At one point I was squatting 725 pounds for a few of those stupid half reps. The reason I can’t use more than 405 safely anymore is a long history of lower-back pain-and much of that damage was done during a one-year period when I specialized in half-rep squats done with far too much weight. Rock-bottom squats felt natural from the first time I tried them. My legs are fairly short, and my hips are wide. From my observations, the longer your legs and the more narrow your hips, the less natural deep squats will be for you. Getting back to Dorian’s situation, not everyone can do squats safely. Everybody else I can think of who has (or had) great legs-Tom Platz, Branch Warren, Kai Greene, Jay Cutler, Ben Pakulski and Erik Fankhouser come to mind-built those legs with tons and tons of squats. Dorian had a tear in the muscle fascia near his hip before he even turned pro, and he decided to stop squatting, as he felt his structure wasn’t suited for it. The only man I can think of who developed great legs without squatting was six-time Mr. They’re not necessary, but you build them much faster with squats, in my opinion. Some people may be able to build thick pecs without free-weight pressing-the only one who comes to mind is David Henry-but for most of us they are a must.Įven more frequently than the bench press question, I am asked whether squats are necessary for building great legs. The majority of my chest workouts over the past two decades have consisted of a free-weight press, a machine press and a cable or machine flye. If you go flat on one, go incline on the other and be sure to rotate that from workout to workout so that you get the advantages of the free-weight press for either the overall or upper chest each week. I recommend that you start every chest workout with a barbell or a dumbbell press. Certainly, today’s bodybuilders have much better development in other areas, like the legs and back-so the only explanation I can think of is that they are doing less hard work on free-weight bench pressing.
I’m sure lots of guys still do plenty of pressing with free weights, but somehow we are seeing many more chests that are lagging in development than we did 30 to 40 years ago.
Today we have far more options, such as Hammer Strength chest machines and the Smith machine, among others, and they are popular. One very likely cause is that back in the ’70s everybody did barbell and dumbbell bench presses. Why is that? Serge Nubret Bench Pressing Routine Think about the pectoral development of the top stars of that era: Arnold, Lou Ferrigno, Franco Columbu, Serge Nubret, Mike Katz, Robby Robinson and Ed Corney all had excellent chests, better than what you see on average these days, even though today’s pros are far more massive in general.
One thing longtime fans of pro bodybuilding will tell you is that back in the “Pumping Iron” days, none of the guys had weak chests. A pretty strong argument can be made that barbells do seem to work very well for many trainees. If barbell flat- and incline-bench presses work well for you, by all means do them. I used to do 225 kg max on bench press and I trained with only 70/100kg.
Switching to dumbbells often makes a real difference, and at last they are able to isolate and activate their pecs. Many trainees have a tough time getting their pecs to do the work when pressing with a barbell because their shoulders and triceps take over.
It’s often said that dumbbells are actually the superior choice, but even though my chest training over the past 20-plus years would seem to suggest that I agree with that, I would have to say, not necessarily. You can certainly build a very good chest without the barbell bench press, but you will need to use dumbbells. These are probably the two most common training questions asked around the world: Do I have to bench-press to get a good chest? and, Do I have to squat to build good legs?