Never seem to get anywhere with my Chest.

Hi, i've been training now for about 7 or 8 weeks so still new. So far i've made noticable gains everywhere apart from my chest. I also never seem to get a good pump after a workout either which is starting to annoy me slightly.

My workout is like this

Flat BB bench 3x 8-10
Incline DB press 3x 8-10
Decline DB press 3x 8-10

Normally I dont feel like i've done enough so go onto Pecdeck for 3 sets and the seated Chest press. I know it's not because the weight's to light because I struggle to get the last rep or two out quite often. Maybe im just being impatient and expecting more but I'd like to have a good pump when I leave the gym

Any help would be great, cheers.

i think seven to eight weeks is too short a period to tell whether this routine is working.
give it six months .

7 to 8 weeks is not long enough to judge for a complete newbie. Your very new so may be building skill on the lift rather than size. Or you may have grown a little and not realised.

What form of measurement have you used to know everything else has gained but not your chest?

give it a year mate....

Haha ok cheers for the replies. Thought it would be too early but it's just that I never feel pumped or satisfied with my chest workout.

stephen77

What form of measurement have you used to know everything else has gained but not your chest?

I can just tell, mainly my arms/shoulders and also people have commented a few times that i'm getting bigger. Cheers.

As above, way too early to tell.

But even still I would ditch decline bench and replace it with Dips. Not much point in doing 3 different variations of bench, and Dips are one of the best exercises for chest imo.

'Pump' means nothing, so don't worry about that.

Burney_1988


Haha ok cheers for the replies. Thought it would be too early but it's just that I never feel pumped or satisfied with my chest workout.

stephen77

What form of measurement have you used to know everything else has gained but not your chest?

I can just tell, mainly my arms/shoulders and also people have commented a few times that i'm getting bigger. Cheers.

a) your shoulder /arms may grow more easily
b) shoulder / arm grown quicker so make the chest look like it has not changed. It may have grown more slowly. Lots of people are there own worst critique.

I would take measurement and photograph to monitor progress.

Thanks again for the replies. Ok i'll swap Decline bench for dips and see how I get on, i'll let you know

Stephen77 - Yeah maybe, and i'm not really skinny. Got a small layer of fat which doesn't help much. Will start a progress journal soon and get some pics on

The layer of fat will soon shrink especially as the muscle mass increases.

Im the same - shoulders and arms are big but chest (was) lagging - while its probs too early for you I found that switching to isolation machine presses as opposed to free barbell press has made quite a big difference - this was mainly because I have been getting pain in my wrists due to boxing circuits but I think I will keep the machine press in the workout as well as free weights in the future.

Keep in mind if you do this that you won't get the 'stabiliser' benefits of free weights

Yeah that's what one of my mates said, I was using the smith's machine for the first couple of weeks but now started using the olympic bar and weights. I'm also a bit wobbly with it so just need to use it more often. Cheers.

nwalsh011


give it a year mate....

to show a well developed chest with the appearance of the upper/outer/lower/inner contours.... 3-4 years from experiance.
 
The chest is a weird muscle group to develop as we do not use it in our every day manual tasks as you would for shoulders/biceps/triceps etc...
 
the only action that would use the chest is opening doors outward or if you were swimming breast stroke.
In real life how often do you push your arms out in front of you as if you were bench pressing?
 
It takes time bud... and a lot at that.
 
Don't be down hearted, it will all come together and the longer you stick at it, the better chance you'll have of achieving the full chest development

Ok thanks. I wasn't exactly expecting it to be bigger its just that it doesn't feel its been worked well and I don't really seem to be getting much stronger.

Anyways, chest & tri day tomorow so i'll get on with it and try some dips too.

Someone gave me a great strength routine for chest. It's dead simple, you just do a warm up of 12-15 reps with a light weight, then 4 reps of a heavier weight before your work sets. In your work sets you just do one set of 8 and one set of 6. That's it! don't do anymore even if you feel you can. If you don't manage 8,6 and get something like 7,5, stick with the same weight next week until you manage 8,6. Then up the weight.

I do this for flat and incline bench and find it really gets your strength up quickly.

So you don't feel pumped - but does your chest feel sore over the next couple of days? I would say DOMS are a good indicator that you've worked your chest well!

DOMS mean very little, I've done various routines over the years and whatever I do I don't get DOMS with chest unless I have a few weeks off - then I could do 2 sets of just press ups for example and get bad DOMS within a day or two...so means little..

As said it is very early, but you 'could' consider pre-exhausting chest in the coming months...say x2 sets of flyes with a light weight THEN move onto bench and dips...you won't push as much weight but you'll defo feel it..

^^I'll just add to that and say that it could be that your shoulders/arms are exhausted before your chest...that's why the pre-exhaust chest routine can be very beneficial to some..

Cheers. No I rarely get DOMS anymore, only after a good leg workout they seem to ache the next couple of days. I'll try some of the above today anyway and see how I get on.

I changed the decline bench to Dips and it worked alot better and feel it alot more today
Also added some pressups which I could hardy do before and managed 3 sets of 15 so definatly getting stronger. Cheers for the advice anyway.

I only do standard flat bench, never bothered with incline, decline etc although I don't have any definition and chest is my "weakest" area visually.