Arm extensions
I love training with heavy weights. The special feeling of bones and muscles under heavy pressure excites me, and the greater the weight I conquer, the prouder I am. When I do my highest-rep incline bench press at 184kg, the pride comes not from the extra reps, but from using a heavier weight than I've ever done before to achieve those reps. The difference between the two is very subtle, but to me it is fundamentally different. I get no inspiration from reps, but conquering heavy weights makes me feel stronger and more confident. Heavy weight training is essential in chest training, and you must be full of desire to win. Most importantly, you must abandon traditional tactics and strategies whenever the need arises. When I heard that I did 20 or more sets for chest training alone, and only did 3-4 times per set. People didn't believe me, saying I was severely overtrained and that I would never build muscle with such high volume and such low reps. In my case, it was just the opposite. Training with heavy weights eventually gave me unparalleled chest muscles.
Incline bench press
The Incline Bench Press is essential for developing muscle mass throughout the upper body. It not only increases the fullness of the upper part of the chest muscles, but also directly stimulates the front of the deltoid muscles. In fact, there is no other way to increase the muscle mass and separation of the entire upper chest and shoulders other than the incline bench press, and there is no better way to increase the width of the shoulders. Incline bench press is a combined movement that can stimulate multiple muscle groups at the same time, so it should be performed at the beginning of chest training or after flat bench press. That said, it should be scheduled for when your strength levels are higher. Since the deltoid muscles are inevitably stimulated during the incline bench press, I make sure to warm up thoroughly, starting with sets of about 30 reps. If this is the first exercise, I do 10-12 sets, pyramiding, and the final set is 3-4 reps, plus some forced reps. If I use Ping
Start bench press, then put it in the second place and do 6-8 groups, each group 6-8 times. I've found that the tighter I hold it, the more my whole body tightens and the lighter it feels. By tightening your hips, back, and shoulders, your body will be more stable and it will be easier to maintain weight control. When lowering the weight, I imagined that I was a compressed spring. In this way, I had accumulated the maximum potential energy, or strength, at the lowest point, and then pushed the bell up with maximum explosive force.
Cross-cross chest
You may be the biggest bodybuilder on the planet, but without separation between muscle groups and muscle definition, you will be bulky, not toned. Crossing the chest with tensioners can solve this problem. As an excellent isolation exercise, it allows you to use different angles and ranges of motion to target different areas of the chest muscles. It can be used as the last movement of chest training, placed after the lying spine or as an alternative to dumbbell flyes. The advantage is that there is no danger of overtraining and you get extra congestion. The criss-crossing technique on the chest is very similar to dumbbell flyes. I bent my elbow slightly to give myself more strength to pull on the rope. During the extension phase, the arms can be extended further than with dumbbell flyes (behind the body). The angle of the action can be varied, depending on which area of the chest you want to stimulate. I use this action to make the chest as congested as possible. I do 6-8 groups in total. The first group is done 20 times to obtain the maximum congestion, and then the weight is increased in pyramid style, and the last group is done 6 times.
Dumbbell fly
Free-weight dumbbell flyes are great for building chest muscle mass because they put more stress on the connections and ligaments between the pecs and deltoid muscles than a standard bench press. If you want to increase your bench press weight, you need strong muscles and ligaments in this area. Since the main function of the dumbbell fly is to stimulate the warm ligaments connecting the chest muscles and deltoid muscles, and to obtain maximum congestion, it is best to do it at the end of the exercise. When doing dumbbell flyes, you should bend your arms slightly, which not only allows you to use more weight, but also transfers pressure from the pectoral muscle-deltoid connecting ligament to the chest. It's hard to cheat with this move, so I squeeze the handles together as hard as I can to get a peak chest contraction and maintain control of the dumbbells as I lower.
Even though this is a blood-congesting exercise, I still do 6-8 sets with pyramid weights, starting with 20 reps and finishing with 6 reps on the final set.
Markus Ruhl’s training plan
Monday: chest, Tuesday: back, Wednesday: triceps,
Thursday: Biceps, Friday: Legs, Saturday: Shoulder,
Sunday: rest.