| How can i keep progressing my chest training when I have limited weights? |
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Try pre-exhaust training - a technique which is extremely useful if you only have access to light weights (if you’re training at home or at a poorly equipped gym). It allows you to fatigue your muscles without the need for heavy weights. The pre-exhaust training technique is simple to use and can be a highly effective way to stimulate rapid growth. It involves pre-exhausting your bodypart prior to your main compound movement when training chest or shoulders. Let’s take your chest as an example. Normally, you probably start a chest workout with some heavy basic movements - maybe flat bench presses followed by incline presses. Then, you may move to some isolation work, such as flyes to finish them off and get a good burn. But as you progress and get stronger you need heavier weights. If you train at home this can get expensive… But by doing the isolation exercise first and then progressing to your basic movements you get to fatigue your major muscle group (ie: chest) before you hit the bench press and therefore don’t need so much weight. Therefore if training chest, you’d begin with flyes (heavier than usual) and actually finish up with the bench press or include press. Of course, by the time you get to the bench press, your pectorals, shoulders and arms will be thoroughly exhausted. You’ll have to go a bit lighter than usual in terms of weight, but you’ll be hitting the pecs in a unique, direct, and powerful way… and you’ll get an incredible pump! If you were training shoulders, you would start with side lateral raises and then move towards shoulder presses. On the face of it, pre-exhausting training seems to fly in the face of conventional thinking. But that’s why it works so well. It gives your muscles a stimulus they’re not used to and shocks them into growth. If however you find it demotivating to have to use less weight on your big power movements, like bench press, bent over rows, squats, etc… then you’ll have to fact the fact, that time to invest in more weights or it’s time to join a good gym that can offer you everything. Doing neither will probably mean never really getting any bigger - as bigger weights equals bigger muscles! |