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Hi all,

My standard chest workout is Mike′s from HIT the Mike Mentzer Way. I do pec dec for pre-exhaust, then incline press. I′ve never been particularly strong on bench/incline press, however up until a few months ago I was still increasing reps/weight on the press with each workout.

However I haven′t been able to increase either for the last few chest workouts (that′s a fair amount of time, as I usually rest 5-6 days between workouts, and sometimes for over a week due to work committments), and the last workout I did I actually went backwards from 2 reps back to one.

I am considering dropping the pre-exhaust pec dec exercise every second chest workout, and just doing the press. I′m not keen to go to the consolidated routine yet, as my leg and shoulder/arm workouts are travelling along OK.

Can someone please give me some advice?

Thanks,

jim

I′d say eliminate the pec deck completely – it seems to me that you have grown strong to the point that you′re burning up most of your energy on the pre-exhaust and not having any meaningful amount left for the bench press, which basically means you′re now overtraining.

Stick with the bench press alone and you can pretty much rest assured your progress will return.

Thanks HITpadawan,

I′ll give it a shot.

Interestingly, I did the shoulders/arms workout today, and I seem to be having a similar problem with the triceps pressdown/dips superset. Whilst I′m making a little progress with pressdowns, I′ve started to really struggle with the dips. I haven′t made any progress for the last 3-odd dip attempts. so perhaps I′ll drop the extensions and see how that goes.

I really appreciate your help.

jim

Hey Jim,

I used to worry about making progress on only one of the exercises in the S/S. Don′t worry about this.

I′m not sure how long you′ve been training or anything about you, but before dropping the pre-ex completely, you should cycle the supersetting.. ie, every 3rd workout of the chest/back, drop isolation and do the compound.
Progress is progress! The important thing to bear in mind is that you should employ the ideal routine for as long as possible, as it is the best routine for HD.
I′ve posted here in the past and I think this is a major problem – too much consolidation too quickly! Conversely, I′ve had some people drop the compound every 3 workout and bang! They progress again. It′s hard to figure this stuff out by yourself, but you need to make sure you don′t short-change yourself by prematurely reducing volume too quickly.

Dan

Hi Dan,

Thanks very much for your thoughts. Yep – it′s a bit confusing knowing the right way to go, but I guess the best thing about HD is that the ′goal posts′ are set, that is a lack of progress is a warning that must be addressed.

I see your point about reducing volume too quickly. I′ve been following Mike′s ′ideal′ routine for about 2.5 years. I generally work out once every 4-6 days, but due to work constraints and breaks away from home I do tend to have an interrupted schedule. I′m cursed with my Dad′s skinny genes – I′m 193cm tall but only 83kg in weight. I made little progress over many, many years on the ′old school′ high volume routines, but have found regular, steady progress using Mike′s program. Only recently have I found that the chest/back and triceps superset compound components have stalled.

Maybe my best bet is to take your advice and drop the pre-exhaust every 3rd workout, and if my bench/dips are still not improving, drop the pre-exhaust every second workout etc.

Thanks again for your help,

jim