Functional Bodybuilding Coach Shares How He Hacks Chest Training

Former CrossFit Games competitor Marcus Filly has just lately shifted his focus away from a fast for-time purpose and extra in direction of smarter, safer coaching in what he calls “functional bodybuilding,” and he recurrently creates video content material all about how he continues to construct power and muscle in a sustainable method whereas avoiding harm.

A current brief clip on YouTube sees Filly demonstrating how he will increase the chest muscular tissues’ time under tension in an array of workouts so as to maximize their potential progress stimulus. Time underneath stress does not consult with the length of a exercise, and you do not merely add reps to your set to extend it: as an alternative, it is all about slowing down every repetition individually. This is known as tempo training.

“Tempo coaching could assist you to really feel every motion via its full vary of movement,” explains health author Michael Easter. “It additionally allows you to put muscular tissues underneath extra stress with out heavier weights.”

First up is the one arm bench press. Filly incorporates slowed-down negatives into the second half of the rep on either side so as to improve time underneath stress and obtain the next high quality of eccentric contraction through the reducing portion of the raise. Try our alternating incline press hellset to start with explosive tempos before building up eccentrics.

Secondly, Filly suggests including pauses to the underside of your reps whereas performing ring pushups, prolonging the muscle’s stretch. And lastly, he demonstrates a slowed-down tempo on each the downward and upward motions of a dumbbell fly.

While tempo coaching will be extremely useful, that is not to say it needs to be used throughout the board. If you are executing a extremely technical or heavy raise, or explosive strikes which are designed for velocity, then slowing down a section of the motion may result in harm.