Totally agree with Scott. Incline chest press is not the best for building an upper chest as the anterior delts and triceps each take 1/3 of the load meaning the chest only does 1/3. Taking a neutral grip and keeping the dumbells together throughout the whole motion puts more fo the loead on the chest and less on the shoulders. Another alternative is kneeling landmine chest press. This also is very good at developing the upper and inner chest.

John

Blocky abs are built by using weighted ab exercises. It does not matter if you do them in a circuit or individually. Like any other muscle, abs respond to progressive overload. If you do not want blocky abs, then don't do weighted ab exercises and get your body fat low.

Ab rollouts are primarily a different variant for the rectus abdominus to build the muscle like weighted cable crunches. If you want core stability, the best thing to do is do all your compound lifts (squats, deadlifts, rows, curls, overhead pressing) without a weight belt. This puts all the stability forces on the abs when doing these movements thus increasing core stability. It also helps build the core as the abs must keep the spine in a neutral position and counter-balance the forces of the lower back muscles.

John

I thought Scott was talking about what I was, I was saying that you start out with dumbbells NOT in a neutral grip, and AS you press them up, you bring them closer together but not to where they're touching. Rather than how most people hold them out, and just press them straight up. So John you're saying that you should start with a neutral grip and press straight up?

Also isn't it correct that as long as the angle of the bench is small most of the focus is on the chest? I thought only at a big angle like 60+ it becomes mainly shoulders...

I would start with a pronated grip and follow through with that, yes. What John is suggesting is that you can do the entire press with a neutral grip as that can take a lot of engagement and potential stress away from the shoulders. For example, some people who have slightly dodgy shoulders will only press with a neutral grip. But if you don't have shoudler issues, it's not a necessity, and if you actually want a bit more shoulder activation it's fine to start pronated and then press the dumbbells together. Hope that makes sense.

For your abs, I'll link you to my blocky abs video below. I agree with John about the sets and circuits - both work as long as you're getting some kind of preogressive overload with the weighted movements in particular from week to week and month to month. You can also think of ab roll outs as almost a moving variation of a plank.

Scott clarified a bit in his last post but what I am referring to is keeping the dumbells together with a neutral grip from start to finish. This means they start at your chest together and you press them up from your chest together (no resting the weight on your chest while doing the exercise). By bringing them up and down while lying on a bench at a slight incline and pressing the weights together while you are pressing them up and down puts tremendous load on the upper and inner parts of the pec. The shoulders do not have as much engagement as when the DBs start out to the sides of the chest with elbows at a 45 degree angle.

Now while it is true the range of motion is not as deep due to your sternum, the constant tension and focus on the upper and inner pectoral fibers makes up for the lack of depth. It is just one option to add into a chest routine and is not meant to be your only upper chest exercise. Adding variety in your chest program will

provide maximum results.

Incline on a bench really should be no higher than 35 degrees (a couple of clicks on most adjustable benches) to focus primarily on chest. You are correct in that a higher angle puts more load on the shoulders but more shoulder involvement will always be there whenever using a pronated grip and barbell/dumbells to the side of your chest. If you want to minimize shoulder involvement, you can either do supinated (reverse grip - fingers facing forward and away from you) BB or DB bench pressing or the DB movement I describe above.

John

Hi Scott, I'm back with a new question.

On push day, I do 2 chest exercises, 2 shoulder exercises, and 2 tricep exercises. Now the trainer at my gym and most people say to work the larger muscle groups FIRST, however the problem is that if I try to do both chest exercises first, by the time I get to my first shoulder exercise, my shoulders are already quite fatigued.

