i have started doing chest and tri's on the same day and it seems that most people who do this do chest before tri's. my chest just won't seem to grow that much so i am trying out doing tri's first to burn them out before i do chest. my belief is that all my chest exercises will be using only my chest because my tri's have no strength left and this will give me a better chest workout. am i wrong in thinking this? my weights are obviously lower now when i do chest but i don't care as long as my chest grows. just wondering what people here think.

Ozo: Hate to break it to you; but yeah, you're wrong. Your triceps are secondary movers for all of your chest pressing activities. They're an essential component to heavy benching. If your triceps are exhausted before you attempt chest; you'll be at an immediate disadvantage because you're not pushing as much.

Just because a muscle is tired doesn't mean it won't be firing during an activity. You're chest may not be growing for a number of reasons 1) overtraining 2) you haven't give it enough time to really see reults 3) not execising apppropriately 4) genetics.

Keep chest before triceps; or better yet...do triceps on a different day.

Adler, don't forget diet, unless he's eating right, he won't grow no matter what he does in the gym.

You have to eat more than your body needs to function to grow. You also (probably) need to up your protein intake. Try to take in 1 gram per lb of bodyweight.

yep. Diet and rest are the keys to the kingdom my friend!

If you do tri's on the same day as chest, burn the chest out first and completely.

Also, do not skip your shoulders! Strong shoulders will help make your chest appear larger. And, they are a key ingredient to a massive chest.

Boost yourself with some carbs (about 200 calories worth) an hour before your workout and finish the workout with 300 calories (~75% carbs and 25% protein) immediately after.

Don't forget to drink 1 to 1.5 gallons of water everyday and get plenty of sleep and workout rest!

Good-luck,
Rip

My guess is that you're not strong in the mind-muscle connection with your chest muscles...so you end up using more shoulder and tricep to do pressing moves.

My suggestion is to stick to dumbbell presses 90% of the time. This allows for a more natural range of motion, where you can actually do a bit of a flye move, and squeeze the pecs more. Once you start feeling it, you'll start connecting with the muscle, and should utilize it more.

I agree with Allen, I agree with Rip and I agree with Malkore...and you know how that makes me crazy !

All very good advice; diet is key, shoulders are supremely important (work them carefully and deliberately) and dumbell press is a good way to prepare for barbell.

hi i was wondering if there is an "easier" way to get enough protein into my body. i am 5"8 and weight about 130lb. i read that you should aim to eat atleast 1g of protein per lb of body weight.. i read that one egg only had 3g of protein which means i would have to eat about 40 eggs a day to get enough protein.. would be greatful for any info on this. also i hardly ever have an apitite.

Tommy: Yes, 1 gram per pound body weight is a good goal to shoot for.
1 large egg has 6 grams of protein but eggs aren't the only source of protein.
Beef, Chicken, Fish, Cottage Cheese, Whey Protein Powders are all sources of protein. at 130 Lbs; it shouldnt' be difficult to get in enough protein. 1 large can of tuna fish has around 50 grams, A serving of cottage cheese usually has around 15. Right there you're half way to your goal.

your stomach will adjust to the extra food, you might have to force it for a bit...but you'll get used to it.

I wish I only weighed 130 for my protein, trying to get in 230g everyday is an expensive procedure not to mention hard to get that much down. Don't know what I'll do when I weigh more, hopefully the new muscle will allow me to moonlight at a strip club and pick up some money from those horny housewives.

Acctually, back to the origial point of working the chest...
I have the same problem, my arms tire ages before my chest. I found that the best way to deal with this is to do 2extra exersises in between.

I'll use my weights as an example, but change to whatever you lift.
I bench press Dbells for stability, not a bar bell. I use 24kg each.
So take 8kgs and a 16kgs to the bench as well.

1st, i do 10 flys with the 8kg. - no rest
2nd, 10 bench presses with the 16s, but once you get half way up, go back down then push all the way slowly. So for each rep ur actually doing the hradest part twice.

Now ur bloods going and uve not really used ur tri's too much.

have a mins rest and pump out 6-8 or ur best bench presses.

and that folks is one set. try 3.

