chest just wont grow

[Guinness5.0]

1) The "burn" or pump or whatever has nothing to do with effectively stimulating growth or adaptation

2) Get off the machines

3) Volume, Intensity, and Frequency are all tied together in an effective training program. It's impossible to say that 1x per week is better than 3x per week without taking all of these factors as well as the conditioning level of the lifter into account. This is a good explanation on why I say this: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4776914&postcount=386 BTW - intensity is an objective quantifiable measure as defined by the % of a given single rep maximum in an exercise. It is not a subjective qualitative preceived effort or some such no matter how much the HIT people would like to steal a word the commonly prevades all serious weightlifting literature.

4) Sure "deca" will work. It's the most common cop out in BBing. Take a shitty training stimulus that is insufficient and magnify it several times until you can get gains out of it. Then cycle on and off roids accruing gains from the shitty workout and hopping back on before they disappear because the stimulus is too shitty to hold the majority of them, covering up the fact that your program couldn't grow a pubescent teen on an eating binge. IMO, probably better to bite the bullet and spend a bit of time learning how to train first. That way, if you use drugs you can gain the maximum amount from a given dosage rather than inefficiently racheting the dosage to compensate.

So a few questions:
-Do you train the squat and deadlift as well as the bench?
-Have you consistently increased your capacities in all of these lifts over time?
-Do you eat enough to support new tissue growth?

My recommendation is to go to the powerlifting forum and read the sticky posts on benching, squatting and deadlifting. Learn how to do the exercises correctly. If you want to add some muscle to your chest, you will be better served by living in the power rack for a while learning to squat and pull than using the greatest bench program known to man. The body is best stimulated and trained as a system - this is why it is all the noodlearms doing tons of bicept work that have tiny arms, you never see them squatting or pulling and those guys who spend their time in the rack have large arms with very little direct training emphasis. And this does not mean isolating all the muscles, we are talking compound lifts that stress the entire system to force adaptation. Once you've trained up and learned how to do them correctly, instead of using all the bullshit machine and splits, use a program that has been putting muscle and strength on thousands of people for years and years. Go to this thread: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215 and scroll down to the Novice Lifter Version. Direct link is here: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4497774&postcount=15
This is also a worthwhile interview to read: http://www.readthecore.com/200503/reynolds-glenn-pendlay.htm
In there he mentions his friend Mark Ripptoe consistently adds 30-40lbs to new lifters in 6 months - this is a template of the squat program they run: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4658227&postcount=235

I was gonna say that but madcow beat me to it

 

[Tom Treutlein]

What is this shit? Pec Dec? NO. Flat and incline bench pressing. Dumbbells won't help you "target" anything. Lifting once per week is too little, so don't listen to that. Unless you're juicing or gifted with genetics, once a week training will be too infrequent for natural lifters.

The burning sensation signified NOTHING in terms of an exercise's efficacy. Ignore any person who tells you to "go for a burn".

Also, don't worry about soreness - that also is no way to gauge an effective workout.

Also, gymrat is wrong - don't fucking burn yourself out on every set. There's no need to go to failure at all. It's counterproductive, if anything.

God, I thought we were all done with this misinformation.

 

[TheOak84]

What is this shit? Pec Dec? NO. Flat and incline bench pressing. Dumbbells won't help you "target" anything. Lifting once per week is too little, so don't listen to that. Unless you're juicing or gifted with genetics, once a week training will be too infrequent for natural lifters.

The burning sensation signified NOTHING in terms of an exercise's efficacy. Ignore any person who tells you to "go for a burn".

Also, don't worry about soreness - that also is no way to gauge an effective workout.

Also, gymrat is wrong - don't fucking burn yourself out on every set. There's no need to go to failure at all. It's counterproductive, if anything.

God, I thought we were all done with this misinformation.

dude, hes new to the site, relax

where have u been anyway, not on AIM

all i have to say is, progressive resistance

 

[Tom Treutlein]

I didn't have anything against him, just the others here who are all passing around this 1x/week bullshit. Next they'll say that I'm wrong and that it works for them, though I never said it doesn't work, it just sucks.

I'm not around much anymore, and I have a new name on AIM.

 

[TheOak84]

I didn't have anything against him, just the others here who are all passing around this 1x/week bullshit. Next they'll say that I'm wrong and that it works for them, though I never said it doesn't work, it just sucks.

I'm not around much anymore, and I have a new name on AIM.

kool...

so, are you gonna PM it to me, or do I have to beat it out of u..

 

[nutsnack]

I didn't have anything against him, just the others here who are all passing around this 1x/week bullshit. Next they'll say that I'm wrong and that it works for them, though I never said it doesn't work, it just sucks.

