The Big and Strong Series - Chest and Lats

The High-Set, Low-Rep Training Manifesto

Part 2: Training the Chest and Lats

     In Part 1, we discussed some different high-set, low-rep training strategies for the legs and back (squats and pulls).  If you have not done so, please read the 1st essay, as it covers some information necessary for understanding the reasoning of the training that will be presented here.  At the very least, read the 1st few paragraphs, even if you’re not interested in leg and back training as much as you are interested in upper body training.  Maybe you just want a big bench press or just want to look good with your shirt off while at the beach—I don’t know.  Even if you are only interested in a good upper body, you will get there much faster, by the way, by training your leg and back muscles.

     In future essays, we will also cover arm training and overhead press work.  I have divided the series into these divergent parts for a reason: the training for squats and pulls should be done in a similar fashion, the training of the biceps and the triceps is similar, and so on.  Notice here that “lats” should be trained differently from “back.”  In Part 1, the back training was really just “pull” training—quick lifts and deadlift variants.  If you want a massive back, then you need to do both.

     When training with multiple sets of low reps, especially when you’re training with 80%+ of your max, you should limit your training to 2 or, at the most, 3 times per week for your chest and lats.  This is different from squat and pull training, where you might do as many as 4x per week.  The chest and lats just aren’t made for that frequency.  Now, I do understand that this is a “controversial” statement.  There are Russian powerlifters that train the bench press up to 5x weekly using similar methods.  I think a lot of that comes from the fact that the Russian powerlifting coaches were former weightlifting coaches.  Overhead pressing can be done with that frequency (which we’ll cover in Part 3).  Also, the shoulders and triceps muscles can handle it.  The chest?  Not so much.  I think, to prevent injury, you should limit your weekly training to 3 max.  Even then, you need to be careful not to overdo it.

     If you’re new to this kind of training, start with just 2 sessions per week, say, Monday and Thursday.  As with the squats, one of the best workouts to start with on bench presses is 8 sets of 3-5 reps.  Select a weight that is 90% of your 5-rep max.  Do sets of 5 reps until they get tough.  Stop doing 5 rep sets on the set where you know that you will fail for 5 reps on the next set.  Then start doing sets of 4 reps, once again stopping if you know you won’t be able to get 4 reps on another set, and then switch to triples.  When you manage to get 5 reps on all 8 sets, stick with that weight for a subsequent workout or two.  At that point, add weight and repeat.

     If you’re a powerlifter, you will, of course, want to do all of the above on just the bench press.  But it’s also good for incline presses, dumbbell benches (flat or incline), and weighted dips.

     8 sets of 3-5 also works very well for weighted chins and rowing movements.  In fact, it’s the kind of training that a lot of old-school bodybuilders utilized, in both the so-called silver and golden eras, in order to develop their massive backs.  You can do the chins with wide grip, medium, neutral, or inverted.  For rows, it works well on barbell rows (both wide-grip and close, reverse-grip) and for one-arm dumbbell rows.

My back seen here was built with EXACTLY the kind of training discussed in this article.  At the time this picture was taken, I used multiple sets of low reps on all of my muscle groups.

     Of our 7 “rules” that I outlined for high-set, low-rep training in Part 1, the 2nd one is “You must limit your reps to no more than 5 (usually).”  Chest and lats both are part of the “usually,” because you probably do want, on occasion, to use some higher reps.  Not much higher, mind you, but doing occasional sets of between 6 and 10 reps is good.  Once you’ve adapted to 8 sets of 5 reps, for instance, you could finish off with 4 sets of 8 reps.  Since the body often “remembers” the last workout, when you finish off with really high-rep sets, the way that a lot of bodybuilders do, your muscles tend to “preserve energy” at the next workout, i.e. your body moves the weight slower so that it can handle another high-rep set.  8 reps, however, is not so high that that happens.

