Chest muscle and dips.

Hey, my arms and legs are getiing bigger, but my chest and back are lagging behind. I have come to think Escalating density training for chest dips and pullups. Will this build mass AND strength in my back and chest? And how much? Not to much cuz i dont wanna get to big cuz im training for the planche.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 40 sec tuck planche

5 sec advanced tuck

DREAM.BELIEVE.ACHIEVE

One thing you need to keep in mind is you are going to get bigger with strength. its unavoidable. If you do not want to get too massive, focus only on strength and stay away from hypertrophy, but i have never heard of someones massive muscles preventing them from training something correctly

HAHAHA! if that was a joke it was funny, if it wasnt its still funny, but interesting as well :shock:

I don't have big glutes and I still can't get my butt in front of the bar to do a Korean dip.

Tavis G said:

Hey, my arms and legs are getiing bigger, but my chest and back are lagging behind. I have come to think Escalating density training for chest dips and pullups. Will this build mass AND strength in my back and chest? And how much? Not to much cuz i dont wanna get to big cuz im training for the planche.

You need to train dips and push ups with the hollow body position. This changes everything and makes the chest the main target instead of the arms.

B1214N said:

I don't have big glutes and I still can't get my butt in front of the bar to do a Korean dip.

Korean dips are a pain for me also to bring my butt past the bar. Really has more to do with technique and extension imo. Arm-length variance of course effects people differently.

Joshua Naterman said:

Tavis G said:

Hey, my arms and legs are getiing bigger, but my chest and back are lagging behind. I have come to think Escalating density training for chest dips and pullups. Will this build mass AND strength in my back and chest? And how much? Not to much cuz i dont wanna get to big cuz im training for the planche.

You need to train dips and push ups with the hollow body position. This changes everything and makes the chest the main target instead of the arms.

Josh would you be able to make a vid on the hollow dip? is the chest supposed to be targeted at the top or bottom? does wider rings make a difference? amount of forward lean? how much you turn the rings out? I do tend to feel it for ring support holds.

Would ring support holds for more time, like 5 minute be better for hypertrophy since the chest is fast twitch?

Joshua Naterman said:

Tavis G said:

Hey, my arms and legs are getiing bigger, but my chest and back are lagging behind. I have come to think Escalating density training for chest dips and pullups. Will this build mass AND strength in my back and chest? And how much? Not to much cuz i dont wanna get to big cuz im training for the planche.

You need to train dips and push ups with the hollow body position. This changes everything and makes the chest the main target instead of the arms.

When it comes to hollow dips i still feel mostly in the triceps. I try to not to lean forward, since Coach (to my understanding) want dips to be preformed with body as upright as possible, but the lean seems to activate the chest more. Does anything come to mind of what i might be doing wrong?

That's the problem. A hollow dip is very slightly planched.

When you keep the hollow body in the dip and planche a bit you will definitely feel it in your chest. When I do my RTO dips I feel a ton of pressure on my sternum and throughout my chest. I posted a video of me doing them a while back on my workout log. Not perfect as my head goes out a bit at the bottom but it shows the general idea of a hollow body dip.

g40C9dzlBao

I have seen it written that hollow dips are meant to be better and more difficult but I really don't feel any difference. When you do them hollow should it just be a hollow body or should i also protract my shoulders while dipping?

This may be impossible to convey electronically

Possibilities are:

1) Your chest is much stronger, proportionally, than many peoples'. If so, it is probably a reflection of good training. I have noticed that, at this point, my chest doesn't feel much extra pressure until the last rep or so and even so the effort is coming a bit more in the shoulders now. This is also a reflection of my chest getting stronger, both the muscles and the sternal cartilage and ligaments.

2) There is a small variation in form that has to be hand-corrected. If this is the case, I would have to show you in person. There are a lot of people I do this with in the GSU rec center and they are immediately like WTF just happened?!

Obviously, none of them are GB practitioners, so they aren't going to have the same potential for having built up that connective tissue as the more advanced/experienced people here have.

Joshua Naterman said:

This may be impossible to convey electronically

Possibilities are:

1) Your chest is much stronger, proportionally, than many peoples'. If so, it is probably a reflection of good training. I have noticed that, at this point, my chest doesn't feel much extra pressure until the last rep or so and even so the effort is coming a bit more in the shoulders now. This is also a reflection of my chest getting stronger, both the muscles and the sternal cartilage and ligaments.

2) There is a small variation in form that has to be hand-corrected. If this is the case, I would have to show you in person. There are a lot of people I do this with in the GSU rec center and they are immediately like WTF just happened?!

Obviously, none of them are GB practitioners, so they aren't going to have the same potential for having built up that connective tissue as the more advanced/experienced people here have.

Don't get me wrong, Josh, I'd love to come visit you , but since I'm not going to be in Georgia anytime soon, would you mind trying to convey what the correction is? This is intriguing, since up until a few months ago I was in the same boat as the OP, but found the right angle of ascent on my dip that really changed everything.

Hmm.... if there was one thing to focus on, it would be to keep the sternum pointed slightly down the whole time, as opposed to pointing straight forward or slightly upwards. Pretend as if the center of the sternum had a laser shooting out. You want that laser to hit somewhere on the ground 15-30 feet in front of you. Maybe closer. You do not want it to hit a wall that's 50 feet away.

That rule stands at all times during a hollow dip.

that sounds about right my chest has always been my strength where as my shoulders my weakness. the way you described it sounds like what I am doing chest pointing downward slightly. maybe I should focus more on changing my position to that it works the triceps and shoulders more. Sorry for stealing the thread btw =)

No problem! If that is the case you could certainly try keeping the chest pointed directly at the wall so that the shoulders and triceps have to do a lot more of the work.

It is always good to know exactly how to get what you want from an exercise. Most people don't realize that slight variations in position can completely change what is being worked and to what degree.

yea it really is useful to know this stuff! I am always ashamed of my shoulders they really are pathetic in comparison to everything else. Although I never gave it much thought as I could still do some heavy lifting thanks to my chest over compensating but now I realise how weak my whole shoulder girdle actually is.