When I first started working out with weights, the chest was one of the muscle groups I exercised. The main exercise I performed was the flat bench barbell press and dumbbell flyes. Forty years later, I still exercise the chest and bench presses are the main exercise. But since working out at Spiece, and having different partners I’ve added other chest exercises.
Although I never worked out with my brother, he encouraged me to add dumbbells to my workouts which I did in 2014. I started mixing them in with barbell chest exercises and I like them because they force you to balance each arm independently. Consequently, I can’t lift as much weight using dumbbells as I can with a barbell.
Sept 2013 at Spiece Fitness. Dips
Kit Kieser showed me many things during our time as workout partners. Kit was a Personal Trainer at another fitness facility and exercised at Spiece. One of exercises was the two-tier push-ups on pylo boxes. These give you explosiveness because you need to give a quick, powerful push to propel yourself up from the floor to the box and back. She also had us do dips every chest day and they really help the triceps as well. She would do them with an assist strap to help her do more dips. I would do them unassisted and at one time I did 17 in a row with Kit. Now, I’m lucky to get six or seven. That’s what happens when I slack off from the dips. Kit and I did barbell bench presses and spotted each other and she encouraged me to do more reps than I thought I could. She also got me started doing four sets on each exercise than just the three I previously did.
Dec 2013 Two-tiered push-ups
An exercise I added this year is something I call the floating push-up. You balance on TRX bands with your hands and your feet are on a bosu ball. I’m shaking the whole time I’m performing them.
May 2018. Floating push-ups at Spiece in the Sports Performance area.
My goal each chest day is to do at least one decline exercise, one flat and one incline exercise. And to also do at least one body weight exercise, one barbell, one dumbbell and one Iso-machine exercise. At Spiece, that is very easy to do because we have a huge amount of equipment and lots of room.
