Chest, Front and Side Delts, Triceps Workout

How I currently train!

The best Chest, Front and Side Delts, Triceps workout in the world!

This is my favourite workout, mainly because of how much better I look after the workout (with my chest, depts and triceps all pumped up). Very egocentric I know but I'm only human! It's very motivational to see how good you can look with bigger delts and arms and it really spurs me on to train harder, wanting to get to that size without a pump. Having said that it's also the shortest of the two upper body workouts.

I need to note that I tore my left pec eight years ago or so and so my chest workout is limited because of this. You may wish to amend the chest workout to suit your needs. I would mention however that even though most bodybuilders love training chest and do anything to get big pecs your physique will actually benefit more from larger delts over larger chest. If I had to choose between massive delts and a small chest or a big chest and small delts I'd take delts over pecs every time. Delts make or break a physique where flat pecs can be masked or aren't visible in many poses. What I'm trying to say is save your energies for delts and triceps - don't knacker yourself out on twenty sets for chest!

Chest

Incline dumbell press x 3/4 sets (inc. warm up sets, pyramid) x 15 - 20 reps
Standing incline cable flyes x 3/4 sets 15 - 20 reps

Delts

Side raises 1 x 10kg x 20 reps, 1 x 15kg x 15 reps, 1 x 20kg x 8 reps + partials, 4 - 5 sets of 12.5kg / 10kg x 10 - 15 reps
Seated machine or dumbell presses x 3 / 4 sets (inc. warm ups) x 10 - 20 reps

Triceps

Rope pushdowns 3 / 4 sets, pyramid, 15 - 20 reps
Standing bent-over overhead rope extentions x 3 sets, 15 - 20 reps
Dumbell triceps kickbacks / seated dumbell french presses x 2 sets 15 - 20 reps

That's it! Takes less than an hour, including warm-up exercises and stretches.

Chest is as I said a fairly low key affair - I have to be really careful not just with my torn left pec but also my right pec as it has so much scar tissue in it that it is constantly threatening to let go. As I said, do yourself a favour and don't injure yourself if you want long term success in bodybuilding. I execute each rep slowly and carefully and really pay attention to the feelings in my pecs - if there's any significant pain or sensation I'll reduce my weights or do more stretching / warm ups.

My side raises are the key feature of the workout. This is one area of my training that has changed in recent times. It uses the FST-7 high volume principle to really pump up the side delts to try and stretch the fascia around the muscle. It seems to help, my side delts have really improved since adopting this techique and if you have any laggin bodyparts I highly recommend this technique. I pyramid up to 20kg and then drop down to a lighter weight, 10kg or 12.5kg dumbells depending on how I feel, and rep out for 4 or 5 more sets, with 30 - 45 seconds rest between each set, just enough time to get my breath back a bit. By the end of it my side delts are pumped up to the maximum - feels great!

I'm a big believer in not doing too many specific front delt exercises. This is because they get worked hard during chest and so it is easy to do a lot of front delt work and either overtrain or end up with out of proportion front delts when compared to your side and rear delts. Because of this I just do the one exercise, either machine or dumbell presses, and keep the reps high just ot pump them up and hopefully stretch the fascia a bit.

A quick breather and then I'm on to triceps, probably my favourite muscle group to train as I get tremendous pumps. I keep the weights comparatively light and really squeeze the triceps each rep and try to get as many reps as I can. I prefer isolation exercises for triceps over compound movements like close grip bench presses as my motto is that your muscles don't know what exercise you are doing, only how hard they have to contract. Since I have pec problems I prefer to leave them out of the equation and just do isolation exercises. It also helps me focus better on my triceps and so I can really squeeze and feel the muscles working - get a great mind-muscle connection.

I love rope pushdowns as you can do them hands apart until failure and then put your hands together to squeeze out more reps as you are stronger in this position. It's like being able to give yourself a few forced reps and takes you further into failure. I'm a big fan on advanced techniques like this that allow you to up the intensity and so reduce the number of sets you need to do.

Nothing exceptional to report about the remaining two triceps exercises, I just do the same as above and really try to feel them, and go to failure on each remaining set. By the end of the workout my triceps are so pumped that it is painful to tense them. Fantastic! :)

Next up is my current leg workout!

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