Yes, I have been noticing a lot lately that my chest pecs muscles really have been beefing up a lot lately. In the past, I used to feel that my pecs were undeveloped and I felt my pecs were my weakest points in bodybuilding. Now I finally figured out how to develop my chest even more. People are always giving me compliments on my physique which I appreciate but big chest pectorals really does go with a great physique. I mean, if everything else on your body looks great but your chest is lagging then you’re doing something wrong.

I’ve learned that when you’re doing chest workouts, you must squeeze the pecs. Full contraction is key to getting bigger pecs. So many guys out there complain that their chest are lagging and you wonder why that is? Is it because they use horrible form? Maybe it’s because they do so much half-repping and partial reps rather than getting a full contraction? That could be it.

When doing squeezing movements with the chest like the dumbbell flies and cable crossovers, you must squeeze the pecs at the top. That’s what I’ve been doing lately is squeezing the pecs and it’s working. When doing pressing movements with the pecs, same thing… full contraction except you’re pressing up. Doing pressing movements like dumbbells and barbell, you don’t want to do half-repping and partial reps with that either. You must press all the way up to get a full contraction.

I look at myself in the mirror with my shirt off and notice the pecs have been improving lately ’cause I’ve been doing both the pressing and squeezing movements. Plus, training chest twice a week is helping also.

I want to look great wearing a t-shirt where my pecs really stick out.

I’m planning to post new progress pics of me shirtless so I can show you that I’m not making it up. Maybe you’ll even agree that my chest is improving. I know it’s improving ’cause I’m feeling my chest getting bigger. I’m feeling a lot stronger too which feels amazing.

In the past, I ‘ve struggled to get bigger pecs and now I’ve finally figured it out after all this time. Remember, full contraction. Really squeezing the pecs really works. It doesn’t really matter how you do cable crossovers or dumbbell flies, as long as you’re squeezing the pecs and getting the full contraction, that’s the only thing that matters.

Kev

Here’s a great video from the Buff Dudes channel which is my favorite bodybuilding channel in youtube right now. Those guys make really good videos, I love their stuff.

Anyway, in this video this guy compares which training method is best for gaining size… strength training or size workouts (aka hypertrophy training). There’s a big misconception going on out there that doing strength training doesn’t give you muscle gains and I’ve always said it was bullshit. This guy whose name is Brandon of Buff Dudes says that you can gain size in strength training. Strength training means lifting heavy sets and lower reps. Yeah, you can build muscle doing strength training as well like I have been saying.

Brandon says in this video that you should mix it up with both strength training and hypertrophy training and I have been doing both a lot lately. You mix it up with both that way you can gain strength and build muscle at the same time.

The way I do things, I only do strength training with deadlifts, squats and bench. Everything else I do in the gym are nothing but hypertrophy training. This is why I think it’s a pretty good idea to train chest twice a week. 1 day of chest day will be hypertrophy training on dumbbell presses and 2nd day of chest day will be strength training on regular barbell bench. I’ve been doing both for the past couple of weeks and the plan seems to be working for me. Doing dumbbell presses on bench will definitely help skyrocket my personal records for barbell bench. On the barbell bench, I was able to hit 160 lbs. as my personal record on that which I feel proud about. Yeah I’ve been doing both strength training and hypertrophy and I have gotten great results doing both. I feel my chest getting bigger finally and I’m starting to look like a bodybuilder now which was my goal all along.

For strength training on deadlifts, bench and squats I’ve been doing the progressive overload method on those which seems to be working for me. Doing the progressive overload method will also definitely help make you stronger every week. Each week I do deadlifts, bench and squats at the gym, I’m noticing my personal records on those are rapidly increasing each week so I’m definitely getting stronger.

I’m hoping to do another powerlifting meet sometime in 2019 and I’m sure another one at Albany Strength gym will happen pretty soon, I hope. I want to do another one so when I do another one,  I’ll be better than ever.

If you don’t think you can lift heavy, just give it a go and you’ll surprise yourself. That’s what makes strength training a lot of fun. Just keep lifting and you’ll get stronger each time.

Kev

There’s a myth out there that when you workout in the gym that you just go in and go out real quick. Ya know, just do your workout for 45 minutes or an hour and then leave the gym. That is nothing but a misconception and that is pretty popular in the gym where you just “go in and go out”.

