years, martial artists in more recent time and bodybuidlers even today.

So, if you are a little bit bored of the old chest routine that you do at the gym then trying supplementing one of the lighter exercises like anything you do on a machine for some of these pushup ideas.

How to do a pushup for the chest

Before I get on to giving you some ways to liven up the pushup I have to make sure you know how to target your chest. It is quite simple really, the wider your hands are apart the more you will target your pectoral muscles. The closer you bring your hands together the more you will target your triceps. It is the same as on the bench press: close grip for triceps, wide grip for chest.

The question then is, how wide should the be apart? And the answer is, there is no answer. It is different for each person. Some people (like me) have bad wrist injuries from years of tough sport and cannot do my pushups too wide for fear of my hand falling off! You should experiment with different widths as well as different positions for your torso. Should your hands be in line with your nipples, shoulders or ribs? These are questions you need to ask yourself.

How to do BETTER pushups

The regular pushup is pretty boring. We all know it. However, I have made some excellent strength and size progress by jazzing up the old pushup. Here are some of my favorite ways:

1. Incline
The first and most popular way is to put your feet higher than your hands. This takes the emphasis off of the chest slightly but will challenge your strength and endurance.

2. Add weight
When you are at the gym on the bench press you add weight each session (or should be!) so why don’t you for the pushup. There are plenty of ways to do it. You could add some weight discs into a backpack. You could strap some weight to a weight belt and do your pushsups with your hands and feet on some chairs. Use your imagination but be safe.

3. Add pace
This is my favorite way and will give you some really sore pecs in the morning! Get a clock and do your pushups in time with the movements of the hands. For example, my friend and I would see how many pushups we could do in half and hour with a goal of getting to 1000. Our strategy was to do puhsups for the first 35 seconds of the minute and then rest for the remainder of the minute. It worked, we nearly threw up all our lunch and pulled every muscle in our upper body but we did the 1000 pushups. When you break a barrier like this one you find that you are able to do other things that you always doubted. I was lifting bigger weights, running further and even pushing myself harder with my study.

4. Super set
After doing a set of bench press stick the weight in the rack and drop to the floor and pump out a fast set of pushups. This is an excellent way to fatigue your muscles and give them something new to be sore about! Do your bench press nice and slow and then the pushups nice and fast and your chest training will take on a new dimension

Concusion on pushups

Many of the old exercises like pushups, pull ups, etc. have been given a bad rap despite being some of the most powerful and effective muscle and strength building tools we have. Don’t let all the fancy machines and workouts at the gym seduce you when what you really need is a simple workout and some dedication and mental strength.

If you want to develop huge pecs that are thick and well rounded then you need to start hitting some heavy dips. In this article we will be looking at why dips bring some amazing pectoral growth.

What are dips?

Take a look at the picture on the left and you will get a pretty good idea of what a dip is. Although this guy seems to be doing them backwards; I generally face in towards the back of the dip station.

Basically, to do a dip you need to get two parallel bars that are not much wider than shoulder width apart. You then grab on to these bars and lean forward and “dip” your body down. Once you are as low as you can go you push yourself back up and repeat.

What muscles does the dip target

Every time you do a dip you are going to be hitting your:

• Pectoral muscles
• Triceps
• Deltoid muscles
• Traps
• Abdominals

However, it is the triceps and the pectoral muscles that really get worked. If you get the technique right and add some weight to your waist as you dip you will experience growth like never before.

Why are dips so good for the chest muscles?

When you think about chest exercises you normally think about the bench press, dumbbell press, cable cross overs, incline bench press or machine press. For some reason the dip has not made its way into popular muscle building culture and it is a real shame. However, the fact that we haven’t been using it much means that when we do start to use it our body will take a real shock and you will pack on some muscle very quickly.

Dips are also very natural exercise. You are using your bodyweight in a more advanced way and, like a chin up, the body really struggles to get it done. If you can add weight to your waist and still bang out a few repetitions of a slow dip then you know you are stronger than the average joe. It is a hard exercise and it brings results.

Are there any down sides to the dip?

Yes. There is. The dip often stresses your shoulders far too much. This usually happens when you get on a dip station that is too wide. I have seen people doing weighted dips on a dip station about a metre wide! This is a sure fire way to mess up your shoulder joint. Make sure the equipment you do your dips on is nice and narrow. You should also make sure your lean forward instead of remaining upright. This brings the emphasis back onto the pecs.

Tips to get the most out of the dip

Here are some tips you should make sure you follow if you want to maximize your chest growth.

