Chest & Triceps

Why This Workout Works

Pairing chest and triceps in one session takes advantage of the fact that pressing movements already recruit the triceps heavily — by the time you reach isolation work, the triceps are pre-fatigued and respond to lighter loads. That's efficient volume without needing another day of pressing. The combination of flat, incline, and fly angles also hits the sternal, clavicular, and stretched positions of the pec, which are all trained differently and matter for balanced chest development rather than just building the lower/middle fibers a flat bench dominates.

Who It's Best For (and Who Should Modify)

Good for lifters running a body-part split with 4–5 days of training per week. Not the right session for anyone with an active shoulder impingement — chest flyes at end range are one of the more common aggravators, so substitute a neutral-grip machine press until symptoms clear. Also skip on days when the anterior shoulder feels 'crunchy' during the warm-up; that's the joint telling you to switch to pulls.

Common Form Mistakes to Avoid

• 1.Bouncing the bar off the sternum on bench press. Not only is it a tension leak, it's the mechanism behind most sternum injuries in intermediate lifters. Pause every rep on the chest.
• 2.Letting the elbows flare on close-grip bench. The 'close grip' cue makes people over-tuck; keep hands roughly shoulder-width and let the elbows track along the ribs.
• 3.Kicking the hips forward on tricep dips to make the reps easier. Keep the torso as vertical as you can and don't turn the movement into a knee-drive exercise.

How to Progress Over Time

Prioritize bench press progression using a linear approach until it stalls, then switch to a top set / back-off set structure (one heavy set of 5, then three sets of 8–10 at 85% of that weight). For flyes and pushdowns, add reps before load — most people are already close to their long-term ceiling on isolation load once they can do 15 clean reps of the working weight.