Spectacular! By Arnold Schwarzenegger Build an OAK CHEST by following my six simple rules guaranteed to make you grow ›› Judging by the queues of people I see at the bench-press station on chest day, it's safe to say that building pecs you could land a plane on is high on the list of any aspiring bodybuilder. Judging by the dearth of any significant development I commonly see among this group of dedicated trainees, I'd also say it's not from a lack of effort that they're not filling out their singlets. Rather, it's a shortage of training sense, the kind that takes years of concentrated effort in the gym to learn. Here, then, is a practical and incredibly effective way to ensure maximal progress on chest day: my six rules of chest training.

Arnold's Top Chest Moves COMPOUND MOVEMENTS Flat-bench barbell press Incline barbell press Decline barbell press Flat-bench dumbbell press Incline dumbbell press Decline dumbbell press Smith-machine flat-bench press Smith-machine incline press Smith-machine decline press Machine flat-bench press Machine incline press Machine decline press ISOLATION MOVEMENTS Pec-deck machine (any variety) Flat-bench dumbbell flye Incline dumbbell flye Decline dumbbell flye Cable crossover (upper pulleys) Low-pulley cable crossover Flat-bench cable flye Incline-bench cable flye Decline-bench cable flye RULE 1 Choose presses over flyes. >> You've probably been told time and again to start your workout with compound movements (also called multijoint exercises, in which movement takes place at more than one joint on each side of the body), and you can be sure this maxim holds up for chest training as well. Both pressing motions (in which the weight is pressed upwards off the chest) and flyes (in which the extended arms are drawn together across the chest in a hugging kind of motion) work your chest, but you can go far, far heavier when doing presses to really overload your pectorals. With a single-joint exercise like flyes, you should limit the amount of weight you lift so you don't injure your shoulder joints in the down position; also, you just can't handle very heavy loads when performing this type of motion. Presses allow you to train very heavy, making them the best type of movement with which to start your workout. RULE 2 Begin with heavy presses. >> Most people like to begin with the bench press, and for the most part, I have no problem with that. The bench press hits the meatiest portion of your chest, and using a barbell allows you to lift heavy with minimal risk of injury. If you choose to start your chest routine on the bench, you should be aware of how you can get more out of the movement. After up to 3–4 warm-up sets (which you never take to muscle failure), choose a weight heavy enough that you can do no more than six reps per set. Read that again. You should lift heavy at this time because you're strongest early in your workout and can best recruit maximal strength after your warm-up, not after you do 2–3 exercises. If you try to go heavy in the middle or towards the end of your chest routine, you won't be able to muster 100% of your true strength. If you think warm-up sets are only for guys with comb-overs driving Volvos, think again. Besides reducing the risk of injury, they actually allow you to lift significantly heavier weights because your joints and tissues already have blood pumping through them. Ten minutes on the stationary bike and several light sets in which you add progressively more resistance on each set will do the trick. Perform four good working sets, using heavy weights with which you can do 4–6 reps, resting at least three minutes between sets to ensure full muscle recovery so you can attack your next set with full intensity. Cutting back on your rest period will limit your strength, so don't hurry. Also, you might want to lighten up on your last set to bang out up to 10 reps. Finally, when going heavy, have an attentive spotter on hand to make sure you don't get stuck under the bar. A spotter can also help you perform a couple of forced reps or utilise other advanced techniques that up the intensity level of your workout. RULE 3 Play the angles. >> While flat-bench presses hit the middle of the chest exceptionally well, for balanced pectoral development you want to focus on the upper and lower regions of your chest as well. For your next exercise (or next two for more advanced bodybuilders), move over to the adjustable bench to do incline or decline presses. Incline presses emphasise your upper pectoral muscles. When doing these, keep the bench angle fairly low because the higher you raise it, the more your relatively weaker front delts come into play. If you feel a burning sensation in your front delts after a good set of incline presses, it probably means they're fatiguing before your upper chest; in that case, lower the angle of the bench to focus the movement more squarely on your upper chest. Conversely, decline presses rely less on your delts, and the shorter range of motion means you can lift more weight than with inclines. It's a little tricky to get your body into the correct position for both exercises, so a good spotter is helpful not only for unracking the bar but also in assisting you with the last couple of reps. While I used barbells almost exclusively in my early training, I now think it's a good idea to use dumbbells on your second exercise if you started your workout with a barbell move. Dumbbells offer a different feel, and they allow for a greater range of motion than a barbell: You can lower the weights farther and press them up in an arc towards each other at the top. Since it's more difficult to balance dumbbells than a barbell, you place more emphasis on your stabiliser muscles. You also provide each side with the same muscular stimulus for proportional development. Perform three sets with a weight that allows you to complete 8–10 reps. If you can do more than 10, the weight isn't heavy enough; on the other hand, if you can't do eight reps on your own, the weight is too heavy. Adjust it accordingly for your next set. RULE 4 Machines come last for presses. >> I used to see weekend warriors start and finish