Chest Day!!!

My favorite gym day of the week! I was particularly excited to get into the gym this morning after having to take about a week off to recover a strained wrist. The hope was to come back strong and really hit the chest hard. I created this workout the night before with the intent of hitting the chest every which way possible. As you see below, I incorporated a mix of leverage/machines, dumbbells, cables, barbell, and body weight.

Excercise	Sets/Reps
Leverage Chest Press	7 sets
Incline Dumbbell Chest Press	3 sets, 15-20 reps
Reverse Grip Bar Raise	3 sets, 10 reps
Seated Machine Fly	4 sets, 12, 10, 8, 6 reps
Medicine Ball Pushups	3 sets, 10 reps per arm, 10 reps with no stability ball
Cable Crossovers	4 sets, 12, 10, 8, 6 reps
Barbell Bench Press *	Burnout Sets

Leverage Chest Press: I started at 170 pounds of resistance and pressed out reps to failure. The weight was increased after each set until the one rep max was found. I finished out with a one rep max of 290 pounds of resistance!

Incline Dumbbell Chest Press: I absolutely love incline press with dumbbells. This really can challenge you a lot more than using a bar since you also need to account for providing stability to the weights going above your head. The purpose of these sets was to pick a weight in the middle of my range and go for high reps. Super challenging and really fatigued the muscles.

Reverse Grip Bar Raise: This is a move that you'd like want to use more so on a shoulder day, but the underhand grip forces your pectorals to flex and essentially functions as the inverse of a pullover.

Seated Machine Fly: Nothing really too flashy about these sets. The move is fairly basic but the effect is straightforward. The aim is to increase the weight and decrease the reps over four sets. A couple things to keep in mind when you're doing this move. First, make sure you adjust the seat to where you are gripping the handles just below shoulder level. Second, range of motion is key. So, make sure you go all the way back during your negatives and you bring the handles together with arms slightly bent and back firmly against the backrest.

Medicine Ball Push-up: I really love incorporating in body-weight moves into a weight-intensive workout. This is also a fairly basic transition. Pick out a medicine ball (weight doesn't matter). Go into a high plank position and place your right hand on top of the medicine ball. Do 10 push-ups and then move the ball over to your left hand and do 10 more push-ups. Once you complete that, do 10 push-ups without a medicine ball. Repeat this series two more times.

Cable crossovers: See the seated machine fly explanation for the set/rep sequence. Just find handles you are comfortable using and attach them to your available cable equipment. Make sure that your handles are in the resting position at about shoulder height. The most important aspect of this move is to cross your hands at the bottom of the motion to flex your chest and push the muscles a bit.

Burnout Bench Press: This is my favorite way to end a workout and puts a lot fatigue on your muscles and really makes you sweat. Here it is in a nutshell. On a free bar bench press, grab x amount of weights of equal weight and an equal amount on either side of the bar. Perform six reps and then pop up and take a weight off each side and do six more reps. Repeat this until all of the weights are off the bar and you are only pressing the bar. After six reps of the bar, begin placing the weights back on the bar until you end up as you started. Repeat this until completely fatigued. For reference, I typically place four 10 pound weights on each side of the bar and pyramid the sets for three complete 'up-down' or 'full to empty' sets. Great way to finish!

Anyway, I definitely recommend you to try this out. It was a great way to start the workout week up, and it should really help stimulate some growth and generate more strength.

Try it out and leave some comments on how you do!