Question: Should I keep my feet on the bench to isolate my pecs?
Folding your legs on your belly like a dead cockroach will have an effect opposite to the one you desire. When your feet come up your back flattens, sinks your ribcage, and shifts the load from your pecs to your shoulders. So stand on your feet with confidence.
Question: Is arching my back during benches going to hurt it?
It depends. A reasonable arch is essential for pre-stretching the pecs. You will get such an arch by taking a deep breath and expanding your chest. Most bodybuilders’ backs should have no problem with it. On the other hand, wedging your feet under the bench halfway to your head and bridging could be bad news. You could easily roll a basketball under tiny Russian ex-gymnast, turned world bench press record holder, Irina Krylova. Don’t try to emulate her. Generally, if you plant your feet flat, rather than rise up on your toes, your arch will be just right.
Question: Should I do decline presses?
Your lower pecs will get all the work they need if you simulate the decline press on your flat benches, by lowering the bar to your sternum, almost your stomach, and pushing it towards your feet rather than your face. You will be safer too, as your shoulders will not be tempted to shrug towards your ears, as they have a tendency to do during decline presses.
Question: What can I do to prevent pec tears?
The primary causes for pec tears are steroid use and overtraining. It may shock you but there are a lot fewer pec tears among powerlifters than among bodybuilders! Any doctor working with iron athletes will offer you convincing statistics.
Although powerlifters push much heavier poundages, unlike bodybuilders they never train to failure, they keep their reps low, and they avoid overstretching the pecs and shoulders. Lifters also say no to zillions of junk sets of cable crossovers and cycle their loads. Follow the time-proven strategies above from your iron brothers and your chances of a pec tear will drop to next to nothing.
Question: You have convinced me not to pursue huge pecs and to go with the old time bodybuilder’s broad shouldered look. But I want SOME pecs – and overhead presses, dips, and pullups don’t appear to stimulate them enough. Did the old guys do anything else?
There was another secret to the old-timers’ pec strength and striations: bending horseshoes, nails, and similar manly feats. Few people practice this manly art in our soft age but the few who do sport awesome chests. Did you know that Marine vet Clark Bartram, whose photos you see in this anthology, is one of them? If you are ready to take on this challenge, get Mastery of Hand Strength, a book by John Brookfield available from IronMind.com.
Brett Jones, RKC Sr. is the eleventh man in the world to bend Iron Mind’s famous Red Nail™. Photos courtesy BreakingStrength.com and IronCoreLaJolla.com
If you doubt that you are going to get around to it, there are free weight exercises that will have a similar effect on your chest. In the Soviet Special Forces we used to hold a kettlebell between our palms in such a way that it was supported by the inside pressure alone, rather than cupped by the fingers underneath. Then we would hammer curl and military press it. This drill has many cool applications. “This is exactly how I lock in my firearm!” commented a member of the Secret Service Counter Assault Team at a recent kettlebell instructor course. Arm-wrestlers also swear by it.
Starting the kettlebell crush lift.
Grip master John Brookfield invented a variety of similar exercises with a stack of bricks; see his other book, The Grip Master’s Manual, for descriptions. Ex-gymnast Brad Johnson performs amazing feats of rafter pullups aided by the same drill with a pair of barbell plates sandwiched together. “Grab two smooth barbell plates and perform hammer curls with the plates sandwiched between the palms of your hands,” wrote Johnson in his article on dragondoor.com. “Attempt to generate as much chest, bicep, lat, and shoulder tension as possible by pressing inwards. I performed two sets of 3-5 reps with two 25-pound plates. As I learned to generate more inward force against the plates, I extended the rep by pressing upwards (military press) after finishing the curl. I was very careful to lift the weights slightly in front of my body just in case the weights slipped.” Inside pressure work tends to shorten the pecs, so make sure to stretch them thoroughly afterwards.
The kettlebell crush lift.
For the sake of your dental work don’t go any higher than shown!
Question: Is it true that decline bench presses could give me drooping, breast-like pecs?
Yes. Especially as you grow older. There is no convincing reason for a bodybuilder to do decline presses at all. And even the ever so popular flat bench could do the same to some bodybuilders.
Strength coach extraordinaire Bill Starr gives a sensible old school piece of advice. Don’t bench except on an incline. No declines, no flats, just inclines. Your pecs will acquire a square, gladiator body armor look to them. And because the flats and the inclines are similar enough exercises, should you decide to test yourself on the flat bench, you will do quite well.