I used to spend like 45 – 1 hr. in the gym in the past but lately it’s been more than that

A lot lately, I’ve been going to the gym for 2 and a half hours on my gym days. Those two and a half hours I’ve been going to the gym are not just strictly weight training. As soon as I go into the gym, I’ll do my weight training which usually takes an hour or an hour and a half. Then it’s off to cardio, boxing and stretching.

Is that too much??? To me no but I’m considering going to the gym for 2 hours from now on. Since I have a jump rope and a yoga mat at home, I can do my cardio and stretching at home. I’m just realizing that. So starting tomorrow, I think my gym sessions would be for 2 hours.

It’s tough to do cardio during the Winter time and that’s why I do cardio at the gym during the Winter but now that I have a jump rope of my own… I can do my jump roping in the back porch. You’ll warm up in the cold once your heart rate starts going. I want to cut my gym time a little bit ’cause admittedly I spend a lot of time there on my gym days. I do boxing practice at the gym ’cause they have a speedbag and a heavy bag there. I don’t have a speedbag and heavy bag here at home so I use theirs at the gym. I love boxing and I’ve been practicing my boxing and that’s a great cardio workout too.

There’s nothing wrong with spending a lot of time in the gym, though. Like Elliot Hulse says in the video, you just gotta do what you gotta do.

I added a lot of workouts to my program on each body part so I do a lot of weight training which takes up to an hr. or an hour an half. I too think that misconception of going into the gym and getting out of there real fast is bullshit. In my opinion, you don’t get a lot of muscle definition that way.

Just to make one thing clear though, I don’t over train. People think I do but I don’t. For my workout program, I usually pick about 4 – 6 workouts for each body part and do 2 workouts for each body part if that makes sense. Two workouts for each body part is good enough. Since I’m now more of an intermediate bodybuilder, I decided to add a lot more workouts to my program which I did. I like to spend a couple of hours in the gym ’cause there’s nothing else better to do in my life and I want to stay active. One thing though, I don’t spend more than 3 hours in the gym ’cause that’s dumb. Lately it’s been 2 hrs or 2 and a half hours which ever I’m in the mood for.

I need to do cardio and stretching. Why cardio? If I want to lose bodyfat and maintain it to keep it low, I need to keep doing cardio. If you don’t do any cardio, you’re doing it wrong. I only do cardio at the gym during the Winter but in the Spring/Summer, I do cardio at home. At home in the Spring/Summer, I do a lot of biking, running, jogging and walking. Sometimes jump roping but I’m going to get back into jump roping a lot more, though. Especially this Winter.

I need to do stretching ’cause I want flexibility and I need flexibility. I’m not that flexible but since I learned a lot of stretching exercises doing boxing and yoga classes at the YMCA, I’ve been doing stretching on my own. I’m getting more flexible the more I do stretching exercises. I’m feeling it. I’m now realizing that you don’t need to do stretching exercises at the gym, you can stretch anywhere.

People think that doing more than an hour of weight training is too much and you’ll lose muscle the more you weight train but I disagree. Look at all those bodybuilders who have competed for the stage… they got that physique ’cause they spent hours in the gym. Don’t even get me going on steroids either ’cause the steroids claim is bullshit.

I say the more weight training you do, the more muscle you get. I’ve done that a lot lately for the past year and I’m getting great results. Like I said, I only weight train for like 1 hr. – 1 and a half… then it’s onto cardio, boxing and stretching. Why do I do cardio, boxing and stretching after all the weight training ’cause it’s my way of cooling down after lifting heavy weights.

With that being said, if someone tells you that you should workout no more than an hour… don’t listen to them. I don’t pay attention to time. I just go in there and do my thing. Usually my sets and rep ranges go from 4 sets X 8 – 12 reps. I always do 4 sets on everything ’cause 3 sets are for newbies. Now I’m a more intermediate bodybuilder, I feel it’s time to go all in and train like a bodybuilder and that’s what I do.