their chest workouts on machines. Don't get me wrong — machines can be very effective — but you should use free weights at the beginning of your routine because these exercises place the most demand on your muscles. As you begin to fatigue (probably on the third or fourth movement for an intermediate- to advanced-level bodybuilder), it's time to hit the machines. To put it simply, machines allow you to just push the weight without having to balance a bar or dumbbells. Since your muscles are already (or should be) quite spent, you can push to your absolute limit without worrying about a weight getting stuck above you or crashing down on you. A seemingly unlimited number of machines and manufacturers exist; try those available in your gym, including the versatile Smith machine. Adjust the machine for your height and body dimensions to ensure that you're pushing through a comfortable yet strong angle. You'll find machines that work your upper, lower or middle chest. Choose the type you didn't perform in your first two exercises; that is, if you started with flat-bench barbell presses and then did incline dumbbell presses, select a machine that works your lower chest. That way, you train your pecs in each of the three major planes, effectively helping you build a full, round chest. Do three working sets of 8–12 reps to maximise muscle growth. RULE 5 Save isolation exercises for last. >> By now, you should feel a good pump in your chest, and this is your chance to finish it off, leaving everything you've got on the gym floor. At this point, you should incorporate single-joint movements into your routine. Though you typically can't go very heavy with isolation exercises, the focus is almost exclusively on your working muscle, meaning the contribution from your front delts and triceps is minimised. The key to doing single-joint chest movements correctly — and so many people just don't seem to get them right — is to keep a slight bend locked in your elbows throughout the set. With presses, you bend and extend at your elbows, but with flye exercises your elbows should remain locked. Be aware of maintaining your elbow position as you complete your reps. Isolation moves for the chest can be done on the incline, decline or flat bench with dumbbells, on the many varieties of pec-deck machines, standing between two cable pulleys or lying on any of the benches between the pulleys (with handles attached at the bottom). Interchange your many options from one session to the next to continually provide a slightly different muscular emphasis. If someone is camped out on the piece of equipment you want, just do a different single-joint chest movement to work around the gym crowd. Choose 1–2 isolation exercises to complete your chest routine, aiming for three sets of 10–15 reps. With these it makes sense to use relatively lighter weights because not only can your shoulder joints reach a compromised position if you allow the weight to pull your arms too far back but you can also pump your muscle with higher reps. In fact, this is a great opportunity to use advanced techniques such as drop sets or partial reps to utterly blast your chest. In addition, you can reduce your rest periods between sets to increase the intensity of your workout, starting the next set before you're completely recovered from the last. RULE 6 Incorporate change every workout. >> If you've been training for more than a couple of months, you know progress can come to a grinding halt no matter how much harder you try. The answer to stagnation is not trying harder but rather trying something different, so change things. Instead of always beginning your workout with flat-bench presses, occasionally use dumbbells or do incline or decline presses with a barbell or dumbbells. As you change the first exercise in your routine (but maintain the sets-and-reps protocol that accompanies this movement), you should switch the next two exercises as well to ensure that you don't repeat the same motion patterns and pieces of equipment. Changing your training in such a manner provides a slightly different emphasis and feel, meaning your chest will never quite adjust to the stimulus being applied to it and you'll never allow one particular area to lag behind. And if you've plateaued in your strength and muscle gains, it's the best way to literally shake things up. This six-step, take-no-prisoners approach to chest training is incredibly effective, and if you use a variety of movements and rep ranges, it'll help you build both strength and size. Breaking the Rules NO TRAINING PROTOCOL IN BODYBUILDING IS SET IN STONE. HERE IS ONE EXCEPTION TO MY SIX RULES OF CHEST TRAINING. Hitting your chest with compound movements allows you to train heavy and thoroughly overload your pec muscles, so I recommend this type of training for beginner- and intermediate-level weightlifters. Advanced bodybuilders, however, really need to manipulate their workouts to literally force muscle growth, and one effective way to do that is with pre-exhaust training. A pre-exhaust routine swaps over the compound presses and the single-joint flye movements so that you do your flyes first. By isolating your chest with the first exercise or two (meaning the contribution from your front delts and triceps is minimised), you can really focus the muscular stress on your pecs even though the weights aren't very heavy. Then you perform your pressing movements, but be aware that pre-exhaust training makes your chest muscles substantially weaker on presses than they normally would be. It's wise to use a good spotter on your heavy compound exercises to ensure that you can safely handle the weights. Although you can go heavier on your isolation exercises early in your workout, you should still train in a higher rep range. Do a medium number of reps with the presses — you probably won't get much out of low-rep work with heavy weights at this time. Try this workout every 5–6 times you train chest — I absolutely guarantee you'll experience a muscle soreness unlike anything you've ever felt before in your chest. That's the kind of soreness that made me know I did something incredibly effective. M&F