1. Decline really slow
Make sure the decline part of your dip is super slow. Aim for at least five seconds. This puts a great amount of stress on the muscles and really forces them to work.

2. Push up hard
On the other hand, I like to make the upward part of my dip explosive and fast. This should only be done if you have proven to yourself that your technique is perfect. If you start going fast before your technique is good you will start to bring other muscles into the mix. Not good.

3. Add weight straight away
Don’t wait a few weeks to add weight, add it now! If you add weight early you will get used to the feeling and when you see how much muscle it packs on you will wonder why you didn’t do it earlier.

Do you do weighted dips?

Arnold Schwarzenegger has one of the best bodybuilding chests of all time. In the photo above you can see that his chest was truly huge and we can see that he spent a lot of time working on it. You too can have a chest like Arnie.

How to get huge pecs like Arnold Schwarzenegger

In this article I want to look at some basic tips that people can use to increase the size of their chest. I know a lot of people who have problems hitting their chest and as a result their pecs are lagging behind the rest of their muscles.

1. Spend time tensing the pectoral muscles
One simple tip that can work wonders for you is to spend some time tensing your pectoral muscles before you workout the chest. The reason this is important is because it teaches you how to mentally contract the muscles which in turn makes the weight training more effective. Much of the bench press, for example, is mental.

2. Switch to incline
If you have been doing flat bench presses for a long time because that is what everyone did in high school then it is time to change. The incline bench press hits your upper pecs much more and this is the area that most people are lagging in. It is also a better angle for a deep stretch hit more of the muscles without bringing in other supporting muscles. Many people don’t realize this but the flat bench press works out your shoulders almost as much as your pecs.

3. Switch to dumbbells
When I went to the gym for the first time I remember using dumbbells instead of a barbell. I have never gone back. Dumbbells are the weapon you need to make your chest bigger faster. Using a dumbbells means you can stretch your chest much deeper as you are not limited by the bar across your chest. It also is unbalanced and means your chest needs to work harder to keep the dumbbells steady.

4. Do dips first
Weighted dips are an amazing way to pump up your chest. Generally at the gym people do some bench presses, dumbbell presses and machine presses. They completely ignore the dip station. The reason? They are weak. Dips (with weight) are very hard and hit your chest like nothing else. If you want to increase the size of your pectorals then add some weight to your waist and pump out a few sets of dips first in your workout when your muscles are fresh.

5. Give the chest its own day
Generally if you do a split routine you will pair your chest with your triceps. However, if your chest is lagging behind you might want to give it a separate day for a few weeks until it catches up a little. Hit it hard with volume and heavy weight and see whether the added rest and added work makes a difference.

6. Get that technique down
My best mate and I are always on about how important technique is. It doesn’t matter if you can bench press 1000 pounds, if your technique is poor you will be plagued with injuries and poor muscle growth. Make sure you study the technique for each exercise carefully and spend a lot of time working with light weight to get it right.

Soon your chest will look like Arnie’s!

People often come to Real Muscle Online looking for workouts and routines. They want some magic exercise to boost their muscle size. However, these basic tips are far more important. If you take these tips and apply them to any exercise you will get results.

The article in the magazine talked about “bridging” while doing the bench press. This is where you arch your back while lifting the weight. They passed it off as a great idea saying you will be able to lift more weight and as such improve your muscle growth.

Rubbish.

I hate bodybuilding magazines because they are full of misinformation and hype; they need to fill a whole issue and they don’t care what goes in there.

Check out the post which shows you what bridging looks like and why it is a bad idea.

Variations on the pushup

Simple Workout Tips for Bigger Pecs

There are some simple workout tips you can use to blast your pecs into some new growth. Try these next time you feel your chest growth is a little slow or stagnant?

1. Switch to Dumbbells

About a year ago I switched to dumbbells for my bench press and I have never looked back. The added freedom of movement the dumbbells provide really makes for a much better stretch and allows you to really squeeze the muscles up tightly at the top. This is one of the best things you can do for your chest growth.

2. Switch to an Incline

The flat bench is boring. It works out your shoulders too much and after a while loses a lot of its allure. Switch to an incline bench setting to work a different area of your chest - really try to change the emphasis of your pectoral workout. Many people say the incline helps you target your upper chest but I have found that it just helps me get a much better contraction.

3. Slower Reps

One of the best things you can do is really slow down your reps and focus on getting a nice tight muscle contraction. This will help you far more than any other muscle building strategy. Without good form you will not have good results.

