Olympia Bodybuilding Mr. Phil Heath successfully overcame his physical flaws. The word "narrow" no longer applied to him, and his deltoid dimension even exceeded his head! His back-flapping biceps posture has become a classic in the history of bodybuilding, and his waist is still tight. Oh, and his breasts: thick, full, and extremely detached, an important guarantee for him to win Mr. Olympia.
The following is the content of the interview with Phil Heath, friends who have a lot of fitness and muscle gain, please watch fast!
Q: Before we discuss your training plan, can you tell us what kind of training principles and training techniques you used in your chest training in the past few years? Often, it is more helpful for the reader to explore how to turn the inferior parts of the body into the dominant parts, rather than how to maintain the dominant parts of the body on an ongoing basis.
A: Time plays a key role. Early in my career, I received a lot of criticism, but people didn't realize that I only trained for 3 years to get a professional card. Many have spent decades doing this. However, until October this year, I have only been practicing bodybuilding for ten years.
Q: So you have a disadvantage because you are time-constrained, both inside and outside the gym.
A: Absolutely. In my basketball career, I haven't done any of the regular strength training that bodybuilders do, which is why I've made more obvious progress every year. Because I don't have the experience that most bodybuilders have, I have to be fully cautious and attentive to everything I do, and I have to get smarter. I had to learn from the experiences of other bodybuilders and listen to the teachings of those who were older. I needed to evaluate for myself what I should do and how it would affect my body shape.
I've met people who spend all their time in the gym, but their size isn't as good as it gets. They look the same year after year because they don't evaluate and think about how their efforts will affect their body shape. It's not enough to just walk into the gym every day. Did you get the body type you wanted?
Be critical about what you do. Whether you're a professional athlete or a bodybuilder, you want to see results. If you're not improving, then change your training plan.
Q: What was your early chest training plan like? I guess like every other guy thinks that flat bench press is the most important training move for a chest training day.
A: It's true, in the beginning, I would do a lot of flat bench press. But then I found out that I liked the feeling of dumbbell training more. Training with dumbbells has a lower risk of injury and a greater range of motion. Moreover, each side of your body will work independently, which will make the body appear more symmetrical.
Q: During Olympia Week 2005, you competed in a flat bench press competition and did 46 repetitions with 225 pounds of weight. It's incredible!
A: I thought no one remembered that anymore. I finished second, behind Freeman (IFBB pro athlete). I can do 12 repetitions with 405 pounds, but I think bragging about these is nothing more than a conceited performance. I don't think it gives me Mr. Olympia-like.
Q: If you could go back in time, what would you like to say to your former self?
A: It's simple. When you're ready to lift a weight, your biggest concern is how much weight you can lift, because when someone asks you, "How much weight can you bench press?" When people want to say something bigger, they weigh more. But as you mature and think about why you did that, you realize that heavyweight training isn't the most effective way to help you build the perfect body. Instead, you'll focus on the feeling of moving weight around the training site, rather than lifting the weight with your hands and feet and using the ground. Sometimes, you need to move the weight slowly, so use lighter weight while stimulating the muscles from different angles.
Phil Heath Chest Exercise Program:
Chest thrusts on the instrument are 4 sets, 8-12 repetitions
Dumbbell Birds 3 sets, 8-12 repetitions
Seated instrument push chest 4 sets, 8-12 repetitions
Upper diagonal rope birds 7 groups, 8-10 times repeated
(30-40 seconds break between the two groups)
Q: The first training action in your chest training plan is to push the chest obliquely on the instrument. Why did you choose that way?
A: When I became a professional, the upper chest became my priority training part, so every time I trained, I would choose some kind of upper chest training action and start my training from this. I only acquired this equipment at my gym not so long ago, so for most of my career, I have relied on dumbbells and barbells for training.
This device was extremely beneficial to my chest development, which proved that both compound training and isolated equipment training have their own advantages.
Q: What are the features of this device?
A: Now, you can add this training action to your own training plan. One of the advantages of this device is that you can freely adjust the height of the seat so that you can stimulate the chest from different angles.
Many upclining training machines don't adjust the tilt angle very well, they are either too high or too low, and the only few slots that don't allow you to train at your preferred angle.
Q: Are there any training tips I can tell my readers?
A: One thing I'm sure of is to raise your chin. Once you start increasing your training weight, there's a trend that you'll lower your chin to help you move the weight. The result? You also lowered your. When this happens, the pressure on the chest will shift to the anterior deltoid muscles.
Q: This leads to an interesting phenomenon, many bodybuilders with developed shoulders and triceps find it difficult to develop their breasts, how do you overcome this?
A: Early in my bodybuilding career, during heavy-duty chest training days, I was under a lot of pressure on my shoulders and triceps. But using free weight and equipment training at the same time allows me to focus on my chest. I could feel how my chest was pumping.
Muscle feelings in training are too important. I know it sounds like a cliché because everyone knows it, but it's absolutely true. You'll find that building a good muscle feel is critical to training results.
Q: What is the grip distance between your hands?
A: You can adjust the grip of your hands. The smaller the grip, the more pressure on your medial chest – but it also puts more pressure on my triceps, and I need to isolate my triceps, so I'll opt for a slightly wider grip.
Q: In training, you added 5 barbell pieces to each side of the barbell, and you were only a few weeks away from the 2011 Olympia Competition, and this training weight was really heavy during such a time period.
A: I think the thing that has helped my chest growth the most over the last few years is that I can use enough weight and stimulate my chest with high-intensity training.
I didn't lose weight because I was afraid it would affect my chest. But at the same time, I didn't train with overweights like a fool and ended up injured.
