Specialization Training Split - Chest

Want to have big pecs on which you can even put wine glasses? Here is what you can do.

This article is the response for those who asked the workout plans for putting on serious mass on the chest. Before diving into workout, please remember that it's more important to have balanced muscles than to have one muscle group dominantly huge.

Serious mass on chest - Power, Strength, hypertrophy

Okay, let's commit to a chest specialization routine and after completing the 4 weeks, go back to a generic split or full-body style workout for 2 weeks and then move to a new routine. If you decide to run the chest specialization a second time, give it a good 3 to 4 months before you go again. Once you see the results just 4 short weeks can give your chest, as I mentioned above it'll be time to bring your other body parts up to the same standard.

Monday: Chest (Power/Activation Workout)

Tuesday: Legs

Wednesday: Chest (Strength)

Thursday: Off/Cardio

Friday: Chest (Hypertrophy)

Saturday: Back/Biceps/Shoulders

Sunday: Off/Cardio

1. Monday – Power/Activation Workout

Make this your first session of the week. The idea is to prime your body for the strength and hypertrophy sessions to come. The research says that by making the first weekly workout speed and power-based, people perform better in the strength session a couple of days later than if they just go straight into a heavy, low-rep workout on Monday. The goal of this session is to move the bar quickly and explosively, while avoiding slow or grinding reps.

1) Push-ups

- 6 sets of 2 to 3 reps (or as many as you need to feel like you're powerful and good to go) and focus on movement speed and explosiveness. You could do Clap push-ups, drop push-ups.

2) 1 rep max hold

- 6 sets of 10 to 20 seconds. Hold with 100-120% of your 1 rep max, or a static press against pins in a power rack.

3) Pin press

- 6 sets of 3 to 5 reps. Pin presses

4) Isolation movement (Dumbbell Fly or bench press)

- 4 sets of 10.

2. Wednesday – Strength Session

This is your heavy lifting session (Allow 48 hours after your activation session before hitting this).

1) Bench press

- One tough set of 3 to 6 reps. Don't go to failure yet. Stop 1 to 2 reps short of failure on each set. Start with a bench press or incline barbell presses, or presses with chains.

2) Incline / decline dumbbell press

- 3 sets of 6 to 8. Stop 1 to 2 reps short of failure on each set.

3) Weighted body-weight exercise

- 3 sets of 6 to 8. Weighted dips or a push-up variation such as decline push-ups, elevated push-ups or ring push-ups.

4) Dumbbell Fly

- 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps.

5) Dumbbell press

- 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps.

3. Friday – Hypertrophy Session

This is the session every meathead looks forward to most. You'll get a serious chest pump, yet still move some heavy weight. The goal of this session is to get as much blood into the muscle as possible, which means higher reps, slower tempos, and shorter rest periods.

1) Decline barbell (or dumbbell) press

- 4 sets of 8 to 12. Move the weight fast on the way up, squeeze the peak contraction for 2 seconds, and then lower for a count of 2. Get a good stretch in the bottom position and then explode up again.

2) Pre-exhaust superset

- 4 rounds in total. Keep constant tension on your chest.

set 1 : 10 to 12 reps on cable crossovers (or machine flyes or dumbbell flyes)

set 2 : 10 to 12 reps on barbell (or smith incline) press with a wide grip

Round 1 (set1, set 2) > rest (60 sec) > Round 2 (set 1, set 2) > rest (60 sec) ...

3) Chest press machine

- 2 triple drop sets.

Start with a weight you can move for a good 8 to 10 reps. Go to failure, then drop the weight by 20% and go to failure again. Drop the weight again by about 20% and rep out again. Rest 3 minutes. Then go through a second triple drop.

4) Push-ups

- Set a timer for 2 minutes and get as many reps as you can. You'll probably find that to begin with, you may even need to drop to knee push-ups to get in more than just a handful of reps. As you progress week to week, either increase your reps or bump up the time.

As for other parts, stick to mainly compound exercises and perform no more than five movements in each session. No exercises in your accessory workouts should be taken anywhere near failure. Going too hard in these sessions will impact your recovery, leading to sub-par chest growth.

Stick to 3 to 4 sets of 6 to 10 reps on all exercises, leaving 1 to 2 reps in the tank on all sets. Don't aim to progress your lifts on these days – save your energy for the chest workouts.