Muscle Fitness Muscle_Fitness_February_2016 | Page 76
TRAIN
ZANE’S WAY
QUITE FRANKLY
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Older, Wiser
74
MUSCLE & FITNESS
FEBRUARY 2016
/ ©
work your pecs with the right
exercises on a regular basis. This is
the situation I’m in, and pec work
has become a major part of
my upper-body workout—all
QUICK
in defiance of developing
TIP
boobs. I’ve seen some of
Once you’ve built a
my contemporaries with
good foundation with
compound exercises like this condition, and it isn’t
the bench, you can get a pretty. That’s not for me.
lot more mileage out
Here’s what I do. I’ve
of isolation moves
found a bunch of exercises
like crossovers.
I can do on machines that
don’t hurt my shoulders: the
pec deck, dip machine, and incline
press on a machine or, more recently,
barbell incline press. I’m training my
pecs once a week, and it’s working
because I’m keeping my body weight
light. It would be even more produc-
tive to work them twice a week, but
with the archery I do, it’s enough for
my shoulders and it’s effective.
My first exercise is the incline
press. A better way to isolate upper
pecs is using dumbbells for the
incline press holding a neutral grip.
This permits lower stretching and
really targets the pecs. Pec deck is
next for me, and I have a good one
that gets both my inner and outer
pecs since I have it loaded with
rubber bands, increasing tension at
the end of the movement. It’s a V-1
machine, and it’s banded on its
weight stack, making the use of
really heavy weights unnecessary.
It’s also easier on the joints and
gives a better pump. On all these
exercises I keep the reps in the six
to 12 range, working up in weight
As you age, ditching the bench press isn’t such
and down in reps for three sets.
If you don’t have access to a good
a bad idea. BY FRANK ZANE, M.S.
pec deck, then dumbbell flyes on a
IT’S NOT ABOUT how much you
as the skin. Any part of the body
slight decline are best. It may be
can bench as you get older. Yes, the
that gets too big and then shrinks
better than the pec deck if you do it
bench press is good for building
will leave loose skin in its wake. Not
right, stretching deep down each rep.
pec, delt, and triceps mass in the
only that, but the skin itself changes
Parallel dips on a dip machine are
early stages of one’s development,
with age. It literally becomes thinner,
also great. This machine is pin-
but its usefulness doesn’t last. And
revealing all sorts of minor imper-
loaded, giving great resistance as
it’s actually a good idea not to get
fections that you might have gotten
the cable stretches. I do higher reps
your pecs too big, especially the
away with as a younger man. The
here and might do 15, 12, 10 reps as
lower pecs. Why?
problem is obviously compounded
I increase weight.
With aging, muscles invariably
by shrinking muscles.
Try supersetting these or working
shrink, and bigger muscle masses
So what to do? Don’t strive for
them as a circuit. You’ll keep great
can shrink more, leaving behind
massive pecs in the first place. What
shape in your chest and never have
tissues that do not shrink as much
if you already did? Then you have to
to worry about man boobs.