Most people are more concerned with the size of the training weight than with how to push the weight correctly. I can tell you that a lot of people can push up 405 pounds, but not many people have high-quality.
Q: After the warm-up, you will do 4 sets of upper chest training, how many times will each group of training be repeated?
A: My repeats range is 8-12 times. If I can repeat more than 12 times in a given group, then I will continue to do it. But if you don't have enough dumbbells and enough dumbbell tablets in your gym, do a few more sets of workouts with the right weight.
In one of my training videos, I do the upper diagonal dumbbell bench press with 150 pounds of weight, and even then I still try to repeat it 12 more times, and when I throw the dumbbell to the ground, I've done it 22 times. That's a great feeling!
In my gym, the heaviest dumbbell is 170 pounds, and I can do 8-10 repetitions with it, but doing 22 repetitions with 150 pounds works better for my muscle stimulation. I'll tell you that sometimes high repetition training can also give muscles unparalleled stimulation.
Q: So after 4 sets of training, your upper chest has been stimulated enough, so what training action will you choose next?
A: The two most basic movements of chest training are bench press and bird. Birds are an isolated action that stimulates the chest. Since the bird's range of motion is very large, it will give your chest a good stretching sensation. Sometimes I like to use compound and isolated movements crossovers to stimulate my muscle groups from different points.
It may seem like a simple action, but it's not easy to do well, and few people can get it right. So how do you do a good bird?
The bird's trick is to bend your elbow slightly, and then keep the elbow at that level of bending. In my first year of bodybuilding training, people told me that when I do birds, I should have the feeling of holding a big tree. When it comes to making birds, you don't want to use too much weight.
Q: I know that compound movements play a heavy role in your training plan, so do the birds?
A: I'm sure a lot of experts wouldn't agree with that: but asuka convinces me that I can expand my chest a little bit because I'm doing the bird with a low drop and a wide stretch. It's really great to do that.
Frankly, seeing Schwarzenegger's performance in Pump Iron gave me the motivation to be a bird. In each repetition, his chest appeared so thick. So birds are also an important training action in my training plan.
Q: I found that when you're flying birds, at the very top, the dumbbells don't touch together.
A: Doing this has given my muscles a good sense of contraction, so I don't need to touch the dumbbells at the top. In addition, when you touch the dumbbells together, the momentum generated by the dumbbell impact will weaken your control over the weight.
Q: Now, let's talk about your third training move, sitting posture instrument pushing the chest.
A: This is a very confusing device. Because you can bench press 405 pounds, you thought you could use 1 ton of weight on this device, but you found that the weight you used was not as big as the flat bench press.
Q: Do you think this training exercise is important to you?
A: Any new training move that makes you feel good will make you want to do it more times. But what about this kind of training that is not easy to do? There are many times when I feel like I'm "getting weaker" when I go back to a training move I haven't done in a long time. I mean, even though I'm bigger than a guy, I can't even use half the weight of his training weight.
This dilemma prompted me to do that training move. Later I learned that because my muscles need to adapt to some new movements, I will mobilize different muscle fibers. Your muscles need a reason to grow. That's the heart of bodybuilding and the soul of bodybuilding!
Q: Is there any trick for pushing the chest with the sitting device?
A: One thing to note is that keep your back against the cushion, just like when you do bench press. Maybe you'll have a tendency to tilt your body forward, but if you do, it will drive the shoulders. I like to use this movement after doing dumbbell training. I'm tired at this point, so I don't have to think too much about weight balance.
Q: The last action is the upward oblique bird, and you are using the rope tensioner version. In the gym, it is rare to see anyone using this training exercise.
A: Yes, at this point I start to stimulate the upper chest again. I may choose dumbbells or a seated chest clamp to train my upper chest, but today I chose a rope tensioner. This has many benefits. First, you'll receive a constant pull. When you use dumbbells, you may try to take a break at the top of the action. The rope will continue to "hold you", so the break time will not come. Second, you can cross your hands at the apex of the action. This will cause your muscles to contract more violently while stimulating your inner chest. The posture of this movement is basically similar to that of dumbbell birds, and the elbows are fixed in a slightly bent state.
Q: You maintain a good progression speed during training. Are you conscious of this?
A: The first time I trained with Carter, I learned to reduce the breaks between the groups. That's another way to increase the intensity of your training. The closer I got to the game, the shorter my group break.
People often don't realize how much time they're wasting while resting and talking. You're at the gym to build muscle, so get started now!
Q: How do you train in non-seasons?
A: I mainly focus on dumbbell training. I can push my chest diagonally on the machine with the maximum weight when I'm in the race, so you can imagine how much weight I can train in the off-season. At this point, the upward tilting instrument pushing the chest is not the most effective for me. I'll do some basic training moves while using more dumbbells.
I also use greater weight while trying to put the number of repetitions at 5-7 times to shape a different state of bodily function.
Q: If you could go back in time, how would your chest training plan be different?
A: I would use dumbbell training more. In the beginning I really rarely used dumbbell training. I can use 315 pounds to do barbell bench press several times, but I can't do the same with 120 pounds of dumbbells. That's when I realized that there was something wrong with my training.
Q: Finally, can you give a little advice to readers who want to get like you?
A: Find the training method that works best for you and stick with it, but don't be afraid to explore your "outside of your comfort zone" area. Have the courage to challenge yourself!
If you try a new training move and don't find the feeling you want to get – after you've used it for enough time, of course – remember that you still haven't lost. You learn something new.
It's like trying a 12-week training program in some magazines. You'll feel miserable for the first few weeks, but in the end you'll be incredibly happy and can't wait to start a plan. It's always tough to get started, but when you put it into action and reach the end, you'll eventually find that what you're doing is worth it. This is always the case!