Guys only want one thing…and it’s a huge chest. Step foot in any gym and you’ll see a swarm of guys hogging the weights floor and huddling around the mirrors so they can see their chests pop in all their veiny glory. This behaviour is most commonly observed on Mondays, otherwise known as international chest day.
But while you may think you have a pretty solid chest program nailed down, which likely includes bench pressing, dumbbell presses and cable flys, there are some techniques you may not have known or thought about, that can bring you a chest the size of which knows no bounds. And where do you find such information? From none other than crazy German bodybuilder Jo Lindner.
The muscle mountain from Deutschland features regularly on our pages here at DMARGE, not just because of his incredible workout insights, but also for the way he puts that information across. If you’ve never seen his videos before, you’ll soon understand why we find him so endearing. Always one to help motivate us in the gym, Jo’s latest advice will see you getting yourself a huge chest in no time.
His techniques are surprisingly simple too. Take the cable fly for example. Most guys will follow a routine movement of having their arms bent at the elbow and pushing forward. Jo says that just by changing the angle of your hands, or the positioning of your elbows, can have dramatic effects on the area of your chest that is targeted. His main bit of advice is to try and get your elbows to touch. He admits this isn’t possible, but if you imagine in your mind that they can, and put them into a position that brings them as close together as possible, then you’ll reap the rewards.
He adds, “one thing that people often forget is we have the positive rep and the negative rep. Proper breathing is important. Breathe out when you’re pushing it [your arms] together.”
“That’s very important. The other thing is time under tension, the time that each rep actually takes. You see people in the gym doing it extremely fast and you see others doing it extremely slow.”
“For me, I always count in my head, one, two, three, four, five, six. You also want to hold it [at the top of the rep] for two seconds. Why is that important? Because you want to feel it all the way [through the movement].”
Not only is elbow and hand positioning important, says Jo, but your whole body positioning needs to be spot on too. You want to make sure you’ve got your traps locked down, your head up and your chest up. No leaning forward. Doing this places more tension on the chest, which results in the muscle being worked far harder.
“In order to get these massive pecs, you need to isolate them.”
“You have your compound movements, your bench press and things like that, but you need your isolation movements too. That is why cables are just so good.”
The full video – just over 7 minutes – is well worth a watch. He may not look entirely natural, but Jo really does know what he’s talking about, and could be the #FitnessInspo you’ve been searching for.
A bulging chest awaits.