Need Specific Fitness Advice

[WaterBomb]

Hi all. To make a long story short, I have a couple of questions I'd like to pose to the community, to see if I can get a second opinion on some workouts that will help me.

These are the questions:

1. What is the best exercise to build strength and mass in the lower and central chest? I've been doing the decline bench for this, but if anyone knows a more effective method let me know.

2. What's the best way to get definition in your abs quickly when you already have the muscle mass in place?

3. For biceps: Curling bar or Individual dumbbells?

 

[Legacy Raider]

I don't know about chest excercises really.. I just tend to run a lot and do the reverse fly to build up chest muscle, but I think I do have advice for your other two.

For biceps I would recommend dumbells or free weights. When you are doing bicep curls with them, your are not only using your bicep muscle, but also lots of small, co-ordinator muscles that allow your arm to do complex movements. These smaller muscles are essential for a wide strength range and are will give you stronger arms in general.

To get definition in abs, try doing holds. Hold your body up with your hands or hang of something, and then bring your legs up so that they're at 90 degrees to the rest of your body. Hold for 10 seconds (or longer as you go on), remembering to breathe, and then slowly lower your legs relax. Repeat as much as you want, and try to do it regularly, to get tight and defined abs.

Oh, and try not to get a hernia ;)

 

[Xia]

For arms, try kettleballs and the like. They seem to work better than the curl bar.

Chest size can normally be gown by doing Michigan Workouts. It's kind of complicated, but essentially is doing burn out reps and then lowering the weight and doing it again.

If that's not available, I suggest doing a mix of reverse flys and regular bench press that hits your chest. When the bar hits your chest, it not only uses your main pectoral muscle, it also uses a lower part that norally is not worked in a "90 degree arm" press.

For abs, try doing upside down crunches (where you hang from a bar using your legs and pull up), or stand ups. Stand ups consist of you starting in the normal sit up starting position, moving to the sit up middle position (sitting down), and then you using your stomach, legs, and hips to stand straight up. It sounds hard, but once you get your balance down they are very good.

You'll be looking like Hercules in no time. =P

 

[Lee]

1. For the lower chest I'd reccomend cable work. It's only really practical in a gym but hold the cable in one hand and then drag it across the body to the other side. That works the lower chest quite well. Press-ups are great too and Bench Press is just a great chest exercise in general.

2. If the muscle is already there then the only reason the definition isn't showing is because there's too much fat deposited around the stomach region. Just cut your body fat...eat healthier and do more CV work. Don't worry too much about doing more abdominal work. It won't contribute to your definition until you burn the fat.

3. I do both. In general, I'll use dumbells if I'm doing endurance work and a barbell if I'm doing strength work.

 

[WaterBomb]

In response to everyone:

I'm specifically looking to focus on my lower chest, as my main pectoral and other chest muscles are already well developed. What I'm trying to do now is even it out so I get that nice square look rather than the Home Plate I have now. See below

This is my current situation. As you can see, the lower and middle part of my chest is far less developed than my upper chest. To give you a comparison, I bench about 245 on the flat, but only 180 on the reverse incline. This is why I'm trying to gear my workouts toward that specific goal. Right now I only do toning on the well developed areas to preserve my strength but not develop them too much further.

As far as the biceps go, please elaborate a little further on the type of lifts. With the dumbells should I sit or stand? Should I do the upper 90, lower 90, or full 180 movement range? Should I work with the arm support pad, or do free-hang lifts? I'm just trying to get a better idea of what's more productive so I don't waste time and energy doing a less efficient workout. Thank you for your input so far though, I've already used it to make a few adjustments to my workout. Let's hear some more!

PS - Sorry if this is supposed to be in Firebot, that's actually where I meant to post it in the first place. If it's ok here, then leave it. If that's where it's really supposed to be, please move it :)

 

[RaikouLover]

1. What is the best exercise to build strength and mass in the lower and central chest? I've been doing the decline bench for this, but if anyone knows a more effective method let me know.

Bench press. Butterfly works well for all chest also.. I don't know much specifics, just keep working!

2. What's the best way to get definition in your abs quickly when you already have the muscle mass in place?

Running and playing sports. No seriously, sprinting tones abs very quickly and so do any type of sport in general for cutting fat. But sprinting requires core stability, so every time you run suicide sprints and work your body hard, you are excersicizng your abs and don't even notice. I would just play sports more often because I had the same problem at the beginning of this year. I had lost my ab definition I had from high school, but once I started playing soccer regularly again with the guys in college it came back.

3. For biceps: Curling bar or Individual dumbbells?

Dumbbells definately. Both is always good, but dumbbells are more effective because they work all parts of the muscle. For example, if you are trying to do concentration curls on each specific dumbbell (one at a time preferably), when you reach your wall you can only lift it halfway. Well, this halfway motion works to make the contracting tissues stronger... so even when you struggle to lift at the end of each set of repititions you can concentrate on the motion to make those muscles stronger. With a curling bar you can't get the full range of motion as effectively.

 

[Echo]

3. For biceps: Curling bar or Individual dumbbells?

Curling bar and put your back against a wall. This way you won't use your back muscles to ease the move, which is the general error most people do when doing their biceps with a curling bar.

As for individuals dumbbells, I've found that the most effective way is when you lean your elbow against your thigh and curl the dumbbell up, so that it touches your chest. It centralized the movement to exercise only your biceps. Remember not to include your back muscles when doing this exercise, meaning that don't lean backwards when curling up the dumbbell.

Though, you should vary the exercises you do because you want to balance out your muscular strength and size. I do different exercises every week when exercising my biceps.

For abs, try doing upside down crunches

This exercise is decent if you don't do it when you're tired. If you do it when tired, it doesn't work shit. That's why I'd advise this only for more developed abs.

Well, this halfway motion works to make the contracting tissues stronger... so even when you struggle to lift at the end of each set of repititions you can concentrate on the motion to make those muscles stronger

You can do this effectively with a curling bar as well. It also helps if you can ask someone to give the bar a little nudge upwards when you can't fully lift it up yourself. This way you can get the whole range of motion with one part of the range requiring all your strength (the part before your partner starts helping you a little).

 

[Lexite]

Hula hoops do a great job in the lower chest area. Get a hula hoop and do that for a while.