If you are hooked on flat benches, a good compromise is to practice them only for very low reps and low sets, e.g. 54321 or 5x3. That approach builds a lot of strength and little mass. Then pump it up on an incline. This gives you the best of both worlds: a big bench and pecs you would not be embarrassed by, even in your old age.
Needless to say, the recommendations to avoid decline presses altogether and to do just a moderate volume of flat benches are just opinions. But hanging pecs are a fact.
Question: I have a quaint notion that bulging breasts are a female sexual attribute and have no place on a man. Ditto for chafing thighs. I dig the physique of an old time bodybuilder like Eugene Sandow. How should I train?
Old timers did not squat or bench. These two exercises are largely responsible for the modern look that you describe. Men like Eugene Sandow and Siegmund Klein concentrated on a great variety of overhead presses, including the awesome yet long forgotten side press and bent press and pulls: deadlifts, snatches, and cleans, one and two arm. The result was a physique built along the lines of Laurent Delvaux’s statue Hercules: broad shoulders with just a hint of pecs, back muscles standing out in bold relief, wiry arms, rugged forearms, a cut-up midsection, and strong legs without a hint of squat-induced chafing. Different strokes for different folks.
Question: I train at home with dumbbells. Is there any way to work my pecs without a bench?
I can think of at least three.
If you have a flexible and healthy spine you could sit on the floor with your knees bent and rest your upper back and head on a sturdy box, one to two feet tall, parked against a wall to avoid sliding. The exercise you will end up doing is a cross between a flat and an incline press. The great John Grimek used to do it before exercise benches were invented.
‘Bench’ like Grimek.
Another fine exercise is the floor press. Sit on the floor with a pair of light dumbbells at your shoulders and carefully lie on your back. Straighten out your legs and open your chest. Muscle out the bells with your triceps power until your elbows are locked. You are ready for the floor press.
Carefully lower the weights until your elbows or, if you have more meat on you, your triceps, rest on the floor. Take care not to slam the elbows into the floor, control the movement all the way down. To maximize pec recruitment you should flare your elbows and let the bells fall out somewhat, as if you are about to do flies.
The kettlebell floor press.
To maximize pec recruitment you should flare your elbows and let the bells fall out
Stay tight and push back up in a wide arc. You may perform the floor press with your palms facing forward as in the barbell bench press or with the palms facing each other. Naturally, you can do floor flies as well.
If you like to get a good pec stretch – although not necessary, it is conducive to muscle growth – do modified one arm floor presses. If you are pressing with your left, stick your slightly bent right arm under a couch, palm up, to anchor yourself. Both of your feet will be facing the couch as if you are walking. The feet should be spread as wide apart as your flexibility allows, the left leg atop the right one and closer to the couch.
Who said you need a bench to get a pec stretch?
Press the left shoulder into the floor.
As with the basic floor press, do not forget to keep the dumbbell and the elbow away from the body.
Question: I don’t feel my pecs when I am benching! What am I doing wrong?
First, position yourself on the bench properly. Force your chest out, spread your collarbones out, pinch your shoulder blades together, and press your shoulders towards your feet, away from your ears. Do not lose that alignment throughout the set.
Pausing for a second with the bar touching your chest will help you recruit those pecs. Stay tight and do not let the bar sink into your chest; it is barely brushing your rib cage. Flex your bis. Do not try to bend your elbows, which is counter-productive, but flare the biceps as if you are posing. Thanks to the recruitment relationship between the pectorals, the biceps, and the triceps – and the fact that one of the biceps heads is directly involved in pressing – you WILL feel your pecs! Or else.
It is a dirty little secret of bodybuilding, but in addition to blasting the pecs, benching this way builds big pipes better than curls. Try it!
Question: I have a hard time feeling my pecs when I am bench pressing. What am I doing wrong?
Bench press record breaker George Halbert offered a first-rate tip on how to recruit your pecs to the max when benching, in an issue of Powerlifting USA (a must have, immediately call (800) 448-7693 to subscribe).
Instead of pressing the barbell straight up, grip it tight, flare your elbows, and imagine that you are trying to bring your hands together. In other words, you are trying to compress or shorten the bar with your chest power. Incidentally, you may employ the same technique with wide grip pushups. You will have a hard time believing you can get such a great pec pump with lowly pushups.
“Although we are not bodybuilders,” says Halbert, “we can use their exercises and put a power spin on them.” Do not forget that it works both ways in the iron community.