     Here’s a 8-10 week mass and power program that will build ponderous strength and ponderous chest and lat muscles that combines low reps and (kinda) high reps:

Week One:

Monday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Start the program with a weight that is approximately 85% of your 10-rep maximum.  This will ensure that (a) you get all of your sets without much struggle and (b) prepares you for the heavier work that is to come when your sets do start to get difficult.  If you select a weight that is too heavy when you begin the program, it simply will not work.  The same methodology for your bench presses applies to all of your rows in this program.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 5 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  When you are finished with the rows, return to the bench press.  Reduce your weight down to about 70% of your 10-rep max for these.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Thursday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 4 reps.  Add 10 pounds to the weight used on Monday for all of these sets.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 4 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Use the same weight as your Monday session.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Week Two:

Monday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 3 reps.  Add 10 pounds to the weight used on Thursday.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 3 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Add 5 pounds to what was used in week 1.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Thursday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Return to the weight that you used previously for 8 sets of 4 reps.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 5 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Use the same weight as Monday.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Week Three:

Monday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 4 reps.  Add 10 pounds from Thursday.  This should be the same weight previously used for 8 sets of 3 reps.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 4 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Add 5 pounds to the week 2 weight.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Thursday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 3 reps.  Add 10 pounds to Monday’s weight.  This will be your heaviest weight so far, and your sets will probably start getting difficult toward the end.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 3 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Same weight as Monday.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Week Four:

Monday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 5 reps.  For this session, you will do an “active recovery” workout.  Drop down to a weight lighter than what you used on week 1’s Monday session.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 5 reps

• NO back-off sets for this session.  You should leave the gym feeling invigorated.

Thursday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 5 reps.  These should be done with the same weight as what you utilized at your previous 8x4 session.

• Barbell rows: 8 set of 5 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Use the same weight that you used the previous week.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Week Five:

Monday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 4 reps.  Add 10 pounds from Thursday’s session, using the same weight you previously used for 8x3.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 4 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Add 5 pounds to the weight used in weeks 3 and 4.

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Thursday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 3 reps.  Add 10 pounds from Monday’s session.  As this is your heaviest session yet, you may find that you start to struggle to get all of your sets, but you should get them.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 3 reps

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Use the same weight as Monday

• Barbell rows: 4 sets of 8 reps

Week Six:

Monday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 5 reps.  This should be another “active recovery” session.  Use the same weight utilized on Monday in week 4.  At this point in the program, every-other-Monday should be an 8x5 active recovery workout.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 5 reps

• Once again, NO back-off sets on your active recovery day.

Thursday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 5 reps.  Use the same weight that you used last week for 8x4.

• Barbell rows: 8 sets of 5 reps.

• Bench presses: 4 sets of 8 reps.  Use the same weight as week 5.

     To start the week on the Monday of week 7, you should be doing another 8x4 workout and add 5 pounds to your back-off sets.  Continue in this manner for however many weeks you want, though it will probably “run its course” sometime between the 8-10 week mark.  If you’re still making gains by the 10-week mark and want to continue, you can do so, but stop whenever you find that you simply can’t get 8 sets of 5 reps any longer on your “heavy” 8x5 days.

     One method that works well is to train your chest and lats twice in a week but not with the same exercises.  You might do bench presses and rows in one workout and weighted dips and chins in the 2nd.  In fact, using the program above, you could do dips and chins on all of the Thursday workouts.  In the first week, do 5-rep sets.  In the 2nd, do 4-rep sets.  And, in the 3rd, do 3 reps sets.  Yes, this would take longer before you add weight, but it may also keep you progressing at a steadier pace for longer.

     Many high-set, low-rep programs work by not having a “set” weight that you utilize at each session.  Instead, you just use the same poundage at each session and only increase the poundage once the weights begin to feel light at that weight, whatever it is.  You can also do this but cycle the loads at each session.  This is particularly good if you want to train 3x per week, since you need to rotate between heavy, moderate, and light workouts with such frequent training.

     If you take this more “instinctive” approach, a week of workouts might look like this: On Monday, you do bench presses and chins.  You start with the bench press, doing 5-rep ramps, starting with nothing more than the empty bar, until you work up to a kinda hard set, but one where you know you have a few more reps in the tank if you were to go all-out.  You now stick with that weight for multiple sets of triples.  You do however many triples you want with that weight.  Since it’s the first training day of the week, and you’re fresh, you might do 8 triples.  When you’re finished, you then head to the chinning bar, and repeat the same on chins, doing 8 sets of 3 reps.  (If you want, you could even alternate back and forth between benches and chins.  Also, you then finish your workout with one of my squat/pull program recommendations from Part 1.)  On Wednesday, you return to the gym.  You're sore everywhere, so you decide to do triples again, but this time you use a weight that is 80% of what you utilized on Monday, and you only do 3 triples with that weight.  You do chins for 3 sets of 3 reps, too, with nothing more than your bodyweight.  On Friday, you feel pretty good, though still a little sore, but after a few 5-rep ramps to begin the session, you feel as if you could handle another heavy workout.  Nonetheless, you “only” work up to 90% of what you used on Monday, and this time you do 6 triples on both benches and chins.

