Are You Training Your Chest Wrong? In this video you are about to discover how to get a bigger chest by implementing a training strategy that may be completely new to you. We turn to the teachings of the late Mike Mentzer to give us some pointers on how we can change the way we do our chest exercises, and all of our workouts, to get bigger pecs for the long haul. It starts with a statement from Mentzer that the best exercise for chest and chest development is, without a doubt, the dip. Now, keep in mind that the dip also works the triceps and shoulders. If you focus on the angle of your body when performing the dip, you will be able to more effectively target either the triceps or chest while also targeting your shoulders in the process. Build Big Chest Here: http://athleanx.com/x/chest-like-mentzer Subscribe to this channel here: / @athleanx With that being said, is he right? Well, it all starts with knowing how to train for a bigger chest and that means getting the tempo right. You’re probably doing your chest exercises too fast. Slow down. Try doing a cadence of 3-4 seconds up and 4-5 seconds down and see how much harder this chest exercise becomes. Even if you have to lower the weight, that’s okay. The key is to make your chest work harder. This revolves around the science of muscle building which tells us that there are 3 different types of contractions; concentric, isometric or holding, and eccentric or lowering the weight. You’re stronger eccentrically and weaker concentrically. If you want to build a muscle to the max, in this case you need to generate the maximum amount of tension in your chest. To do that, take advantage of the science of contraction. That being said, instead of doing it with the chest station as shown here, I choose to do it with the dip exercise mentioned above. But first, let’s discuss the pre-exhaustion exercise combination you can do as a chest workout and get the biggest gains. This consists of an adduction exercise for chest isolation followed immediately by a compound exercise such as the incline bench press. I don't particularly like performing the incline bench press with a barbell as it bothers my shoulders, but you can certainly do it. I like doing the incline bench press with dumbbells better. The key is to make sure you use a close grip when performing the bench press. This will shift more of the focus to the triceps which, following the pre-exhaustion of the cable fly, will help you push the chest closer to its fully overloaded state. So I start with a standing cable fly and perform each rep slowly and deliberately. Trying not to engage the triceps by locking the elbows and keeping them stationary. Lift for a count of 3-4 seconds and lower for a count of 3-4 seconds. Some will want to do a dumbbell bench fly here, but I don't recommend it. Lifting to a failure rep range of 6-10 is not best for this exercise. It's too vulnerable for the shoulders and it's best to perform a chest exercise where this risk is minimized. Mike Mentzer preferred to do this on a pec station and a close-grip incline bench press using a machine, but you can choose whatever variations you prefer. The key is to strategically slow down the tempo. Now, Mentzer always recommended performing only one set to absolute failure for a muscle group (sometimes consisting of a combination of pre-exhaustion exercises as shown here) and being done with your workout. However, I don't think it has to be that way. Especially if you don't have access to spotters who will allow you to perform the forced reps demonstrated by Mike in this video, I think you'll still have a little more gas in the tank to do something else. This is where you perform that dip at all three levels of failure. Remember, the dip was the exercise that Mike Mentzer felt was best for developing the chest, shoulders, and triceps and it was particularly good here because it allowed him to work the lower chest, whereas the first two parts of the combo focused primarily on the middle and upper chest. Finally, Mike advises against staying in the bottom position of any rep. I don't agree at all. When done with proper positioning, this is the most anabolic part of the rep. Don't ignore the stimulus of stretch overload when it comes to building a bigger chest. You want to apply a deep stretch to the pecs and the bottom of the dip is a great place to do that.