I'm not around much anymore, and I have a new name on AIM.

exactly, everyones body is different and it takes time to figure out what your body can take and how it reacts to it, I train my chest once a week and usually am sore for 2 days after so i could do it 2x a week but i see good results w/ my routine and i'm sticking to it, but working out ure chest 3 times a week is excessive and not needed.. you can read all kinds of bodybuilding magazines and you will get a million different opinions on techniques and what to work out and how b/c everyone is different.. experiment. u will grow but not over night so patience is good

 

[Madcow2]

You can read all kinds of BBing magazines and get a million different opinions because categorically they don't know shit about training. They are the problem not the answer. Shit, when's the last time saw the words 'dual factor theory' in a BBing magazine? Never. Pretty sad because for the most part, that's the way the entire world trains and it's the misapplication of science and ignorance of the fatigue factor that lead BBers to the 1x per week protocol between 1990ish and now. When I say it's that bad - it is. It's pathetic to the point that it's not even funny because their shitty training information is so ineffective that people who have very attainable goals are driven to drug use.

In regards to soreness (DOMS), it is largely related to infrequent training and lack of conditioning i.e. what you wind up at when you use a 3 day split and hit each body part 1x per week. As one trains more frequently and conditions themselves properly, DOMS basically disappears except in the case where someone is making a radical change to their protocol in which case they might be sore for a bit until the acclimate (usually not lasting more than a few workouts). This makes DOMS a horrible indicator of anything and certainly not when someone is ready to train again. Think in the case of athletes squatting 3x per week (very common and easily tolerated providing intensity/volume are regulated properly - also produces a shitload of gains), they are not sore from their workouts once accustomed. Does that mean that they should be lifting 5-7 times per week just because they aren't sore? Of course not, unless the volume per session was drastically slashed, they'd be dead in short order.

So, to a degree everyone is different especially when you look at tolerances and conditioning levels - i.e. what might allow adequate recovery for an elite lifter would by intollerably stressful to most others. However, the human body is fairly homogenous and we are not all so unique that each of us is a paradigm shift in methodology from each other. It is a leap of baseless faith to rationalize why BBing magazines would have so many different opinions and credit them all as valid. There is basically one answer - those magazines are unfit to wipe one's ass with.

You should throw out those mags and read the links below. They are cut from this thread which is nothing more than basic training methodology: http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=375215

Dual Factor Theory - Why this Works:
(The further one progresses the more critical it becomes to understand basic training concepts like this. If you aren't familiar with this, it is absolutely essential. This is how top athletes in sport are trained the world over and this includes adding LBM in addition to strength, speed, and power.)
JS182: http://forum.mesomorphosis.com/showpost.php?p=48&postcount=3
Matt Reynolds: http://www.readthecore.com/200501/reynolds-dual-factor-training.htm
Madcow (post #15 and on): http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showthread.php?t=372686

Why Haven’t Most BBers Heard of This Type of Training if It’s so Commonly Used Around the World for Athletics, Powerlifting, and Olympic Lifting?
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4627437&postcount=133
http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4658210&postcount=234

 

[rbtrout]

Holy smokes, this post started an arguement. Everyone's body's are different, so do what works for you. Obviously, 3x a week isn't, so try 2x a week. Find out what works for you and do it. Benching, flat and incline will build the most muscle. Mix it up. A couple of weeks, use dumbbells, the next, use barbells. Don't do the same exact routine for much longer than a few weeks, cause your body will get used to it and you need to shock the muscles to keep them growing. They grow at rest, so make sure you get plenty of that. I'd try switching things around before trying gear.

 

[Extra_Strong]

well i agree with mad cow. but i still think there is an advantage to being able to feel your muslce a little..
my rows were pussy fied. till i learnd how to use my lats an when i did Wowy ...

 

[Madcow2]

Holy smokes, this post started an arguement. Everyone's body's are different, so do what works for you. Obviously, 3x a week isn't, so try 2x a week.

Not an argument. This guy just posted and got pretty questionable information. Considering he's thinking drugs to compensate for his shitty program, it's worth the time to provide good information and hope he learns something.

Still though, frequency is not independent of volume and intensity. Frequency is the distribution of volume. It's not purely a matter of how many times per week you train a muscle it's a matter of what kind of volume will be applied and at what level of intenisty (i.e. % of 1RM).

To give you an idea, a group of OL lifters in deloading before nationals are doing heavy clean & jerks and snatches twice a day 3 times per week and doing light versions on 3 other days (that's 9 workouts right there). This is in addition to squatting 3x per week and front squatting 3x per week and some basic assistance work. Now, consider that this is deloading and allowing for recuperation close to a meet and that the loading phases previous to this were much higher. For kicks, consider that the Bulgarians and Greeks dwarf that volume by a magnitude or two. It's a matter of a given athlete, his level of conditioning, and properly applying load (i.e. volume, intensity, and then acceptable frequency).