Push day is this:

Barbell Bench Press 4x6-10 reps

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 4x6-10 reps

Standing Barbell Overhead Press 4x6-10 reps

Rear Lateral Raise 4x12-15 reps

Dips 3x12 (bodyweight, and then negatives until I hit 12 reps)

CGBP 4x6-10 reps

I can only overhead press 55 lb for reps, and if I do Barbell Bench Press and then Incline dumbbell press I probably can't even do 4 sets with the bar on overhead press. So rather than train bigger muscle groups first, I instead have been doing the main exercises first:

Barbell Bench Press 4x6-10 reps

Standing Barbell Overhead Press 4x6-10 reps

Dips 3x12 (bodyweight, and then negatives until I hit 12 reps)

Superset:

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press 4x6-10 reps

Rear Lateral Raise 4x12-15 reps

CGBP 4x6-10 reps

This seems to work better as my shoulders don't get exhausted (since incline involves shoulders a lot) before I do overhead press. Will this affect my gains if I train the main movements first, rather than work larger muscle groups first? What are the pros/cons of this and would you recommend I do this?

There's nothing wrong with your suggested changes @Vect0rs. The main reason you train compounds first is so you can lift the most weight possible, so it actually makes sense to hit your bench press and then overhead press at the start of your workout to move as much weight as you can.

It won't have any negative effects on your gains at all. Just keep in mind that because your shoulders do play a part in your pressing movements, you probably won't be able to incline press as much weight AFTER doing your overhead press, compared to the weight you could lift when you were performing the incline press BEFORE the overhead press. The same goes for doing the dips earlier - your triceps will be a bit fatigued meaning you might not move as much weight with the incline press afterwards.

But it doesn't matter.. as long as you are still hitting your rep range, you're getting to a couple of reps shy of failure, and getting that muscle breakdown, you're achieving what you need to for muscle growth.

Okay. Also, how important is it to have unilateral exercises in routine? Some people say you need to have those to make sure there aren't muscle imbalances, but is it nessacary for me as a beginner who is trying to gain muscle?

And also in a few weeks I am going to change my routine, and I am wondering, should I keep the main movements the same and only change secondary exercises, or is changing everything okay? Like this is the push routine I am thinking about doing when I change my routine:

Push:

Flat Dumbbell Bench Press

Incline Dumbbell Bench Press

Standing Dumbbell Overhead Press

Lateral Raises

Dumbbell Skull Crushers

V-bar Push Down

OR is not doing any heavy lifting/main exercises bad and do something like this instead:

Barbell Bench Press

Standing Barbell Overhead Press

Dips

Low Incline Smith Machine Barbell bench press (do you think this is a good one?)

Lateral Raises

Ez-bar Skull Crushers

Basically should I change only secondary exercises, or should I also switch main exercises too? I'm just not sure if I don't have any of the main exercises if it will hurt my gains since compounds are supposed to contribute the most to muscle/strength gains, and any other suggestions about my routine can you give me?

Thanks as usual Scott!

Scott did you see my post above? I think it was uploaded but I can try again if it didn't work.

It's OK man I see your post, it uploaded no problem, sorry I hadn't got to it yet!

Unilateral movements aren't absolutely necessary, I would add those in later IF you start to notice imbalances. For now, doing lots of dumbbell movements where each arm is still working individually will help you avoid any of those imbalances occuring.

I think both routine options you have are good. As a beginner it's good to get used to dumbbells first to get those stabilizers working early. Are you doing a PPL routine though? If you are, you could do both of these push workouts in one week so that you are getting a good mix of barbell work AND dumbbell work.

If you only do a push workout once a week at the moment, then it would be OK to switch to your second push workout option for another 8-12 weeks, and then go back to dumbbell pressing and keep rotating to keep both variations moving forward.

Hope that helps!

1. I'm doing PPL Rest or (abs), and repeat, so training 6 days out of every 8 (not counting abs on rest days). So are you saying that on one Push workout I could do more barbell (more heavy lifting) exercises, and the second push workout more volume (more dumbbells/cables) instead of lifting heavy? So one day is basically Heavy Lifting/Low Volume, and second day is Not as Heavy lifting/High Volume.

2. So that is better than just doing mostly barbell (heavy) exercises for a few months and then switching to higher volume/less heavy lifting for the next few months?

3. And I could do the same thing with the Pull and Leg day right?

1. Yes that's what I'm saying, but you don't absolutely have to change the volume. If you want to work on strength AND size, then yes doing a heavy day and a volume day with barbell (heavy) and dumbbells (volume) that would work.

