Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

The perfect way to end any chest and shoulder workout is with an awesome chest and shoulders exercise finisher. In this video, I’m going to show you one move that you can do at the end of any chest workout, delt workout or even upper body workout to put the final nail in the coffin and get those gains coming even faster than ever.

The key to this finisher is activating multiple muscle groups at once. Given the proximity of the muscles that we are targeting here and the fact that these muscle functions have a great degree of overlap, we are able to really hit the area hard with this movement. This is called a crush grip front raise. The goal of the exercise is to activate the chest, shoulders, traps, abs, forearms and even your biceps in one powerful movement.

If you want to get jacked, then find a way to work this move into the end of your workout for best results. That said, I’m going to show you two different ways to do it for different results (depending on the goals of your training). I start by showing you the high rep, metabolic way to perform this. Utilizing speed reps, take a lighter dumbbell and squeeze it between the palms of your hands as hard as you can. If done properly, this will activate the muscles of the chest via the isometric adduction.

Lean forward slightly and squeeze your traps at the same time. Now, begin by lifting the dumbbell out in front of you by contracting the shoulders and front delts. From here, you want to rep out as quickly as possible and resist the burn as it mounts up. See if you can complete 100 reps without resting using a dumbbell weight that is roughly half of what you would use for a standard set of front dumbbell raises for your shoulders.

You can do this more as a hypertrophy finisher as well by increasing the weight that you are using. Here you want to reach for a weight that is almost twice what you would use in each hand during a standard set of front delt raises. Either way, the most important element to the success of this chest and shoulder workout exercise is that you work to activate all of the muscles mentioned and that you keep the tension high from the first rep to the last.

The value of workout finishers in general is to help take your workout beyond what is comfortable to you and push you into the realm where change occurs. If you want to get jacked and build bigger pecs and shoulders you will need to push yourself further than your workouts have taken you so far. That is where finisher exercises can really come in. Challenge your body to build it up bigger and stronger than ever before. Give this chest and shoulder workout finisher a try and start building bigger muscles starting today.

For a complete program that incorporates finishers into all of the workouts for more muscle gains, be sure to head to http://athleanx.com and get the MAX SIZE program. Start training like an athlete and building serious muscle using the same workout program used by today’s top professional athletes and strength coaches.

For more videos on how to build a bigger chest and shoulders as well as complete chest and shoulder workouts, be sure to subscribe to our youtube channel at http://youtube.com/user/jdcav24