Kev

When I post my shirtless progress pics for the whole world to see about my fitness adventures, I usually just stand in front of the camera shirtless and that’s it. I don’t do any bodybuilding poses for the camera but now I’m thinking I’m going to start so I can show more muscle definition and all. If I’m going to post more progress pics of my lifting, I figure it’s finally time for me to start learning how to bodybuild pose and I just started watching video tutorials on that. I’m just going to learn basic poses… just the easy stuff for now ’cause that’s all I really need.

I mean, if you’re going to lift weights and call yourself a “bodybuilder” then you need to learn some poses if you want to be called a “bodybuilder”, right? I don’t know if you’ll ever see me on a bodybuilding stage or not but I should really learn some poses and I’ve just started doing that this week.

I plan to practice bodybuilding posing ’cause soon I’d like to start making videos and taking pics of myself doing that.

This video tutorial in the video above is a perfect one for me to start off with. These ones are pretty easy. I want to start bodybuilding posing for the camera soon. I’m really feeling jacked lately and I want to show people what I got. I’ll have to do full body posing so that means I’ll have to wear nothing but boxers and I’m fine with that. I’m not afraid to get half naked in front of people anymore. I want to show people my leg work too.

Kev

So I’ve started training my chest pecs at the gym twice a week now… 1 day of chest training for muscle development which I’ll do dumbbell on and the 2nd day will be for strength training/powerlifting on flat barbell bench. Some may think that is overdoing it and you won’t get chest development ’cause of it but I disagree.

People think that’s over training… well think about this… you’re training every body part of your body more than twice a week anyways.

You’re training legs, right? Any workout involving the legs, you’re training the legs. If you do squat, leg press (most people think leg press is a quad only workout but in reality, you’re training the whole legs on that thing including calves) and deadlift. All them workouts are leg workouts. Same thing when you train calves and hamstrings, you’re training the legs. So if you do more than one leg workout, you’re doing more for your legs when not even realizing it.

You think you’re training arms once a week but you’re not truthfully. Any workout that involves the arms, you’re training the arms. Shoulder presses (arm workout), bench press (arm workout), deadlift (arm workout), squats (arm workout), any kind of chest workouts (arm workout).

Also, doing all kinds of cardio and stretching… they also train all body parts more than once a week.

So yeah, before you judge someone training chest twice a week, you need to think about this one for a minute.

I think I’ll stick with training chest twice a week ’cause I’m already noticing and feeling some great developments. If I keep at this, I could have a much improved chest in a year or two. Maybe less. Doing flat barbell bench is making me lift stronger dumbbell press on bench so I’m already feeling great benefits.

I’m happy with most of my physique but the part that I feel that is lagging is my chest and I’m doing all I can to improve that so I can look like a real bodybuilder. I’m glad to start doing barbell bench press ’cause it’s helping me. Since I’ve discovered that getting a full contraction on the chest and squeezing the muscles on all chest workouts, I’ve noticed that trick has been helping me too. I’ll have a monster chest before you know it.

Kev

Yeah, in weightlifting, you’re going to get a lot of people worrying about you. When you’ve been bodybuilding for a long while, I’m sure you got people telling you things like: “Don’t lift heavy”, “Don’t do too much”, “Don’t over train”, “You’re going to hurt yourself”, etc. blah blah blah, you get the deal, right? I get this shit all the time and I’m sure you do too. When you’ve been working out at the gym, you’ll always get all kinds of know-it-alls acting like you don’t know what you’re doing when you do know what you’re doing.

When you get all this, think of it as a good thing. It’s a good sign that you’re going somewhere. I’m always getting all kinds of people worrying about me going to the gym, I don’t know why. It’s just crazy. People act like I don’t know what I’m doing and I do know what I’m doing. Bodybuilding and weightlifting is one of the things in my life that I’m real good at and I’m real smart at it too. Yeah, I already do know that I can’t lift weights that I can’t handle ’cause I don’t want to hurt myself but there are people who acts like I hurt myself. Yeah, I do know not to over train and I do know not to over do it. People always worry about all kinds of things.

It’s funny… people don’t think I’m very cautious in the gym but I am. I am being very careful with myself ’cause I don’t want to end up in the hospital or be out of bodybuilding for many months. I’m very smart at bodybuilding and it’s funny that many continue to think that I’m not.

