[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
tveddy wrote:
I think that you can get enough chest work with bench press variations alone.
I disagree actually. Some people, such as myself, get almost NO chest stimulation out of a traditional barbell bench press. For me, I have never had my chest feel sore or even worked doing barbell bench, only my shoulders and triceps.
I’ve never really felt that flies did all the much for me. Cable crossovers were alright, but I still felt like my front delts were taking over. I get a wicked pump from the pec deck, although I don’t use it that often.
One exercise that surprised me with how much I felt it working the chest was doing pushups with the suspended straps, I guess the increased range of motion you can go through helped.[/quote]
Try a wider grip, using pause reps, and tell me it doesn’t hit your chest.
I am going to disagree with almost everyone else here, I LOVE FLIES. Done properly (keep elbows slightly bent, lower weight to your ear level, raise to the lower chest level, use heavy weight, get a good stretch at the bottom…) I find them an excellent exercise for chest.
You can also use them to pre-exhuast your pecs and then follow them with bench presses with no rest to double pump the chest.
[quote]dswithers wrote:
I am going to disagree with almost everyone else here, I LOVE FLIES. Done properly (keep elbows slightly bent, lower weight to your ear level, raise to the lower chest level, use heavy weight, get a good stretch at the bottom…) I find them an excellent exercise for chest.
You can also use them to pre-exhuast your pecs and then follow them with bench presses with no rest to double pump the chest.[/quote]
You do an isolation movement before compound? I’ve never heard of that. Has anyone else?
[quote]jtrinsey wrote:
Damn, one comment on how barbell bench doesn’t work my chest and all of the sudden I’m being double-dog dared into things…
I’ve done the wide grip, done the 1 and a half reps, all they did was wreck my shoulders the next day.
Dumbell presses, blast-strap pushups and dips have been working for me so far, if they stop working, I’ll change something.[/quote]
Not daring you or anything, but have you tried tucking your elbows in a little, and bringing the bar a little lower? It should help to take some of the strain away from your shoulders.
I used to have shoulder problems from benching around 235-250 with “bodybuilder form”, but once I switched to more of a “powerlifter form” I have been able to go up to 365 without any shoulder pain.
Now the tucked elbow form comes natural to me, and I automatically use it for any bench variation, including the 1 and a half reps and I felt it mostly in my chest, and barely at all in my shoulders.
Also, doing a lot more rowing seemed to help my shoulder pain a lot.
[quote]tveddy wrote:
dswithers wrote:
I am going to disagree with almost everyone else here, I LOVE FLIES. Done properly (keep elbows slightly bent, lower weight to your ear level, raise to the lower chest level, use heavy weight, get a good stretch at the bottom…) I find them an excellent exercise for chest.
You can also use them to pre-exhuast your pecs and then follow them with bench presses with no rest to double pump the chest.
You do an isolation movement before compound? I’ve never heard of that. Has anyone else?
[/quote]
No, and I would live to see some evidence of the size he has built by training that way.
I get the feeling there are a bunch of skinny dudes logging in giving what exercises they like best. I am not sure what that has to do at all with what exercises actually work best for building size and strength.
I never got the whole pre-exhaust thing. Why would I want to render my muscles less able to handle heavy loads on my main lifts? I’ve heard all the theory behind it and I have nothing against specialized techniques as a whole, but that one never added up to me. I’d rather just learn the exercises properly than use tricks to emphasize one part of a chain.
I started doing them about 4 weeks ago. I really dont like the exercise because I feel I get better stimulation from presses. I also fnd they bug my shoulder a bit.
I may try telle flies or a fly/press combo CT has mentioned (go to faliure on flies then rep out to failure with db bench press).
I thought I recall reading a story of someone saying they saw Yates at some Gold’s Gym (or something like that) doing 100lb db flies. Worked for him? Maybe it’s done for aesthetics and not strength training.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
I never got the whole pre-exhaust thing. Why would I want to render my muscles less able to handle heavy loads on my main lifts? I’ve heard all the theory behind it and I have nothing against specialized techniques as a whole, but that one never added up to me. I’d rather just learn the exercises properly than use tricks to emphasize one part of a chain.[/quote]
I totally agree. I never bought into pre-exhausting. I don’t see the advantage. That would be like burning the hell out of your abs and then doing heavy squat work. It seems to me that there also would be a greater chance for injury. Just a thought.
[quote]tveddy wrote:
dswithers wrote:
I am going to disagree with almost everyone else here, I LOVE FLIES. Done properly (keep elbows slightly bent, lower weight to your ear level, raise to the lower chest level, use heavy weight, get a good stretch at the bottom…) I find them an excellent exercise for chest.
You can also use them to pre-exhuast your pecs and then follow them with bench presses with no rest to double pump the chest.
You do an isolation movement before compound? I’ve never heard of that. Has anyone else?
[/quote]
I have done this in the past when I had limited weight available. Pre-exhaust by doing flyes and then immediately go to presses.
It was hard and I got sore the next day but it is hard to judge true progress.
Pre-exhausting is a technique that really only works with certain muscles, and usually for people at higher levels of development.
An example - if you normally have trouble building you upper chest, doing limited range flyes with a focus on the sternal/lower head of the chest is a decent way to pre-exhaust. Keeps your tris fairly fresh, etc. Immediately after the fly, jump on an incline bench, and hit the clavicular head.
