[quote]JoeG254 wrote:
Really, fly movements are going to cause enough of a response to put on a a decent amount of mass without pressing movements =[/quote]
A 270 lb. bench press puts the same amount of stress on the pecs as a 90 lb. fly.
When you bench, the load is being distributed among the shoulders, triceps, and pecs.
When you do flys properly, the load is going on the pecs and nowhere else.
270/3 = 90
Use more muscles = increased load distribution = move more weight
There is nothing special about it and it doesn’t result in greater stimulation of any one muscle group (the opposite is true, in fact).
Compounds also shift stress away from muscles and onto the bone structure, which further dimishes hypertrophy potential.
Did I mention the use of momentum with heavy compounds? Subtract even more stress from the target muscle group.
Did I mention stabilizers? Subtract even more stress from the target muscle group.
Give a little here, give a little there.
Pretty soon, you get a 300 lb. bench which is roughly equivalent, in terms of potential for chest hypertrophy, to doing flyes with a pair 15 lb. dumbbells.
Which is precisely why so many “strong” guys don’t really look the part, and most of them have a bad attitude about it (“powa-lifta? I thought he was one of those competitive eaters”.
To suggest other than I’ve written is to make a mockery of simple physics and mechanics
You CAN’T get something for nothing. Energy is always conserved.
If you can do 100 lbs max on one exercise, and 300 lbs. on another, recognize that you are giving something up in order to lift heavier on the second exercise. The amount you are “giving up” is going to be proportional to the amount that you gain in the lift. There is no net change, you have not actually “increased” anything. You’ve simply swapped coefficients in an equation.
Physics for fatboys.
The fastest way to hypertrophy is to perfectly isolate the biomechanical function of a muscle and subject it to extreme tension within that ROM. Weight, reps, and sets are almost irrelevant, muscles only know tension. You should train for the pump because it lets you know that’ve targetted the muscle accurately. Your workout ends when the muscle is fully pumped. You train it again as soon as the DOMs subsides.
There’s the manifesto. If this goes against everything that has ever been written on this site, recognize that it should. There is a reason why T-Nation has begun to cater to the hypertrophy-minded crowd after beginning as a haven for fatboys. Real powerlifters only exist in Ohio and on internet forums. Everybody else wants to be a bodybuilder.