Whats wrong with my chest workouts!...?

Question

I lift 3 times a week, full body workouts each visit at the gym...for right now imma just talk about my chest...for chest i do incline,flat,and decline with bench and dumbbells...prolly about 3 reps of 6-8, then i do cables, and pec flys and all the other chest workouts...ive been working out for about 6-8 weeks already and i still dont have any muscle gian on my chest..i eat alot of protiens. i try to change the order of my chest routine every visit also..but still to no avail. Maybe sometime i get sore but most of the time im not..whats wrong with this stuff, i know its more about quality then quantity, but man, 2-3 hrs in gym has to give me sum kinda results!

Answer 1

i've had trouble making pectoral gains in the past so i empathize with you. you clearly are inexperienced (if you are doing full body workouts), which leads leads me to believe the solution to your chest deficiency is simpler than you may think. first off is form. i go to gold's gym five days a week and see at least 75% of people using bad/horrible form for a lot of different movements including the bench press.
start by putting your feet firmly on the ground slightly wider than shoulder width. this will help keep you steady. your hand placement on the bar should be the same - slightly wider than shoulder width. different builds/physiques require varying hand placements. you will have to find the one that is right for you. if your grip is too wide, you will be displacing the lift onto your front delts (shoulders) instead of your chest. likewise, if your grip is too narrow, you'll be using your triceps instead of your chest. once you find the appropriate grip (you'll be able to feel which is working your chest the most) then you can move onto more subtle details. arching your back slightly and sticking your chest out will further strain your chest, which is what you're looking for. on flat bench, you want the bar to come down in a slow, controlled manner, across your lower pecs (same for decline). on the incline however, you want the bar to be coming down slightly higher your chest, almost to your neck. on the upward motion of your presses, try to explode up. this will build your fast twitch muscle fibers (your slow twitch can be worked with slower more, controlled movements like dumbbell flyes). as a beginner though, i would really suggest sticking with the three different angled benches. stay away from dumbbell presses until you get the proper form down. also, and this is a big one **only use the amount of weight that you can lift utilizing proper form** it will do you no good to sacrifice form to try to impress anyone (you won't be impressing anyone anyway with a lackluster physique!).
my last piece of advice is spend more days in the gym but shorten your workouts to a split routine. do one body part per day: shoulders&traps, chest, bis/tris, back, and legs. spending an hour on each, with the proper exercises will yield
significant results. do not expect to make massive gains after only a couple months though - that's unrealistic. email me if you have further questions. read muscular development magazine for more tips and strategies.

Answer 2

Sounds like you're doing a bit of overtraining. There's no reason why you should be spending 2-3 hours in the gym unless you are doing over an hour of cardio. Where is chest in your full body routine? Are you doing it last? One problem with a full body routine is the fact that you focus more intently on the first couple of exercises and your focus fades. I would suggest adding other exercises as well. For instance you can use weighted dips or just your body weight, lean forward more and it exercises your chest more than your triceps. Switch up your training you mentioned switching between barbells and dumbells for chest presses (incline, regular, decline) Sounds good but you don't mix up the pec flies? Sounds based on your account your only doing cable flies (honestly are for more of the cut ripped look) and the machine pec deck. Try using dumbells pec fly's. As you know one of the advantages of free weights is the fact that it uses stabilizing muscles as well as the primary and secondary muscles. Which helps to give you size in the pectoralis major + minor and smaller surrounding stabilizing muscles. Ultimately variety is the key and if possible try moving it to a 4 day a week training schedule. Either by seperating Chest, Shoulders Triceps on one day and Back, Biceps, and Legs on another doing abs on all days. Other's maintain one day is a pull day and the next a push day. (pretty self explanatory) the reasoning is that you are training muscles that have the same or similar functions. (example, Low Row, works primarily the back but the biceps, brachiallis, etc as well. (as secondary muscles)

Answer 3

Increase the weight. If you're not sore most of the time, you are not pushing your body. Try 2-3 sets of 4-6 reps, but increase your weight. When you complete the set, you should be physically exhausted and unable to complete another rep. After a brief (30-60 sec) rest, start your second set. When you can do two sets with relative ease (which it sounds like you're at right now) increase the weight again. You can also try pyramid lifting, which means you do 8 reps, increase the weight, 6 reps, increase, 4 reps, increase, 2 reps, increase to your weight to your absolute maximum, 1 rep, then 2 reps, decrease, etc. The key is still to be exhausted after 10, then 8, then 6, etc.

Answer 4

I would give the bench press a rest and try some dumbell press for a while . Here's my chest routine 4 sets flat bench dumbell press 4 sets incline dumbell press. 3 sets of flys. And 3 sets of pushups . Just remember the center of you chest is the hardest to build . Also use a wieght that maxs you out at 8 to 10 reps in a set

Answer 5

Most muscle building is based on resistence. In other words, you have to gradually increase the number of reps and keep going with heavier weights. If you do the same routine every time, even varying it by doing the same exercises in a different order, you're not going to get anywhere. You have to keep giving the muscles more and more resistence to develop them.

Answer 6

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