     If you were to use the above methodology, stick with the same workout for a couple of weeks, and only add weight once the poundages naturally feel light.  The total workload really adds up over several weeks and you get a lot stronger despite never training “hard.”

     If you don’t start with a weight that is too heavy, another way to cycle training loads is to use the same weight and the same reps but simply cycle the number of sets that you do.  Instead of working up to a relatively heavy triple on Monday, work up somewhere around 70-80% of your 3-rep max.  Yes, I know, that’s kind of light.  But, as you adapt to it over the coming weeks, you slowly, steadily increase the weight until you’re doing multiple triples with a weight that is heavier than your current 3-rep max.  So, you might do 10 triples on Monday, 5 triples on Wednesday, and 7 or 8 triples on Friday.  Over the next few weeks, as the sets seem easier and easier, do however many triples you want on any day.  On 3 days per week Sheiko programs, for example, his lifters would often do the most work on the Wednesday session.  Once you reach the point that you’re easily handling 10 or more triples on all 3 training days, add weight and repeat the process.

     A lot of lifters prefer the more “precise” approach, even if they have been training for years, decades even.  They simply get better results when they have a “set in stone” workout to follow.  One of the best methods for this is to do multiple singles the “Hepburn” way.  Select a weight that is around 90% of your 1-rep max.  Now, attempt to do a certain number of singles with it.  It could be 5 or 7 or even 10 to 12 singles.  If you get all of your singles, add weight at the next session.  Stop a workout whenever you miss a rep or stop it 1 set before you miss a single.  If you get 4 singles, for instance, but you know that you will miss the 5th single, stop at 4.  For bench presses or chins, I prefer, generally, to do less singles than I recommended for squats and pulls in Part 1.  When training heavy, decide on between 5 and 7 singles.  Since the chest and lat muscles respond well to slightly higher reps, when you finish with your singles, you can drop down in weight and do some back-off sets of between 3-5 reps.

     If you decide to use the Hepburn method, select one lift to train it on.  So, if you want to use it on bench presses, just do it for bench presses.  If you want to use it on chins, just do it for chins.  Here’s a bench press for singles program that gives you a good idea of what you might do:

Monday and Thursday:

• Bench presses: 5 singles.  Use 90% of your 1-rep max.  If you get 5 singles, add weight at the next session.  At any workout where you don’t get 5 singles, stick with that weight at the next workout until you do get it.

• Weighted chins: 5 sets of 3 reps.  Select a weight where you could get 6 reps for 1 all-out set.  You should be able to get 5 triples with it at the 1st workout.  Add weight at the next session and try to get 5 triples again.  If you miss a set of 3, stick with that weight at the next workout until you do get 5 triples.

• Incline bench presses: 5 sets of 3 reps.  Same methodology as the chins.

• One-arm dumbbell rows: 3 sets of 3-5 reps (each arm).  Select a weight where you know that 5 reps will be tough for one set.  If you get 5 reps on all 3 sets, add weight at the next session.

• Weighted dips: 3 sets of 3-5 reps.  Same methodology as the rows

     After 6 to 8 weeks of that, you might then change over to a very similar program, but one where you do singles on weighted chins.  If you were to select that, you would also do 2 chest movements and 2 additional lat movements.  The program might now look like this:

Monday and Thursday:

• Weighted chins: 5 singles, same methodology as the bench presses in the 1st program.

• Bench presses: 5x3

• Wide-grip chins: 5x3

• Incline dumbbell bench presses: 3x3-5

• T-bar rows: 3x3-5

Anthony Ditillo - looking cool in this pic from the '70s - used programs almost verbatim as the ones in this essay.

     If you want to experiment with some really high-volume sets for your chest—anywhere between 15 to 25 sets—using these methods, then consider doing some partial movements.  The main problem with full-range chest exercises for such high volume is the risk of pec injury due to the stretch your chest takes at the bottom of a movement—you simply can’t train frequently enough.  However, when you make 1 or 2 of the movements partials by either training in the rack or using board presses, you take away a lot of this potential for injury.

