My delts/tris are a bit stronger than my chest and I am trying to add mass to my chest at the moment. The routine I am following calls for 2X6 flat bench, 2X6 incline smith, 2X4 dips, and 2X6 flyes. The thing is, I am capable of handling 175lbs or so on bench press when going fairly slow, 1/2 reps. If I rely solely on my chest and pull my hands together on the press, I only use like 130-135lbs. Should I be using the extra weight to stress the muscle more or, still contract my pecs hard with lighter weight? I have read that squeezing a muscle does little to fatigue it so I am just confused as to what method I should be using. I flair my elbows, retract shoulders and everything, just one involves pushing my hands together as opposed to simply pushing the weight.

You're really not trying to fatigue the muscle per se by squeezing your hands together. You're trying to shift the work onto your pecs vs. your delts and tris.

175lbs is pretty low. I'd work on increasing your strength right now. I wouldn't even worry about incline smith benching, dips or flyes right now - just do something like a 5x5 bench routine to get your strength levels up.

I've read on here that flyes are better for those with longer arms.. if that's true, and if you have long arms, flyes might be the way to go.


On the other hand I'm a runner who lifts sometimes, so take that with whatever you will.

Geiger has a point, althought having long arms doesn't mean necessarily that you SHOULDN'T bench it just means you have to keep your head out of your ass while doing it. Wider grips are what your after rather than close ones. Close grips recruit a lot of tri, Your tri as far as smaller muscles go are pretty strong. Secondly, you failed to state your goal. If hypertrophy is your goal it sounds like you need higher reps in your regimen as well as flyes. If strength is your goal then I'd suggest listening to anything and everything said by Kimbo.

Why not try pre-exhausting your pecs with flyes before then moving to a pressing exercise for 6 weeks or so, then move to 5x5bench press routine?

Flairing your elbows out doesn't recruit any more of your pecs than keeping them at a 45 degree abduction, but does however put much excess stress on your rotator cuff muscles. The same goes for using a grip more than 1.5 times that of your acromium (essentially from shoulder bone to shoulder bone)

Br

wouldn't that result in more recruitment of ancillary muscles? Sounds like Flex logic to me

Yeah... I wouldn't suggest that either...

To iridebikes: My reasoning is that if you're only benching 175 then you probably aren't very big in general. I'm assuming you want to put on some more muscle mass. Think of yourself as a house - you're worrying about the window dressing and siding when you should still be working on the frame and foundation. If your tris and delts get bigger, so be it - but if you're benching 300lbs I guarantee you're going to have some decent pec development as well. There are some things you can do to tweak pec recruitment, but I really wouldn't sweat it much at this point.

Promises, promises...

I was waiting for you to chime in here.

Coincidently, my pecs are epic compared to my arms and I don't bench well at all. I'm like Kevin Durant: 6'3" with a 6'7" wingspan.

You seem to be the exception rather than the rule. Most PL'ers with big benches have at least decent pec development, even though the PL bench is designed to utilize the delts and tri's more. You'd definitely want to focus more on technique and ancillary exercises.

I suggest replacing both flat and incline barbell/smith presses with dumbbell presses. Lower the dumbbells as far down as is comfortable/safe; concentrate on feeling your pecs do the work and on drawing your elbows toward the center line of your body. Do not worry about whatever poundage you initially use; gradually increase the weight as you gain strength and coordination.