Chest Development and Quick Workouts with Turbulence Training

Chest development is not a topic we spend a lot of time on here at Turbulence Training, but we’ll cover that plus workouts that save you time, and show you how to do supersets in a busy gym.

Question: “Hey Craig, love the workouts but I’m having a real hard time doing some of the supersets in a busy gym. Help?” – Yann

Answer: Hey Yann, good to hear from you again.

The best solution for a pure metabolic, fat burning workout would be to substitute a bodyweight exercise in place of one of the dumbbell exercises.

So let’s say your workout called for:

1A) DB Chest Press
1B) DB Row

But you didn’t want to “hog” two sets of dumbbells.

Simply change the superset to:

1A) Decline Pushups (or other challenging, lower rep pushup)
1B) DB Row

Alternatively, you could use the same db weight and increase the number of reps you do on the easier exercise.

For example, you’d probably be able to do 12 reps of DB rows with the same weight you can DB chest press for 8 reps.

That way you don’t hog two sets of dumbbells…although you will be taking over a bench completely for a few minutes.

Question: “I want to use the 24-7 workouts but at the same time add muscle to my chest. What should I do?” – Todd

Answer: When using the 24-7 workouts…

The first thing to do is replace pushups with dumbbells press (flat, incline, or decline).

NOTE: But do not add chest exercises UNLESS you also add a rowing/upper back exercise. We aim for one row/pulling exercise for each pressing exercise.

The second thing to do is increase the length of time spent in the lowering phase of the motion to 3-4 seconds.

The third thing to do is make sure you squeeze your pecs together at the top of the movement.

This will help chest development, and frankly you can use the same principles for ALL body parts.

Question: “How often do I need to switch programs and will I need to use weights to build my chest?” – Todd

Answer: Yes, I recommend switching your program every 4 weeks. Not sure how often you currently switch…but 24-7 is designed to change every 4 weeks.

You could either get a set of adjustable power-block dumbbells for home or use the gym.

Question: “And should I get a workout partner?” – Todd

Answer: Well, I was my biggest and strongest back when I had a workout partner in 2006 – Anthony Belza, currently the strength coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

We trained hard 3 – and often 4 – days per week.

Sometimes 5 days if we drove to Sport-Specific Training in Burlington on Sunday morning for Strongman Training with good ol’ Larry Jusdanis. (We had some funny stories from those lifting sessions…politically incorrect, though.)

However, these days I’m really particular about my schedule – and Anthony’s too busy – so I train alone.

I don’t have time to waste waiting around for a training partner to show up…so I train alone now.

You can get great results either way…it depends on your personality if a partner is good for you.

Question: “I am looking at adding some variety to my interval training and I am guessing a kettle bell would be ideal for this I am just wondering what size to get.

The one I am looking at is 16kg or 35lb does this sound about right? Also any pointers on exercises would be appreciated.” – Sean

Answer: That’s a good one to get. However, once you get it, be conservative. Make sure to read the articles over at www.kettlebellworkouts.com on getting started.

Question: “Alwyn referenced your workouts when suggesting how to do a quick workout in just 10 minutes. Can you explain how to do that?”

Answer: What I meant was, if you only had 10 minutes, just do the first superset with regular rest breaks.

Add in a warm-up before that and your 10 minutes would be up.

Using our DB chest press and DB row superset from above, if all you did was 3-4 sets of this superset, you’d still have an excellent upper body workout.

Alternatively, you could just do one set per exercise of 5-6 exercises in a circuit.

For example, yesterday morning I trained down here in Miami at the Fontainebleau Hotel (great gym for a hotel) and I did several sets each of the following:

• Pushups
• Pullups
• DB Presses
• DB Row
• Face Pulls (a cable exercise for the upper back) TRX Bodyweight Triceps Extensions

But if I was pressed for time, I could do one set of each exercise and that would give me 60-80% of the results as doing multiple sets.

Cool?

Cool!

Okay, don’t forget, last call for this special is at noon today:

Have an amazing weekend and post your questions on the forum so I can answer them for next weekends QnA.

Get stronger,

Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

“Sacrifice today for a better tomorrow.” – Frank McKinney