"shocking" muscles

[tallnskinny]

i have noticed that my chest gains have plateued lately ..when this happend in the past i would either take a week off or change my routine but this time around nothin seems to get my chest to grow. I was hearing alot about how muscles get used to working out and stop growing as a result , since i started training i have followed a basic routine , ie each muscle group trained once a week
so i was wondering if i could shock my chest into growing by my doin heavy training like 3 times a week for 2 weeks and then resting for a week or so. i know this might be considered overtraining.but i would only be doin it for a short period of time.
anyway your thoughts on this would help . Thank you

 

[b fold the truth]

What does your current program look like?

You could do a light day and a heavy day.

You could do your normal workout and another "feeder" workout later in the week.

Superset everything for chest maybe...

B True

 

[tallnskinny]

well ive done the light day/heavy day stuff before the light day always interfers with my other routines.(my schedual is pretty messed lol)

so well here is my current routine

flat bench- 4 6-8
dips 3 10
flyes 2 6-8

 

[b fold the truth]

What does the rest of your routine like?

Why no inclines?

B True

 

[tallnskinny]

entire routine

i do not do inclines because they just stress the shoudlders to much..and there is no benifet in doin them i think..casue from what i read there is no upper chest..
here is my current routine
chest
flat 4 6-8
dips 3 10
flyes 2 6-8

legs
squats 5 6-8
leg extentions 3 6-8
leg press 3 6-8

back(shudder) pull ups 4 8
seated rows 4 6-8
machine rows 2 6-8

triceps skulls 3 6-8
cable push downs 2 6-8

biceps standing barbell curls 4 8
hammers 1 8


shoulders OH press 4 6-8
lateral raises 3- 6-8

abs crunches weighted 4 6-8

 

[b fold the truth]

What days do you do which exercises on?

B True

 

[Vortexx]

Ok you don't believe in inclines so I will not try to convince you to do them...

You can train chest more often for a short amount of time, before it start to eat away at your total recovery abillity. I suggest you hit twice a week for 6 weeks and than go back to once a week with the good old routine that brought you this far in the first place.

Maybe you could up the intensity with heavy triple drop sets and some carefully chosen supersets.

The dropsets you shoot for 4 reps for compound exercises like barbell benchpress and 7 reps for exercises like peck deck etc.
After you drop the weight a little you should be able to crank another 4 reps out. This way your train both the CNS for pure strength and also tax the several types of musclefibre.
The triple drop sets may look like this:

benchpress or dumbell press: 4-4-4-4 = 12 reps total
peck-deck: 7-4-4-4 = 19 reps total


Okay here is the routine tailored for you:

Session 1: (focus on TUT)

flat benchpress 2 * triple drop set
flat dumbell press 2 * triple drop set

4 * 10 dumbell flyes immediately supersetted with wide dips to failure (i got this from the bertil fox video and its a real killer)

Session 2: (focus on poundage)

flat benchpress 5 * 5
dlat dumbell press 3 * 8
dips 3 * 12

 

[Vortexx]

The 5 * 5 routine works as follows:

The first 2 sets are heavy warmup sets but not to failure yet.

The third and next sets is where you go to failure.

The next 2 sets you keep using the same weight. Reps may drop to 4-3 reps. That's ok. It's good to have a spotter around to help you make the additional 2 reps to get to 5 anyway (not more than that!)

If you can complete all sets 3, 4 and 5 by yourself with 5 or more reps, its time to increase the weight.

 

[bigdelt69]

why dont you try to focus on the supporting muscle groups and see if that helps your bench. once your bench goes up, wheath its because you strenthened your triceps or lats, your chest will grow.

also might want to look into an all db routine.

i did a routine once with db for 6 weeks and although my bench went down my definition was great, it went like this:

db flat bench 3 sets for 10 reps
incline db press 3 sets of 10 reps
incline db flies 3 sets of 10 reps
pec dec flies superset with machine press 3 sets of 10 reps
decline db press 3 sets of 10 reps


that will shape up your chest no daught.

 

[erickthegreat11]

Just advise:
drop the dips, drop the flyes, switch to narrow grip bench, drop lateral raises, and move overhead press to bench day right after narrow grip. never had any luck with push downs or skull crushers. try doing isolated triceps extentions using a dumbell. Make this your only exercise for tris b/c they are worked in bench and overhead presses. stick to squat and quad extensions only, no point in doing more. stick to one exercise for lats, and one for biceps. Are you going to failure on all sets? If you are try doing only 6 reps for 3 sets with a weight you can do for 9 reps to failure. If you are not going to failure, shoot for 9 to 11 rep range. If you can get to 11 reps on the first set, add 5 pounds. Do only 3 sets per exercise, 2-3 minutes between all sets.

A less complicated way is to lift heavy. Warm up thoroughly, and then do about 85-90% for 2 reps and 6 sets. Rest 3-5 minutes between sets and limit the heavy lifting to compound exercises.