Final Remarks on Getting Bigger Pecs

Bigger pecs come about through a mixture of diet, good training technique and the right mix of exercises. Make sure you are addressing all three aspects and not focussing too much on just the gym stuff.

The full series is Part I, Part II and Part III.

This is Part 2 of our series on brutal backyard shed training. In this post we will be looking at the best bodyweight exercises that you can do at home to build some real size and strength.

Why Bodyweight Exercises?

Many “bodybuilders” dismiss bodyweight exercises as being unprofessional and not hard enough.

They are kidding themselves.

If took the 100 strongest and biggest men in the world I bet you close to 90% of them would spend a lot of time doing bodyweight exercises. Here in Australia we have the Australian Football League which is the toughest sport in the world. The players are big and fast and very strong. If you take a look at their training routine they spend a lot of time doing explosive bodyweight exercises. And it works. Many US NFL players have watched Australian Rules Football and remarked that they are crazy people for playing such a rough game!

So next time someone tells you bodyweight exercises are for beginners you tell them about the AFL players down in Australia.

The reason I have dedicated a whole post to these exercises is that they are easy to do and you don’t need any equipment. You can do them at home by yourself and still get amazing results.

Don’t cheat on your technique

When you are training at home there is the temptation to cheat on your technique a little bit because no one is watching. This is a big mistake that you need to avoid.

If you want to make big gains and not injure yourself you need to make sure your technique is solid. Read as much about every exercise that you do and start off slow. Never try and overdo it because your joints will not forgive you in the long run.

Furthermore, if your technique is poor your muscle gain will also be poor. Each exercise is done in a certain way. It is done that way firstly because it is the safest way and, secondly, because it is the best way to work the muscle. So, if you cheat on your technique you are only cheating yourself.

The best bodyweight exercises for backyard shed training

Now we can get into the real stuff. I am going to present the best few bodyweight exercises that you can do at home in your backyard shed. The are simple but elegant. If you do them correctly and with the right intensity you will see some amazing progress.

1. Clap pushups

Everyone knows how to do these but almost no one does them. The AFL teams make their players do a lot of clap pushups because they are so good for building explosive real world power. They really shock your muscles into growth.

The great thing about the clap pushup is that it forces your muscle to contract and then expand very quickly. Many studies have shown this is the best way to make fast strength gains without damaging or slowing down your muscles. Normal weight lifting, on the other hand, has been shown to slow down your movement. For a martial artist or sportperson this will not do.

How to do a clap pushup -
To do a clap pushup simply get in the normal pushup position and lower yourself down to the bottom. Instead of pushing yourself up as normal you should powerfully push down and cause yourself to jump with your hands. While your hands are off the ground you should clap your hands together under your chest before hitting the ground and repeating. Keep doing this over and over until failure.

2. Dips

Dips are like a bench press but more full on. Many of you are not going to like that statement but it is true. There is literally nothing harder than strapping some heavy weight discs to your weight belt and pumping out a set of dips.

You can make your own dip station at home by setting up two narrow bars parallel from each other. In high school I used to use sturdy old chairs but now I own my own dip and chin station.

How to do a dip -
To correctly do a dip you simply grab on to the two bars and lower yourself down as low as you can. Don’t try to keep your body upright. You should allow yourself to naturally lean forward as this will work both your chest and your triceps. Once you have lowered yourself down fully explode upwards for a fast incline. This will blast your muscles into some serious growth!

It is very important to take care of your shoulders during the dip. I know of many people who have ended up with pretty serious shoulder joint injuries. Never do dips on a dip station where the bars are too wide apart. If you can make your own that is the best idea because you can set it to your own width. The narrower the better.

3. The chin up

When you want to develop full body power and strength as well as adding some serious size you need to work with the chin up. All of best boxers in history had huge backs. Just take a look at Muhummad Ali’s back. It was enormous! The chin up is a poweful way to train your back and biceps and is one of the best ways to add some size in a hurry.

How to do a chin up -
Grab a thick bar with and underhand grip and allow your body to hang free. The thicker the bar the better because this will work your forearms. Once you are comfortable you should pull yourself up as quickly as possible. Imagine that you are pulling with your elbows as this will help you focus on your back muscles. Once you reach the top slowly lower yourself back down to a count of five or six seconds. This is when a lot of the strength is built. The slowe the better.

4. Jumping squats

Do you know the feeling of wanting the throw up because an exercise has pushed you beyond your limits? The jumping squat will do that to you.

