I remember, years ago – we’re talking over three decades ago, and I was talking with my college soccer coach shortly after being selected for the NAIA National All-Tournament Team. He told me that I was so much bigger than the other atletes in the tournament and that maybe I should lose some muscle if I wished to continue my soccer career professionally…
That wouldn’t be the last time I was told I was getting too big…
When I was 15, I lived in St. Louis, Missouri, and guys were raised with the attitude that it was a wussy maneuver to “pronounce” the name of our high school. We spit it out, as if it was a nail caught in our teeth. There were only two sports that earned you cred — football and wrestling — and I did neither of them. They weren’t contact sports; they were crash-dummy sports. Instead I played baseball and soccer…and I quietly picked up a knack for bodybuilding.
The football players and wrestlers thought they were something special, big men on campus… and they always tried to impress their will upon the guys in the “weaker sports.” The only way to survive was to get strong. That meant beating my body bloody with the heaviest barbells and dumbbells I could find. It was all about seeing how much I could bench, and I actually kept a record to see if I was getting stronger. All day long, I benched, then went to soccer practice, then it was to the baseball field, then ran back to the gym and benched some more.
Those were crazy workouts… crazy days. I’d be in there for an hour and a half doing just chest, 20 sets of benches, as heavy as I could, until someone would say, “OK, it’s time for something else.”
I had a body part split at that time, but it was something like chest, shoulders and triceps on the same day. Since chest was first, that received the most energy and volume. In my next workout, I’d put more emphasis on shoulders. At the end of each workout, regardless of the body part, I’d always do some chest exercises, and they’d always include bench presses.
My senior year, 1975, we were getting ready for the biggest high school soccer tournament of the year. Everyone was sitting there relating different statistics about different players, and reading different newspaper clippings, and I’m sitting there reading Muscle & Fitness. I remember one teammate saying, “Rick, aren’t you taking this weight lifting thing a little too serious?” (He didn’t even know to call it bodybuilding). I’d been playing both soccer and baseball since I was five, so my biggest objective was to get a scholarship and go play sports in college, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d become fully interested in bodybuilding.
That was my senior year in high school, and I was the only kid on my teams that the coaches didn’t want lifting weights anymore, because they said I was starting to lose mobility in my shoulders, chest and back. In baseball, you have to be really flexible, especially in your shoulders. Especially for me since I was a pitcher. I on the other hand did notice certain things, such as improvement in the velocity of my pitches. And in soccer it was evident to everyone that I could not be pushed off the ball. Opponents simply could not move me. And there I was, trying to get big, huge arms and chest, offering more of me for them to grab. So my coach said, “No, seriously, Rick, I want you to stop lifting!”
Did I? Nah. I kept training in a friend’s basement so that nobody would know, and that same year, I was chosen to the 1st Team High School All- American Soccer Team and was drafted in the 15th round of the Major League Baseball draft by the Cincinnati Reds.
After graduation, I moved on to Rockhurst College in Kansas City, Missouri, where I became a two-time NAIA All-American in soccer, and even dabbled around with the pros for a few years afterwards. Every off-season I continued to give this bodybuilding thing a try. Every coach I ever had condemned my weight training, but never complained about the results.
Ironically, my college soccer coach admitted to me just last week that my talent was always clearly evident on the soccer field, but he came to the realization and acceptance that my weight training had more to do with my success than he had ever been willing to accept.
My chest workout in those days wasn’t much different from what it is today. If I have a weakness, I keep experimenting to see what works for me, but that was never the case with chest. The same old stuff has continued to work, so why change it? Always, it has been six to 12 reps for four or five sets of four exercises in a sequence of incline-dips-bodyweight exercise-incline. Strength gains over the years, however, forced me to make a fundamental change.
When you’re young, your body can really take a beating. The maximum weight you can handle is less, so you can throw it around with less risk. However, you do a 470-pound bench press for a few reps, and you want to keep pushing up that max.
I slightly strained my chest and/or shoulders a couple of times doing that, so I decided the risk wasn’t worth it. Now, the only flat bench press I do is on a Smith machine, and even that is on a rare occasion.
An ideal chest workout for me starts with incline Smith machine presses. That exercise allows me to use a barbell, yet continue to get things warmed up while stabilized. Second, I might do flat-bench dumbbell presses. Third up are incline dumbbell flyes and finally is a brutal finisher — dips superset with cable crossovers.
By this time in my career, I’ve long stopped with the calculations. Most bodybuilders are meticulous about their sets and numbers; I like to just train. Just work out. If you’re feeling good that day, don’t say, “OK, we’ve counted our sets and reps, so we’re done for the day.” Don’t make it a math class. Just train.
The next workout could begin with incline dumbbell presses, followed by flat-bench Smith machine presses, incline dumbbell flyes, then the dreaded dips/cable-crossovers superset.
I have to confess another change over the years: I still train heavy, but I no longer sacrifice “feel” for weight. Your chest should have a certain feeling after a workout, and training heavy doesn’t guarantee that sensation. You need to create deep contractions in your pec muscles and fatigue them. I still train heavy – up to 150-pound dumbbells for the incline dumbbell presses – but I’m not merely trying to push up as much weight as I can for six or ten reps. I try to squeeze out at least eight, the objective being to build either a pump or a burn, and yes, I do distinguish between them. With inclines, I’m going for the pump, but if I’m doing an isolated movement such as cable crossovers, I really strive for the burn, in which case my reps might go a little higher, maybe 15.
Speed of movement is moderate and consistent, the same from the first rep to the last. The first couple of sets are not to failure, but the latter are – although the same pace holds. I want to feel the entire muscle complex working at all times. For the last couple of sets, I use forced reps, and when I’m in dieting mode, I include some drop sets.
The purpose of all this is to fatigue your chest muscles in the same manner as for any other body part. Many guys think that a chest workout is their opportunity to simply push weight; furthermore, that it’s the only way to work the chest. But in my mind, that’s the “wussy” way out – and we don’t do it that way in my workouts. It’s called a workout, after all … so make sure the muscle you’re targeting gets thoroughly worked out, hammered from every angle and primed for growth.
There’s a clear difference between lifting weights and pushing weights. Most guys simply push weights and wonder why they never improve. Learn the difference between the two and you’ll both feel and see the difference.