That’s probably the main reason why I’m starting to post videos of myself working out at the gym so I can silence all the doubters and show everyone that I do know what I’m doing. Yeah, I do workout with good form and I take form very seriously now when I haven’t when I first started years ago.

When you start to get people worrying about your weightlifting, consider that a good thing. Don’t worry about it. It could be that people are either jealous of you or just misinformed about weightlifting. There’s a lot of misinformed people out there.

In bodybuilding, people always act like I’m going to hurt myself but I’m not injured at all right now. I’m not feeling any joint problems, don’t have any strains or muscle pulls. None of that stuff. I’ve never felt better and I feel amazing right now. I’ve been hitting the gym 4 times a week now and I feel real good. I feel I’m getting stronger and getting bigger too.

People think me doing heavy lifting is scary but I don’t think it is. I’ve been doing a lot of heavy lifting lately and I feel real good. Like I said, haven’t felt better and feel the best I’ve ever been lately.

I love weightlifting, yo. It’s my second passion other than music. Weightlifting is something I’m real good at and I’m never gonna give it up no matter what people say or think.

Kev

When I did my last powerlifting meet at the Wilton Branch Y, I weighed in at 145 lbs. After my back/chest day workout at the Battenkill Y in Greenwich, I stepped on the scale in the locker room and now I weighed in 146 lbs. I was pretty happy with that. Like the title says, you’ll gain more weight in bodybuilding and strength training just by getting stronger and putting on muscle mass. You don’t want to get too obsessed with bulking in nutrition… meaning boosting your calorie intake. Eating thousands of calories a day sounds dangerous to me so I won’t do it ’cause I’m worried it’s gonna make me fat and that’s what I don’t want.

So I’ll continue to eat the same way I do. Continue to eat my proteins, complex carbs and healthy fats throughout the day and every day. The more you lift, the stronger you’ll get and the more weight you put on. When bodybuilding, I want to get a full six pack and I’m just about there. Just got to shred away a little bit of lower body fat and then I’ll get there. If I want the six pack, it means that I should eat less calories and I plan on doing that. Avoid sugars and fatty foods more which means I’ll have to cut out ice cream, brownies and cakes a lot more which I plan to do for sure. I do a pretty good job avoiding bad food for the most part. I don’t eat processed foods anymore, I avoid bad fats and bad sugars. I avoid soda and I don’t eat fast food much anymore. My only downfall is ice cream and sometimes chocolate like brownies and cake…. gotta cut all that out of my nutrition. If I do that throughout the year of 2019, I’ll be able to get the full six pack in several months.

I’m still gonna have my cheat meals on the weekends only, though ’cause it’s good to have cheat meals.

When it comes to building muscle mass and putting on some gains, I just figured that all out really. You see so many guys in the gym doing half-repping and small partial reps… in my opinion, that’s bad. Doing half-repping and partial reps doesn’t do anything, in my opinion. When you want to get development in all of your body parts, full range of motion is very important. You want to feel the full contraction of the muscle… hit the muscle hard and squeeze it. That’s key to putting on some gains and I’ve been doing that trick a lot lately. That could be the reason why my chest has been improving as of late ’cause I’ve been using full range of motion and squeezing the muscle aka full contraction. That’s what you want.

All guys want to have that hot body that the ladies would drool over and I want that look too. It’s going to take a bit of time to get there. Goal for 2019 is to lower body fat percentage some more. Speaking of body fat percentage, I still need to see where it’s at now. I have a friend at the gym who is a personal trainer and maybe I’ll have her help me found out what it is for me. Sounds like a good idea.

I want to have a great bodybuilding physique and working really hard to get it. I’m doing it all naturally. No steroids, no supplements, no whey protein. Just good eating and hard training. That’s all it takes!

Kev

So I’m thinking I’m going to start training my chest twice a week. 1st day of chest training will be for muscle development and the 2nd chest day will be for strength training. I’ve been doing a lot of reading online of how I could develop my chest pecs even more. I’ve discovered that through a lot of bodybuilding sites that you can get a lot of benefits training chest twice a week. If you want to define your chest even more and quicker, that’s what you gotta do.

Some of you may ask… that’s over training. Not really as long as you leave three or 4 days in between the 2 chest day workouts so you can give your chest plenty of resting in between, you’ll be okay doing chest 2 times a week. I’ve read that training chest 2 times a week is a pretty popular technique and it works.