The jumping squat is one of the best bodyweight exercises on the planet because it mixes aerobic and anerobic exercise in such an intense way. It will challenge your whole lower body as well as your back and abs and it will make your lungs burn like you are running a 100m sprint. People who stick at the jumping squat (not many do!) are blessed with huge legs, better running power and a truck load of lower body strength.

How to do a jumping squat -
Crouch down in a squatted position with one foot in front of the other. Spring into the air as high as you can and land with your other foot now in front. Allow gravity to take you all the way down to the fully squatted position and then, without any break, spring yourself back into the air again. Repeat this until failure.

5. Frozen crunches

The frozen crunch is something my buddy and I used to use a competiton. We spent so long trying to out do one another and prove that we were better than we never noticed our abs getting really stong. After a few weeks of doing them every night at martial arts practice we noticed some amazing abdominal growth.

How to do a frozen crunch -
The idea is simple. Get in a regular crunch position and crunch yourself up to the top. Instead of lowering yourself back down for a second rep you hold that top position and keep tensing your abs. A great trick is to push down on the floor as hard as you can with your fingers. This makes the contraction even tighter. You can also change which area of your stomach is emphasised by shifting the position of your fingers. If anyone can do longer than a minute of this on their first go I will be impressed.

Conclusion

These five bodyweight exercises take care of the entire body. If you did a workout that consisted of these only you would find you get some amazing overall development. However, you can mix these up with some of the exercises that use cheap equipment. In the next post I will show you some more brutal backyard shed exercises using some of that equipment you’ve got lying around.

Have you ever wondered which is better for your workout? The pushup and the bench press are both exercises that have been used for decades to produce excellent strength and muscle growth but is one better than the other?

This post will look at the advantages and disadvantages of both.

Advantages of the push up

The push up is a classic. Almost everyone uses it from martial artists to bodybuilders. It is popular with the young and old. Here are the main advantages of the push up.

1. Simple to do
The push up does not require that you master and particularly complicated technique or movement. You simply place your hands on the ground, let your body drop and the push yourself back up. Of course, there are things you need to watch out for and ways you can improve your technique but all in all it isn’t that hard.

2. No equipment
You really don’t need any equipment to do a pushup. You can do it it home or at the gym. You can add equipment to the pushup if you like (weight on your back or a chair to elevate leg height) but these are not essential.

3. Many variations
You can change the muscles that you hit bit shifting the position of your hands or adding a little bit of height under your feet. For example, a wide hand placement will target your chest while a narrow one will hit your triceps. I love this about the triceps because if you can’t get to the gym you can get a pretty good upper body workout by using different variations of the pushup. You can even add in things like claps after each pushup. There is no way you could do this with a bench press!

4. Safe
As far as exercises go the push up is pretty safe. You don’t have to worry about a massive bar falling on your chest and not being able to lift it up! You laugh but it has happened to everyone.

5. Muscle tension and expansion
When you do an explosive exercise like the clap pushup your muscles tense and then expand in a very short amount of time. This has been shown by science to improve a persons strength and power more than any other exercise. It has also been shown to do this without slowing down the muscles like heavy weights can do. Many football players use this technique to develop speed, power and strength all in one exercise. This is the main advantage that the pushup has over the bench press.

Advantages of the bench press

Ah the bench press! One of the king bodybuilding exercises famed for it’s ability to bring massive muscles growth results. Used by people everywhere. Here are the main advantages of the bench press.

1. Massive weight
The leading advantage of the bench press (as compared to the pushup) is that it allows you to handle a lot more weight. When you do the pushup you are restricted by how much weight you can add. Off course, you can add weights into a backpack or something like that but it is not where near as easy as the bench press.

Adding more weight allows you to progress and challenge your muscles. If you lift the same weight all the time (your body) you are bound to reach a point that you cannot get beyond. This is the distinctive reason as to why the bench press outdoes the pushup.

2. Variety
Incline, decline, flat, barbell, dumbbell, heavy, light… there are so many different ways to change the bench press and this makes it a very important tool.

Changing your workout is very important if you want to make constant progress. Your body adapts to hardship and that is how you make muscle or strength gains. If you do not keep changing it up your body will have no reason to grow and adapt. Keep mixing it up all the time by taking advantage of the different methods of training. If you are targeting your chest and triceps the bench press provides many methods to keep your workout different.

Conclusion
The best idea would be to use both of these great exercises for a more well rounded approach. Each one has its own distinct advantages and as such should be given due consideration. It is impossible to say one is completely better than the other because it is impossible to know what each person’s goals are.