Full Intermittent Fasting Workout: Chest and Triceps

What's up guys? Today we're going to be doing a little bit of a different kind of video. I'm going to be taking you guys in the gym with me and you're going to see what a typical chest and triceps workout looks like. I'm going to show you guys the different exercises that I use, why I use them, and the different sets and rep ranges that I use. If you haven't already, please be sure to hit that like button, hit that subscribe button. It'll really help me out. All right, let's get started with the workout. Alright guys. So before I even get started with my push workout or pretty much any upper body workout in general, I always do the same warm up routine. I start with a little bit of rotator cuff warm up using various forms of shoulder, external rotations with dumbbells, and I try to do around 30 to 40 reps total. I then use a resistance band and do some dynamic stretches to really open up my chest and a few sets of band pull up arts. And this basically just helps ensure my shoulders are decently warmed up before I get started with the weights. And it's really helped my shoulders stay injury free for a few years now. So the first exercise I'm starting with is the incline Smith machine press to target my upper chest. And I'm probably going to get some hate for using the Smith machine, but the reason I use it is because for some reason this Smith machine in particular really activates my upper chest a lot more than any other compound press I've tried. And I don't know whether it's because the bar is a little thinner or what it is, but this has really helped me improve my lagging upper chest. And at the end of the day guys, it's all about activation. You can bench press all you want, but if you don't have a strong mind to muscle connection with your chest when you do it, then all it's going to do is grow your front delts and triceps rather than your chest. The key is to choose movements that activate your muscles the best. But the one shitty thing I will say about the Smith machine is that when I unhook the bar before I start my set, I kind of have to bend my wrist back. So as you'll see when I'm pressing, my wrist is kind of bent back and it's put in a compromised position. Ideally you want it to be straight and in line with your forearm as opposed opposed to bent because this puts a lot of strain on your wrist. So ideally you would want a spotter to help you unhook the bar for you so that your wrists don't have to be bent when you're pressing. So I usually do three to four warm up sets and I increase the weight in each warm up set, building up to my working sets. It's my first working set at two plates on each side, and I'm aiming to hit around four to six reps throughout my four working sets. Now, usually when I'm trying to put on muscle and I'm eating at a caloric surplus, I actually use a reverse pyramid style of training for my compound movements. This has been the best way for me to progress every week. But since I'm cutting, my main concern is just trying to maintain my strength. So here I'm just trying to lift as much weight as I can for four to six reps for four sets. And the key points I want to mention when doing pretty much any kind of bench pressing is to keep your scapula retracted and depress your traps. This puts you in an optimal position to activate your chest rather than other muscles, primarily your front delts. And there should also be a little bit of space between the bench and your lower, lower back. But your butt should always stay in contact with the bench. And you'll see on these last two reps here that I actually start to struggle pretty damn hard. I probably shouldn't have gone for that last rep because it took a lot out of me, but I decided to lower the weight a little bit after this set. And that's just the thing about cutting. You're likely going to lose a lot of strength, especially in pressing movements. I went down from around £185 to £165 here, and my strength in this movement especially has decreased a lot as a result of this. But you just got to keep positive, keep trying your best rest and not let it get to your head. You may have noticed that after my set I pause for a bit and then I go back to do another rep. This is called a rest pause set. And I usually just do these when I don't have a spotter or don't want to burn out too much early on in my sets. It just helps me get that extra rep in without having to go to complete failure. And the last set, I always try to do a drop set. So I drop around 20 pounds for each successive drop set. And I just do this twice. And on the last set I really try to go to failure. Now the next exercise I do I find actually activates my chest extremely well. I use the typical incline hammer press machine, but I add some resistance bands to provide constant tension throughout the movement. And I don't go too heavy on these just around two plates because the added resistance makes it a lot more difficult. So for this exercise, I'm going to try and hit around 6 to 8 reps for each set. Again, for this exercise, you want to make sure your scapula is retracted and try to think about bringing your elbows together as you push in order to best activate your chest. Decrease the involvement of your front delts. I just do four sets on this exercise and take around one to two minutes of rest between. But I usually take longer rests on compound free weight movements like dumbbell presses or the bench press. And I'm not going to show you guys all the sets that I did because you guys probably get the idea. Here's just a little ab check. My body fat is getting pretty low, but to be honest, guys, I am super bloated in this video. Before filming this, I did a two day refeed the days before this video, and it caused me to hold a lot of water in my stomach from all the sodium and sushi that I had. Now, I'm not really sure what this exercise is called. I just call it the one arm push. But I find that this really hits the upper chest, which is what I'm trying to focus on. In this workout. You basically just use any machine press, sit sideways and push the handle with one arm. But you want to make sure that you focus the contraction in your chest and try not to rotate your upper body as you push. And you also want to minimize involvement of your traps by depressing them and making sure they're not elevated as you push. And I like to do higher reps on these around 10 to 12 reps for four sets. And you don't need much rest at all for exercises like these. By the time you complete both arms, you'll be ready to go for another set. Now I'm going to move on to triceps. This first exercise is actually one of my favorite exercises for triceps and I believe it's helped me give my tricep a lot more shape and definition. You just put two handles together and hold them with an underhand grip. This helps target the medial head of your tricep, which otherwise usually doesn't get much attention. And I like to do higher reps for triceps, around eight to 12 reps and using pretty heavy weight for just three sets. And I eventually decided to just do it on my knees instead because it provided a better range of motion and prevents me from cheating by swinging during the movement. The next tricep exercise I do is just the traditional straight bar pull down with an overhand grip and this helps target the lateral head of your tricep. But you want to make sure that your elbows don't sway during movements like these as it'll decrease the involvement of your triceps and actually incorporate more of your back muscles like your lats instead. So focus on keeping it slow and controlled and maintaining that mind to muscle connection. At the moment, I'm basically only doing various pull downs for my tricep work, so no skull crushers, close grip, bench, or any free weight stuff. I believe that by manipulating your grips with different pull downs, you can build solid triceps if you just keep bumping up the weight as you progress. So last exercise were push ups, which I did just as a finishing exercise. I did them on the back of a bosa ball to make it a little harder because it requires you to use your stabilizers. And I just did a few sets to failure. I could only get about 8 reps max before my muscles would just give out. But this exercise basically just to get a lot of blood rushing to the chest and triceps and just finish them off and then that was just about it for my workout. Here's just a little update on my physique. As I said earlier, I am quite bloated from a shitload of sodium from the previous days, but I'd say I'm in decent shape at the moment. I'm looking to drop my body fat down a couple more percent before I start reverse dieting and putting on some more masks. But yeah, that's basically it guys. This is what a typical push day looks like for me. Let me know if you have any questions below. And as always, don't forget to like the video and please hit that subscribe button. I'll see you next time.