I really want to be doing bench pressing just for strictly strength training and that’s it. I don’t want to just strength training for chest, I want to build muscle too so on chest day which is usually the beginning of the week I’ll do stuff like incline bench, dumbbell flies and cable crossovers. For overall chest development, I’ll do dumbbell presses on a flat bench. I’ll do barbell bench presses on the weekends which is what I started doing for the past couple of weeks. I figure I want to keep deadlifting and flat bench press separate from other workouts on weekends, I’ll start calling it a deadlift/bench press day which is my strength training day.

If I want to get those Arnold like pecs which is what I want, gotta do chest twice a week and lets see how that works.

In this video clip, Arnold says that the best way to develop giant pecs is that you should do flat bench press, incline bench and dumbbell flies. I have been doing all 3 each week and I have noticed my pecs get some slight development each week so it’s all working. I’ve also been doing a lot of cable crossovers for the lower chest each week.

So from this point on, I think I’m going to start training chest two times a week. Like I said, it’s not over training at all as long as you leave your chest some rest in between. Chest muscles I’ve read takes 48 – 72 hours to recover so you’re good on doing chest twice a week.

The 1st chest day, I’ll do my regular chest training: flat dumbbell press, barbell incline bench, dumbbell flies and cable crossovers.

The 2nd chest day which will be on the weekends: just barbell bench for strength training.

This is my new plan for my chest routine and I did change my workout program around a little bit. There’s a misconception out there that training chest twice a week is over training but it isn’t. You just have to be smart about it.

Everybody’s always commenting about how big my arms are, how ripped my back looks, how my abs show but my only issue is that I need to improve my pecs and I’m really working on it. I really want the monster size pecs… I want to at least try to improve them some so I can define them more. I want a well-rounded great physique and my pecs really need to be bigger too. That’s why I’ve been doing both the pushing and squeezing movements when doing chest exercises ’cause you must do both movements.

When I have my shirt off, I want to get stares by the ladies and have them checking me out. I want to look intimidating and scary to the guys. If I keep doing what I do with the chest, I’ll get there.

I’m happy with most of my physique right now but gotta have more chest development and they are slowly improving a little bit, I’m noticing. I can make my chest flex and make them bounce now. When you have that, you know you have pecs and not flab.

A lot of body parts on my physique gets a lot of compliments (especially my arms and shoulders) but people don’t say anything about my pecs. They will, though. Trust me.

Kev

Now that I’m starting to do powerlifting competition meets, some of  you may ask will I do my first bodybuilding show? Ya know, those bodybuilding shows where you stand on stage, wearing nothing but trunks and posing for the judges like what you see in Arnold’s “Pumping Iron” movie?

I don’t know. Maybe, we’ll see how it goes. I used to be against doing bodybuilding shows but I’m actually kind of considering it a little bit. I just can’t see myself as a 40 year old man posing half naked on a stage in front of people but I read that age doesn’t matter. I was a little worried that they won’t accept a guy with scoliosis, a guy with a curvature in spine and a Harrington rod but I read a body condition like that isn’t against the rules so I guess I can still do a bodybuilding show if I wanted to.

As long as you have the body for a bodybuilding show, it shouldn’t matter how old you are or what your body condition is. Maybe people would find a guy with scoliosis doing a bodybuilding show be inspiring and powerful? Who knows.

If I were to do a bodybuilding show, I would need to make my nutrition really strict ’cause I would need to make my body fat a lot lower. My body fat is already pretty low but can be lower. I would also need to improve my pecs ’cause my pecs still need some development and I’m working on that.

I don’t know if I’ll do a bodybuilding show but never say never. If I get enough people telling me that I’m good enough to do one then maybe, who knows. I don’t think you’ll ever see me on a Mr. Olympia stage but maybe someday I could do one of the smaller and local bodybuilding shows ’cause there are plenty of those around.

If I don’t do a bodybuilding show at all, I’ll just stick with powerlifting.

I got into weightlifting ’cause I want to be in great shape… become the best shape of my life. I never really got into it to get on a bodybuilding stage or do powerlifting meets but now I’m thinking maybe competition isn’t a bad thing after all.

Kev