Shock Your Chest

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    Our bodies are constantly trying to achieve homeostasis, so it will (subconsciously) attempt to make things as easy as possible. This could be by finding little ways to cheat on a common exercise or just the muscles getting used to the receptiveness. Therefore, you must shock your muscles to prevent a stalemate in the muscle growing process.
    A change of exercise type, rep range and quantity of sets is a common way to do this, but the following are some more unorthodox and specific methods to promote growth through shock.

Super Sets
    A super set is a strategic set method where 2 exercises are combined, without a rest period in between. For example, we could perform a bench press for 12 reps and then directly after, we would drop to the ground and perform a set of push ups for another 12 reps. This exertion will be uncommon for the muscle and help shock it. I do recommend however only doing 1-2 of these sets per workout.

8’s
    This single set method is very useful. Our main goal is to confuse the muscle by using unorthodox rep ranges. While on the bench press, we’re going to perform 5 reps of the first 50% of the concentric phase, then 3 full range of motion reps. We’ll explode up on the concentric and lower the eccentric as a normal hypertrophy rep. 
    After the 8 reps, we take 20 seconds, then go again the same way. Do 5-10 times. Be careful if using for bench press, and always have a spotter.

21’s
    I’ve mostly seen this in arm exercises, but it can be applied to chest as well. Similar to 8’s in that it uses range of motion to confuse muscles, the 21’s uses 3 different range for 7 reps each, with no break.
Reps 1-7 : First 50% range of motion
Reps 8-14: Second 50% range of motion
Reps 15-21: Full range of motion

Chest Bomb
    This method attempts to overload the whole chest with high reps. You will need an adjustable bench and spotter. Set the adjustable bench to an incline position, preferable 2 notches higher than flat (parallel to floor). We will do 7 reps from this position, then sit up. Our spotter will adjust the bench one notch lower, then we will do another 7 reps. Then the spotter will move the bench to the flat position and we will do out last 7 reps. It’s a killer exercise that will definitely exhaust your chest. I recommend using about 60% of your regular 10 rep max. So if you normally do 100lbs dumbbells for 10 reps, try this exercise with 60lbs.

    If your chest workouts are getting stale, definitely give one of these a try. It’ll feel good to change it up and your muscles will thank you with growth cause by confusion. Email me your feedback on how you found them.

Please email me with any questions, comments or concerns.

Tyler Pritchard
CanFit Pro Personal Training Specialist
tylerrpritchard@gmail.com