old veteran, asking new training question

[musclehed275]

As in previous threads, i told people im an experienced lifter, competed in the 80's, on the national level, but recently made a comback..Wow, how things have changed! All we used to do, for the bench, was regular presses off the chest, some close grips and shoulder work and thats it! now that i have made the come back im doing board presses bands,chains, speed bench etc...my question is, on ME day, do you guys do any kind of pec work at all? and when? I mean like inclines or flat dumbell presses? When i went to the Arnold Classic, three westside guys either tore or "twanged" there pecks, and Jammie Harris was there, and he had just recently tore his pec! Fussner tore his pretty badly and Halbert twanged his in the warm up room. One of them made a comment that they felt they needed more pec work..just wanted some opinions bros!!

 

[powerlifterjay]

I actually do a modified versin of westside. I raw bench on monday and follow it with assitance (floors , exten, etc). BUt even if i alter my raw bench i will still do full reps heavy. With bands down or up pec work if you wanna call i that will help.

I read that George does do pec work. If i recall he says he does like a 2 brd bench with a cambered bar. He uses the 2 brd to keep from going all the way down but enough to go below regular bench level. Understand?

My advice and its what we do, dont ever run short on tri work. But balst your pecs as well. Now that you have denim you can see what a difference shirts have become. With that you also know how important the lockout is with those shirts. So brds are the most important in my opinion. Reason why i do nto do speed work IS because i still raw bench. If you dont raw bench you better hit some speed work. It will be th eonly lower movemnt your pecs will feel. BUt wether you raw bench or speed bench you could always benitit from some dumbell work.

 

[IrishPower]

I tore my pec off before I ever started westside stuff.

It could NOT have been from lack of raw benching. I was doing crazy amounts of raw benching. 315x20, 405x8 (close grip).... blah, blah, flies, incline presses, decline presses, and all that crap.

However, since I have started coming back this past year, I have converted most of my bench training over to westside, dropping most of the repped bench work. I do believe in flushing blood in there so i will use dumbells almost every week. I do them with a modified style where you keep the dumbell handle parallel to your body and you elbows tucked. I keep the reps between 15 - 30 per set and do them almost every week, sometimes heavy, sometimes light.

Remember, at the arnold classic, all those lifters are ELITE as hell. THey are all pressing monster weight. I think it was a major coincidence that a lot of them got hurt at the same time. I don't care how you get there (westside or conventional), when you get up over 600lbs, you are going to be at risk for an injury.

take care.
/irish

 

[BigWh1tey]

Irish hit that nail on the head . High rep neutral grip Db press as prehab/rehab brought me back and kept me healthy ( from a minor pec tear while doing a bodybuilding style J bench). I don't think you can stress prehab and hypertrophy work(and active recovery/feeder workouts ) around the weak points ( joints ) too much. 50-100 rep sets depending on the bodypart .

 

[powerlifterjay]

Oh hell ya, in regards to dumbell AR work. I do them twice a week, usually i get weights from 30 lbs dumbells to 50lbs and do dumbell presses of the stability ball for up to 3 minutes non stop. I just started getting to GPP/AR work in the last several weeks and wish i would have done it before. Excellent!