     It seems incredibly simple and straightforward, which it is, no doubt, but one way to do this is by starting your workout with bench presses, then moving to 2-board presses, and then finishing off the session with 3-board presses.  And one of the easiest ways to do this is to begin the workout by doing multiple sets of singles, doubles, or triples on full-range benches.  When you reach the point that the sets are becoming difficult, switch over to 2-board presses with the same weight.  Continue doing those until they, too, become hard and then switch over to 3-board presses utilizing the same weight.  One of the easiest ways to do this is to select 90% of your 5-rep max and do triples with it.  Using that weight, do 5 triples of regular benches, 5 triples of 2-board presses, and 5 triples of 3-board presses for a total of 15 sets.

     You can also simply do ramps of 5s, 3s, doubles, and/or singles.  Let’s say you do ramps of 5s and then triples.  Start with regular bench presses, working up to a heavy, but not max, triple.  At that point, add weight and start using the 2-board for triples.  When those get hard, add more weight and switch over to 3-board presses.  The beauty of this method is that it accustoms your body to weights heavier than your max bench press without ever going for a true max.  Your bench press muscles get so used to heavier poundages that, before long, you are easily breaking your old records on your regular bench press.

     Training in the power rack for your bench press has its benefits, as well.  Early in my powerlifting career, when I didn’t have any regular training partners, I would often do all of my lifts in the power rack.  Although I utilized it in order to stay injury-free, it has other merits.  One, and this wasn’t something that I even gave a thought to at first, is that it preserves your nervous system.  When you don’t have to unrack the weight—this is, I must admit, even more helpful for squats than it is bench presses—you are preserving energy that your nervous system engages in when unracking the bench.  The other benefit, especially when doing bottom-position bench presses, is that you, obviously, must start the movement from the bottom.  When you start a lift with the eccentric portion, as you do in regular benches, you garner energy, almost like a spring as it presses down before being uncoiled, during the descent, making the positive, or concentric, portion of the lift easier.  By starting in the bottom-position, you build tremendous starting strength because you don’t have this spring-like benefit.

     For the ultimate in bench press strength, combine traditional bench presses with both board presses and presses in the rack.  I think that board presses are superior to rack lockouts, but the bottom-position bench press, on the other hand, is hard to beat as a strength-development tool.

     Here are a couple of bench press programs.  The first one can be done 2x per week and the 2nd is a 3x per week program.

Workout #1:

Monday and Thursday:

• Bottom-position bench presses: 5 singles, using the “Hepburn method.”

• 2-board presses: 7 sets of 3-5 reps.  Select a weight that is approximately 90% of your 5-rep max to start the program.  Stop each set a rep or two before reaching failure.  When you can easily do 5 reps on all 7 sets, add weight at the next session.

• 3-board presses: 4 sets of 5-7 reps.  When you are finished with the 2-board presses, use the same weight for 3-board presses.  When you can easily get 7 reps on all 4 sets, add weight at the next workout.

Workout #2:

Monday:

• Bench presses: 8 sets of 3-5 reps.  Use a weight that is 80% of your 5-rep max to start with.  Stick with this weight until all of your sets are easy for 5 reps, then add weight at the next session.

Wednesday:

• 2-board or 3-board presses: Ramps of 5s then triples.  You can use the same board at each session or rotate between 2-board and 3-board presses.  Do ramps of 5s until they get relatively hard, then switch over to triples.  Stop well before you reach your max set.

Friday:

• Bottom-position bench presses: 8 sets of 3-5 reps.  If you know your bottom-position max, use 80% of that to start the program.  If you don’t, then use a weight that’s anywhere between 25 to 50 pounds lighter from Monday’s session.  I could, for instance, max out with about 30 pounds more on conventional bench presses compared to bottom-position ones when I was competing.

     Partial rep training doesn’t work as well, nor is it necessary, for the lats.  Having said that, doing some occasional partial reps at the bottom of a chin or rowing movement does have its benefits, as you are able to use heavier weights than you would be capable of handling at full range.  The issue, usually, with partial lat training is that it’s used by bodybuilders to continue their sets past the point of momentary muscular failure once they can no longer do any more full-range repetitions.  Let’s look at some more training, however, that does work well for both muscle groups.