Theoretically, your upper chest has to work harder to compensate for the lack of force being produced by the fatigued lower chest, which still obviously assists to some degree, even in incline movements.
Something along those lines. That is really the only way I have found to incorporate pre-exhausting methods and actually make them work.
On a personal note, I normally only do stuff like that after I’ve already done some compound movements. So maybe it’s more of a “mid-exhaust.” Maybe if it were a true pre-exhaust it wouldn’t really work. Or maybe it actually doesn’t work at all. I dunno.
Also just wanted to mention that pre-exhausting is probably only really popular in the HIT community. When you measure the intensity of your training by failure, pre-ex. is an easy way to convince yourself that you’ve done a significantly greater amount of work than you actually have. Your level of fatigue will be greater, which is one way a lot of HIT people seem to gauge training stimulus.
One other thing to remember about pre-exhaustion techniques is that they are very effective for increasing strength endurance of a given muscle. Used over a short term, you may notice that you don’t experience as much perormance drop off in the later sets of traditional movements.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
No, and I would live to see some evidence of the size he has built by training that way.
I get the feeling there are a bunch of skinny dudes logging in giving what exercises they like best. I am not sure what that has to do at all with what exercises actually work best for building size and strength.[/quote]
Thats what I thought too. Glad its not just me.
I’ve always believed your first lift should also be the most important lift. If its not then you are wasting energy that could be used on something more important. If you do flys before bench, then your chest will get tired before you can work your tris well. This will mess with your bench technique because you’ll be moving the bar differently.
[quote]tveddy wrote:
Professor X wrote:
No, and I would live to see some evidence of the size he has built by training that way.
I get the feeling there are a bunch of skinny dudes logging in giving what exercises they like best. I am not sure what that has to do at all with what exercises actually work best for building size and strength.
Thats what I thought too. Glad its not just me.
I’ve always believed your first lift should also be the most important lift. If its not then you are wasting energy that could be used on something more important. If you do flys before bench, then your chest will get tired before you can work your tris well. This will mess with your bench technique because you’ll be moving the bar differently.
[/quote]
I have never heard of someone pre-exhausting their chest…before training chest. I have heard of pre-exhausting the TRICEPS before training chest, but like written, I would love to see the amazing development this has helped to build.
[quote]John Roman wrote:
Also just wanted to mention that pre-exhausting is probably only really popular in the HIT community. When you measure the intensity of your training by failure, pre-ex. is an easy way to convince yourself that you’ve done a significantly greater amount of work than you actually have. Your level of fatigue will be greater, which is one way a lot of HIT people seem to gauge training stimulus.[/quote]
The above sounds like you hold a somewhat disdainful view of this technique.
[quote]John Roman also wrote:
One other thing to remember about pre-exhaustion techniques is that they are very effective for increasing strength endurance of a given muscle. Used over a short term, you may notice that you don’t experience as much performance drop off in the later sets of traditional movements.[/quote]
Then this. I’m not jumping on you, but I honestly don’t understand what you mean by this second part. How would pre exhausting a muscle lend itself to higher sustained performance in later sets, even over the short term? If anything, you would think the opposite would be true.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
tveddy wrote:
Professor X wrote:
No, and I would live to see some evidence of the size he has built by training that way.
I get the feeling there are a bunch of skinny dudes logging in giving what exercises they like best. I am not sure what that has to do at all with what exercises actually work best for building size and strength.
Thats what I thought too. Glad its not just me.
I’ve always believed your first lift should also be the most important lift. If its not then you are wasting energy that could be used on something more important. If you do flys before bench, then your chest will get tired before you can work your tris well. This will mess with your bench technique because you’ll be moving the bar differently.
I have never heard of someone pre-exhausting their chest…before training chest. I have heard of pre-exhausting the TRICEPS before training chest, but like written, I would love to see the amazing development this has helped to build.[/quote]
I tend to agree. As I said I have done it when I only had a set of dumbbells that were a bit too light.
It will make you sore but it won’t really make you stronger and it didn’t seem to be a mass builder.
I would not recommend it unless you were stuck with limited equipment and were sick of doing pushups.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Professor X wrote:
tveddy wrote:
Professor X wrote:
No, and I would live to see some evidence of the size he has built by training that way.
I get the feeling there are a bunch of skinny dudes logging in giving what exercises they like best. I am not sure what that has to do at all with what exercises actually work best for building size and strength.
Thats what I thought too. Glad its not just me.
I’ve always believed your first lift should also be the most important lift. If its not then you are wasting energy that could be used on something more important. If you do flys before bench, then your chest will get tired before you can work your tris well. This will mess with your bench technique because you’ll be moving the bar differently.
I have never heard of someone pre-exhausting their chest…before training chest. I have heard of pre-exhausting the TRICEPS before training chest, but like written, I would love to see the amazing development this has helped to build.
I tend to agree. As I said I have done it when I only had a set of dumbbells that were a bit too light.
It will make you sore but it won’t really make you stronger and it didn’t seem to be a mass builder.
I would not recommend it unless you were stuck with limited equipment and were sick of doing pushups. [/quote]
Yeah, and in your first post you sounded as if you don’t do it anymore. I’ve tried a lot of hocus pocus training but I always have decided traditional methods to be better.