2. I wouldn't say it's better. Because you're doing a bit of both, progress in both areas would be a little slower than if you were purely focusing on one or the other. It's good to do both, but for example, you probably wouldn't build as much strength compared to if you were only barbell pressing.

3. Yes you can do this with any body part 😊 

Well my main goal is size, sure I want to get stronger on the exercises like Bench, Squat, Deadlift(when I start doing it), but it's not nearly as important to me. However those exercises give you both size and strength so it accomplishes both of my goals right?

Now although doing both will mean slower progress, on the other hand strength from one exercise carries over right? If I add 30 pounds to my barbell overhead press it will probably mean that on my dumbbell overhead press I'll be able to do more weight too or vice versa? Also more importantly as I asked John earlier, it seems to me if you for example increase your bench while it is in your routine, and then for month or two don't do bench, when you come back you will have lost some of your strength... So by doing bench consistently you would keep going up in weight and not losing progress right? Anyway since size is by far more important it probably doesn't matter.

Now for the volume, what I was thinking is maybe do a bit less volume and lift a bit heavier on the heavy days, and on the lighter days do a bit more volume since the I won't be lifting as heavy and the intensity would be lower. I will post my routine once I finish it and ask you for any suggestions. By the way for a pull day, my current routine is doing:

Chin Ups 3x12 (full reps (bodyweight) and then negatives until I get 12)

Rack Pulls 4x6-10

Landmine Wide-grip T-bar row 4x6-10

Landmine Close-grip T-bar row 4x6-10

High Pulls 4x6-10

Barbell Bicep Curl 3x6-10

So it is one vertical underhand pull movement, 2 upper back movements (rack pull, high pull), and two horizontal rows for mid back area. What do you think about it, is this a good structure for a pull workout? The problem I see is that the volume for biceps is too low especially since arms seems to be the hardest for me to add size, and this workout is pretty tiring I think because the intensity and the volume are both pretty high (for back). Should I make the reps a bit less (so to use heavier weight), like 6-8 rep range instead? And should I get rid of one of the back exercises so that there is only 4 therefore a bit less volume or should I just get used to handling lifting heavy with this amount of volume?

Hey Scott I hope you can answer my questions above soon and I also wanted to ask if I should post my routine on a new thread since this ones already quite long?

I'm obviously not Scott but I'll give you my thoughts, take them with a grain of salt 😁 

First, I think you're right, as a beginner you don't need to worry about the small details. You're worried about muscle imbalances before you have the muscles. I mean, I wish my problem was my right bicep was 19 inches and the left is only 18.75! But the truth is they both suck and need improvement.

Next, it looks like your biggest changes are using dumbbells in one and barbells in the other. For the main compound movements I prefer barbells. You're able to overload a lot more weight. I don't like smith machines, I just never could get the feel for them. They take out all of the assistance muscles you'll need for balance and have that fixed and usually unnatural bar path. I will use dumbbells on some exercises after my compound barbell moves. So for a push day, that might mean starting with a flat barbell press, and also having a dumbbell incline afterwards.

Yes to an extent, but for something like the bench press, you're better off with dumbbells to maximize size, barbell to maximize strength. You can gain both strength and size with a barbell or dumbbells, but each variation does work a bit better for one specific goal is all.

Strength carries over a bit, yes, but dumbbell and barbell pressing (either on a bench or overhead) are actually kind of different. If you spend a long time (a couple of months) barbell pressing WITHOUT dumbbell pressing, there's a good chance your strength won't have gone up much at all in the dumbbell press because your body isn't used to having to stabilize the weight as much, or use a bigger range of motion that the dumbbells give you. That's why it's a good idea to do both.

And yes for your bench, if you do it consistently, you will maintain strength, but you may hit a plateau at some point, otherwise your bench would just keep going up forever and ever haha.

Your back example looks OK. The rep range is fine, I'd probably go for 8-10 if it's muscle gain you're after. Probably no need to do 4 sets of the two different T-Bar row variations, if anything I would do a T-Bar row and a Barbell bent-over row. When you say high pull.. do you mean like a face pull? Or an upright row? You could maybe take them out if you think the volume is too high for you, and if your arms are a weak point, maybe do 5-6 sets of the bicep curls?