     Ladder training works great for the chest and the lats.  The benefit of ladder training is that it allows the lifter to use, and tolerate, a very high workload without burning out.  You start easy, work up to some progressively harder sets, and then start back at the bottom with “easy” again.  There are many ways that this can be done.  One of the simplest, easiest, yet most effective methods has you starting with 1 rep and adding a rep at each subsequent set until you reach the hard point—depending on the weight utilized it could be 5 reps or it could be 10—then start back over at 1 again.  On the 2nd ladder, I find it best to work up to a rep or two below what you used on the 1st ladder.  So, if you start at 1 and work all the way up to 8 reps, on the 2nd ladder, work up to 7 or even just 6.  Here’s an example workout to give you a taste:

• Bench presses: 3 ladder clusters of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4.  Select a weight that is approximately 90% of your 8-rep max, meaning that you will really only have a couple of hard sets on the first ladder cluster.  At each subsequent workout, add an additional rep to the 2nd and 3rd cluster until you reach the point that you are doing 3 ladders of 1 through 8.  At that point, add weight and repeat.

• Weighted chins: 3 ladder clusters of 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8, 1-2-3-4-5-6, 1-2-3-4.  Same methodology as the bench presses.

     You can also do undulating clusters, where your reps “wave” from set to set.  The famed Russian powerlifting coach Boris Sheiko called them “jerky” ladders.  For example, on bench presses and chins, again, you could select a weight that is 90% of your 5-rep max.  Do jerky clusters of 2-5-3.  Depending on how frequently you train, you could do 3 to 5 clusters.  If you train 3x per week, limit it to 3 clusters.  If you train only twice, you can do 5.  At the 2nd workout, do clusters, with the same weight, of 3-5-3.  At the 3rd session, do 3-5-4.  At the 4th, do 4-5-4.  And on the 5th, do 5-5-5.  At your next session, add weight and repeat, starting back at 2-5-3.

     You can also do weight ladders, or what the legendary Strongman Hermann Goerner called “chains,” where the reps stay the same but the weight changes during the ladder cluster.  Let’s say you have an 8-rep max on the bench press that is 225 pounds.  Do a set of 5 with 135, then 175, 205, and then a 4th set of 5 with 225.  Now, go back to 175 for another set of 5, followed by 205 for 5 and then 225 for another 5.  Repeat the series of 175, 205, and 225 for 5 as many times as you can, until you barely manage 225 for 5.  This is much better than the standard way most lifters would probably train, which would be to simply stick with 225 for as many sets of 5 as they could get—depending on muscle fiber type, most lifters would fail at 5 reps somewhere between their 4th to 8th set (if you have a lot of fast-twitch fibers, you fail quicker or vice-versa).  But with weight ladders, you can get in a lot more work.  You may still get 5 sets of 5 with 225, but you’re also getting 5 sets of 5 reps with 175 and 205—10 more sets.  Don’t discount those lighter sets.  The workload difference between 5 ladder clusters of 175, 205, and 225 and simply 5x5 with 225 is big.  You are getting in significantly more work, yet you are not overly fatiguing your muscles due to the fact that ⅔ of the sets are so submaximal.

     So far, I have discussed training your chest and lats with workouts that consist of training either twice or three times weekly.  However, there is a third way for training frequency.  Even though 3x per week is a bit much for most lifters—even if their work capacities can handle the training, it has too much potential for injury—you still want to take advantage of training as frequently as possible.  So, instead of having set days—Monday and Thursday, or M/W/F—you can consider just taking off 2 days after every session (for the programs I listed above as 2 days per week).  If you followed some of my squat/pull programs from Part 1, you could simply train on a 2-on, 1-off program, repeating for as often as you can until you decide you need a break.  Train squat/pulls on day one and chest/lats on day 2.  You can also combine the squat training with the chest training and the pull training with the lats.  This extra volume, even if it doesn’t seem like much, starts to pile up over the course of several months of training, and you end up a lot bigger and stronger.  Of course, take a few days off here and there, especially after 6 to 8 weeks of hard training.

     Instead of training 3x per week, on less voluminous programs, start off by training chest/lats with a 1-on, 1-off, 1-on, 2-off scheme.  If you train squats/pull on one day and chest/lats the 2nd, then simply follow a 4-on, 1-off schedule.  As you adapt to the workouts, cut out the 2 days off and simply train 1-on, 1-off for as long as you can until you feel as if you need a little more rest and recovery.

     If you’re a powerlifter, you really have all you need to design your own program for the ultimate in strength and power through Part 1 and 2.

     In Part 3, we will turn our attention to overhead training.  I have even more set/rep combinations in store for you.  Although I have covered quite a lot of high-set, low-rep territory so far, it could be that the best is yet to come!

     As always, if you have any questions/comments about anything (in either part), then leave them in the comments section below or shoot me an email.