I agree that diet is very important to growing mass on any part of your body. However, I know many individuals who cannot spark gains in their chest no matter how many calories they take in. One of my previous workout partners had huge triceps, and a flat chest. A few factors have to be taken into consideration here.
1) Many people have different pressing inclinations. Some press more with their triceps and shoulders, and some naturally press with their chest.
2) THE WORKOUT. I rarely come across a natural lifter who can make good gains by working their chest only once per week.
3) Too many exersizes. Somewhere along the way some lifter got it into his head that more exersizes will magically lead to greater gains. One compound movement and MAYBE and isolation exersize is all you need per workout.

---My opinions on chest training---

I've always experienced growth in my chest. I believe a small part does have to do with genetics, but at the same time I believe my workout structure has a lot to do with it. My workout does not consist of supersets, pre-exhaustion, drop sets, massive sets, failure training, or fancy exersizes (cable crossovers, peck deck, flied, ect.). My exersize selection has, for the most part, consisted of the following:
Bench press
Incline Bench press
Dips

My rep schemes and weight amounts vary widely, but the exersize selection has stayed the same. In the end, adding more plates is what will lead to the most growth on any area of your body. Strength increases, in the long run, are what will lead to growth. You may see some initial gains without any strength increases at all. This is not to say that you do not have to keep your volume up, but adding plates and reps each workout is what will lead to growth.

Compound movements will lead to the greatest amount of hypertrophy.

Take, for instance, flat bench flyes (vs) flat bench press.
Flat bench press 10rm=215
Flat bench fly 10rm=40

215x4setsx10reps=8600 total tonage
40x4setsx10reps=1600 total tonage

I prity much do the same as genius except I also do negative's set and switch with dumbells. o an a negative is where you do more weight than you can lift, and you have a partner help you lift it up and you bring it down as slow as you can, it's easy to hurt yourself so make sure you have a competent partner.

Please do not take offense, but why lift something you cannot lift yourself? Negatives, in my personal opinion, are useless. Lift a weight you can handle for the amount of reps on your agenda for the workout.

well I could easly be wrong. but from what I know negatives serve to shock the muscles, and to overload them as well. this in turn well help with continued hypertrophy, help avoid plataues, the major effect of positives is increase of brute strength. Volume, on the other hand, is where negatives come into play. This is supposed to be related to the difference of increased Motoric Unit effiency (in the muscle fibers) vs. when the muscle fibers are being torn apart. it's also been speculated that your body will use more effort in performing the exercise because it is believed that are unconciously going beond the natural safty limits your body has (that last part is hard to explan) in the end there is a good amount of evidence that suggests this help build optimal muscle mass, however there is no absolute proof. also from what I know nagatives are not to be used everywork out or anything close like that, it's more of a once every month sorta thing. also instead of useing more weight you can have your spoter or praferable spoter's press down on the weight. this can be used for any exercise not just chest.

Pre-exhaustion of your triceps can be done, which would cause your chest to pick up the slack. Triceps are very rarely the sticking point for trainees on the heavy, unilateral pressing movements anways. Your shoulders will almost always cause you to fail, or stick, on your pressing movements. Pre-exhaustion could be a practical solution, or a welcome change of pace for someone looking for different methods to spark gains on a lagging, or stale, chest workout.

However, at your early stage of lifting I would not recommend this. As I stated earlier, you will gain the most mass off of heavy, compound movements in which you lift to gain reps/weight. Pick one of your favorite chest exersizes, pick 3 different rep ranges, and perform that chest exersize (along with total body work) no more than 3 times weekly, and no fewer than 2 times per week utilizing different parameters. Example,

Monday:5x5, rest 60s, tempo 10X
Flat Barbell bench press
(Other total body work)

Wednesday: 3x10, rest 120s, tempo 13X
Db Incline Bench press
(other total body work)

Friday: 2x15, rest 2-3 min, tempo 10X
Dips
(other total body work)

A very solid routine structure for beginner and advanced lifters is "Total Body Training" by world known strength and conditioning coach Chad Waterbury.
www.t-nation.com, do a search for "Total Body Training"
Scott