Chest won't grow

Hi Jordan,

My chest is lagging behind shoulders and triceps, so I was wondering if you had some guidance on exercise selection and/or cues to better target it. Currently running a BB I upper / LFST lower hybrid split, which I’m enjoying a lot. Lifting since 7 years (initially SSLP, casual Crossfit, then BBM templates). I’ve been running various templates (mostly PBII) very consistently for a bit over 1.5 years now.

My tentative plans for block 2 of BBI:

  1. Use press machine for primary horizontal press movement – I feel my pecs much more using that machine than a BB. (Alternatively weighted decline pushups?).
  2. Replace vertical press with incline DB bench
  3. Replace traps exercise (which I currently don’t want to target directly) with a second isolation slot (cable flyes)

So far, I took off a bit of weight for all press movements and focused on the stretch at the bottom and a slow eccentric (without going full pause/tempo-work) to keep RPE constant.

What do you think of my plan? Any other cues I could try? Many thanks!

I think all of those modifications would be fine. I don’t think weighted decline push-ups would be as easy to load as a machine or barbell variant, so I’d probably relegate that to an accessory lift or something. I would not avoid regular exposure to the bench press and/or dips though, as I think these are staples for chest development.

I would be curious about your weight trajectory over the past year to get a better sense of where you’re at in this journey.

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I’m 6’1 (185cm) and currently at 89kg. Up from 82kg in January. Have been bulking consistently with a few maintenance phases.
Want to continue bulking until the spring and/or 93kg or so, then cut a little based on feel/looks.

Can’t edit my reply, but another question: Any BB bench cues that might help? Wide-ish grip, 1ct at bottom? Any other cues I might focus on?
I definitely can feel shifting the weight towards the delts, especially as the set progresses, and my triceps getting tired first. (My bench is also lagging quite a bit behind SQ and DL: 100kg B vs 165kg SQ and 210kg DL)

Yea, seems like you might be one of the long-arm army members as well. To your questions, I don’t think that any cues are likely to produce differential hypertrophy results. Your anterior delts and triceps will always get tired on pressing exercises- you don’t really have a choice. The chest is still getting worked, though if the shoulders and triceps are always petering out before your chest gets any sort of pump, that is a bit unusual.

This article may be helpful for my current thoughts regarding chest hypertrophy:

Yeah, very long arms.

Thanks for the articles. I’ll go with my plan above and if chest fatigue remains manageable, I will consider doing dips for one of the triceps slots on one GPP day on top of that in the third block.
One more (related) feature request for the BBM app: please let us lock in non-RX’d exercises throughout the block.

Many thanks for your replies!

Good feedback. Thank you!