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♪♪♪
All right, it's time to get serious.
I'm gonna take you through the chest, triceps, and calves
workout from Phase One, Microcycle One, so it's gonna be
12-to-15 reps per set.
Now remember, different microcycles, you're gonna be
changing up the reps, and through different phases, you're
also gonna change up some of the exercises, so always check the
workouts on the page below.
Now, let's get into our first exercise, the bench press.
♪♪♪
So again, our first exercise is the bench press.
Now, I typically recommend you do your warm-up sets just on the
first exercise.
Once you've warmed up that muscle group, that's no real
point in doing warm-up sets.
It'll only zap your strength.
I like to keep my warm-up sets fairly light, and I like to do
the exercise fairly quick with explosive reps.
That way, you're also warming up those fast twitch muscle
fibers, which you're gonna need to maximize your muscle
strength.
Another tip I recommend is listening to your favorite
music.
One study I did with a reader research group found that when
trained bodybuilders listened to their preferred music during
workouts, they were significantly stronger on all
sets of the exercises.
Also, be sure you've either had your pre-workout shake, or
you have your shake with you.
One trick that I like to do is combine all my pre-workout and
post-workout ingredients into one huge shaker cup.
I drink a little bit before the workout, and then I sip on it
throughout the workout, and then I pound the remaining,
about third to half right as the workout's over,
and that's also when I take my fast-digesting carbs.
Now, during Microcycle One when you're doing 12 to 15 reps
per set, the weights you're using are fairly light, so one
warm-up set should suffice.
As you go through the microcycles and the weight gets
heavier, you're gonna need a few more warm-ups to get you at your
workout weight.
You'll want to give yourself about 2 to 3 minutes of rest
from your first warm-up set to your actual working set.
Now let's get into our first working set.
The first exercise for each muscle group is the one you're
gonna use to mark your strength throughout the entire 12-week
program.
So for chest, it's the bench press.
Make sure you mark down the weight you use and the reps you
complete on each set.
Having a spotter through all four sets isn't critical.
I typically know right about when I'm close to failure, so
I'll rack the weight then.
However, on the last set, remember, you're going to
absolute failure plus you're adding that rest-pause set.
It's really not critical that you hit your working weight on
the very first set.
You can always adjust.
Because that was a little bit light for me, I'm gonna increase
my weight by about 20 pounds total, and that should get me
right in that 12-to-15 rep range.
All right, I'm on set number four of the bench press.
That's the last set.
Remember, during Microcycles One and Two, on the very last set of
each exercise you're gonna do a rest-pause, so it's critical
that you have a spotter.
Microcycles Three and Four, you're gonna be doing drop sets.
Again, probably gonna need a spotter to not only help you
with the weight, but to maximize your speed in dropping the
weight during the drop set.
♪♪♪
All right, we're on to the second exercise of the chest
workout, so it's incline barbell press.
Now we're down to just three sets per exercise, but still
remember, you're gonna do that rest-pause in the very last set.
♪♪♪
All right, we're on to the third exercise for chest,
incline dumbbell flye.
I just completed the incline bench press.
Now, in most gyms, the incline bench press is set at about a
45-degree angle.
Forty-five degree angle allows you to focus a little more on
the upper pecs, but it also involves a lot of front delts.
So a little trick I like to do is when I get over to the
incline dumbbell flye, just to remove more off of the front
delt to place more on the upper pecs and also hit the chest
muscle fibers a little differently, is I like to drop
the incline.
I like to bring it down closer to a 30-degree angle, even a
little lower.
All right, I'm on the last set of incline dumbbell flyes,
so again, we're gonna finish with--once we hit muscle
failure, finish with one rest-pause set.
With the two bench press exercises that we started the
workout with, it's critical to have a spotter for these sets.
With dumbbell flyes, it's not so important, because once you hit
failure, it's easy to set the dumbbells down on your own and
then start again.
♪♪♪
Now we're on the last set for chest.
We're gonna do cable crossover from a high pulley.
This exercise will hit the lower pecs as well as the outer from
the stretch you get at the top, and even the inner pecs, because
you're bringing your hands together.
You get continuous tension from the cables.
Some of you will notice that we did two multi-joint exercises at
the start, the bench press, the incline bench press, and then we
moved on to two single-joint exercises, incline dumbbell
flyes, and now cable cross-overs.
On those single-joint exercises, one of the things I recommend is
you try to stay towards the higher end of that rep range, so
with Microcycle One, you want to try to be getting 15 reps, or at
least close.
♪♪♪
We're done with chest.
On to triceps.
We're gonna start with triceps pressdown.
Now, one tip I have for you on the triceps pressdown is do not
wrap your thumb under the bar when you do tricep
pressdowns.
What happens a lot of times is people wrap their thumbs under
the bar, and then when they press, they press down holding
the bar in their fingers.
Puts a lot of stress on the wrist and it actually makes you
weaker.
A good tip is to keep your thumb over the top.
This way you're pressing with your palms.
You'll be a lot stronger and it'll place more focus directly
on the triceps.
♪♪♪
And we're on to the second exercise for the triceps, which
is not close to a bench press.
Even though I'm on the flat bench, we're actually gonna be
doing lying triceps extensions, or what a lot of you guys call
skull-crushers.
Now, most of you will do this on an open flat bench, but that
means you have to either lift the bar and then get into setup
on the bench holding the weight, or you need somebody to hand
the bar to you.
I've got a solution, whether you train alone or even if you train
with a partner, that's much better because the weight's
already racked.
I'm not gonna be facing this way, because if I do that, I'm
gonna bump into the rack on the way down.
So we're gonna flip around and actually do it from this
position.
♪♪♪
Okay, we're into the seventh exercise of the workout.
This is the last exercise for triceps, doing the triceps
overhead extension.
A lot of you guys are used to doing it from a high pulley like
this, which is fine.
It does place a stretch on the arms.
The point being, you'll work the long head
of the triceps, which is the back part of the tricep muscle.
However, to really maximize emphasis on the long head of the
triceps, you need to maximize the stretch you place.
The more you bring your arms overhead, the greater the
stretch on the long head.
So the trick that I do is to do this exercise
by lowering the pulley...
which as you'll see, is gonna give more of a stretch.
♪♪♪
We're gonna finish this workout with calves, starting
with the standing calf raise.
Now, with calves during Microcycle One, we're gonna be
shooting for reps in the 25-to-30 rep range, and the
reason for that is that calves are a muscle group that tend to
do better with higher reps.
We'll still drop each week as we progress through microcycles,
but we'll be starting a little higher and ending a little
higher.
Now, if your gym doesn't have a typical standing calf raise, you
can modify the standing calf raise.
I'm using a squat machine.
You could also do this in a Smith machine.
Just place the block in the Smith machine to raise your
heels up.
You want to make sure to get a good stretch on the calves in
the down position.
♪♪♪
All right, we're finally at the last exercise for not only
calves but the entire Workout Number One.
I don't know about you guys, but I'm pretty glad that we're
there.
This is an effective workout, but it is a tough one.
So again, seated calf raises are gonna be the final exercise.
We're shooting for 25 to 30 reps per set, 4 sets total.
All right, my calves are on fire, but we're finally at the
last set of seated calf raises and the last set of the workout.
♪♪♪
All right, that was the chest, triceps, and calves
workout from my "Shortcut to Size" program.
I've got my protein shake, along with branch chain amino acids,
creatine, beta-alanine, betaine, my fast-digesting carbs.
For more on why you want to take these immediately after the
workout, check out the video on supplementation.
Be sure to check out all the other content for the "Shortcut
to Size" program here at bodybuilding.com.
♪♪♪