I don't believe in doing "exercises" per se.There are lots of ways to move a weight from A to B that don't necessarily involve the intended muscles much.What can a muscle actually do?It can shorten,it can lengthen,or it can remain static.Another way to say "contract as much as possible" is to say"pose".I think of "posing" a muscle against resistance on the positive contraction,and "stretching"against resistance on the negative lengthening.
So to train a specific muscle,I ask,"What does this muscle do?What is it's function?"The chest draws your arms towards the front of your body.It does not extend them away from your body.That is the work of the triceps,and the reason why I personally never do bench presses for chest.I will do reverse grip presses in a Smith machine for triceps,but that's another story.I realize that most of you will continue to do bench presses and I'll make a suggestion on how to possibly make them a bit more productive.
The final point I would like to make,before we begin,is that I consider it crucial to "initiate" the movement with the target muscle.If you are training chest,your chest should be the first thing to contract and be the impetus for the weight moving.Now let's look at some specific movements.
Bench press:Everyone's favorite for some reason,yet from the looks of things,it doesn't seem to be working that well.Let's see if we can change that.What you want to do is move your shoulders "back,and down".That is,with arms extended,drop your shoulders back towards the floor and down towards your waist.Notice how this pushes your chest into the air.Now,HOLD this position as you press.
Dips:I perform these the "Vince Gironda" way and it really hits the outer edge,giving you an awesome "V" look from the front.You want your elbows out to the side.Keeping them close to your body and going behind you is straightening your arms and that's how you do them for triceps.You want to imagine that you're doing a "Most Muscular"pose as you push yourself up.
The starting position is,with elbows out wide,place your chin on your chest and bring your feet out in front of you so that your body resembles a "half moon" from the side.Now lower slowly and under control into a "stretch" position.Now,pushing your hands together into a most muscular pose,rise .You obviously can't push your hands together,but try,and you'll rise....Girls stare at my chest a lot when they're talking to me,and I believe this move is the reason.
Cable flyes:Again,the way I see people doing this,is all triceps.And there's practically no resistance against the muscle at peak contraction.I could stand there all day with my arms thrust out in front of me,cause nothing's happening.
I back up,so that with my arms in front of me,my hands are in a straight line from one pulley to the other.If you look at the letter "I",that would be me,looking from the top.The top bar is my hands and the cables,the bottom bar my body and the middle,my arms.This implies that my arms are straight and this will be the case with a light weight.This is hard to explain,so bear with.
From the weight stack on my left,the cable to my left hand,the cable from my right hand,to the weight stack on the right,is a straight line,with me standing behind it.Now I can't go into a stretch position with this,because the weight can't move behind me.I use this as a "finishing" move.I start with 100 lbs or so.Now with this weight,my arms are bent somewhat,or they'd get ripped off.But my hands are still "in line" with the cable.Initiating the movement from my pec,I pose my hands towards one another.I squeeze my pecs as hard as possible,and there's no way I could stand there all day.
Next,I'll drop the weight to 60 lbs.Now I can straighten my arms more.Again,initiating from the pec,I pose my arms together.Finally I'll drop to 30 lbs.Now my arms are completely straight,my hands in line with the cables.With this light weight I can totally concentrate on posing my pecs against resistance as hard as possible.Talk about a pump!Whew!
I also like heavy dumbell flyes,which for me is 120 lbs.I didn't start at this weight so don't be discouraged if you're not there yet.I put my shoulders "back and down" as in the bench press and I don't go up all the way,as I like to keep constant tension on the muscle.
I also do "extreme stretching"after each movement.The bottom position of the dip,the bottom position of the dumbell flye,and I'll also stretch at the cable flye by turning so my arm is well behind me.With the stack set at 20 lbs,I'll start from full-on stretch and initiate the contraction in my pec for a short range and go back to a full stretch.
I usually do one set of these three exercises to failure,followed by a stretch and a drop-set and stretch on the cable flyes and I'm done.I train back and chest together,alternating,and when I'm done I walk around a bit in a lat spread,squeezing my pecs.Fun stuff.
That's it for now.Next time we'll talk about training back.Have fun!