The Power of the Press
A Day Dedicated to Chest Gains
Grab your lads, hop on your bikes and race to your local gym ,shotgun your pre-workout. It’s the best day of the week— CHEST DAY.
Consistency is the name of the game when it comes to strength, and todays session was all about moving heavy weight with solid execution. With a mix of pressing movements, high-rep isolation, and some sold triceps work. This one packed a punch and left me with an insane pump.
Main Lifts
Bench Press: 8 reps for 3 sets at 225 lbs. (After a 3 set warm-up ladder 45-135-185.)
Dumbbell Chest Press: 7 reps for 3 sets at 85lbs. (No warm-up necessary.)
Seated Barbell OHP: 5 reps for 3 sets at 135lbs. (No warm-up.)
Bar Dips: 3 sets of 10 reps BW. (No warm-up.)
*Always do your most important lift first.
“How do i know what the most important lift is?” - Its the one YOU care about the most.
Accessory Work
Smith Machine Skull Crushers: 4 sets of 20 reps (high-rep burnout.)
Machine Chest Fly: 3 sets of 10-12 reps at 160lbs.
Triceps pushdown bar or rope—pick your poison: 2 sets of 50lbs. at 10-20 reps. (I’m not counting reps on my last exercises.)
I stop rep counting on my final 1-2 exercises to be more focused on how the muscles are feeling rather than attaching myself to a number. We’ve already accomplished good hard sets—Time to get that Pump!
Breakin’ It Down
Big pressing day means hitting all angles of the chest and tri’s with a mix of heavy chest work and high-rep pump sets. Bench sets the tone— getting comfortable under heavier loads before backing off to volume. Dumbbell presses keep things balanced, and OHP make sure those shoulders aren’t lackin’. Smith machine skull crushers are brutal— you cant cheat them with momentum. The bar dips were the icing on the cake.
This whole workout felt solid, beginning to end. It was just one of those days. The weight moved well, got a good pump and nothing felt “off” afterwards.
Today was a bit of a “double header.” My father in law was in town and challenged me to see who could bench the most. The competitive spirit in me is always up for a challenge. So a few hours after my session I was back under the bar for round two. Not my usual set up, but when family wants to lift, you roll with it. Surprisingly everything moved well despite the extra pressing earlier. Both of our maxes are similar— Mine: 275lbs. His: 120kg (He lives in Australia.) He pushed himself, I got reminded of how much fun it is to train with someone who loves it just as much as me.
-225 moved easy for both of us, 245 solid, 255 still smooth, 265 some shaking, we finally stopped at 267 deciding to call it before we got ourselves hurt.
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Leave your go-to pressing movement in the comments!