Strength

The Best Chest Workout for Wide and Square Pecs

Mark Kislich explains what he learned from Jay Cutler, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Charles Poliquin about Building Muscle Fast.

I learned from Jay Cutler, Arnold, and Charles Poliquin about building muscle: they all like to use supersets, giant sets, and tri-sets. The advantages are many:

You get a HUGE pump
It is very time efficient; a lot of work is squeezed into very little time.
Done right, you make use of the pre-exhaustion phenomenon as well as the post-exhaustion effect!

Arnold was the first to introduce this training technique to the mainstream bodybuilding crowd way back when, and it is incredible how far, far ahead of his times Arnie was, like, 30 years ago.

Please make no mistake about it: the following are some of the most cutting-edge and effective muscle-building strategies out there today.

If something repeatedly works for natural athletes as measured by strength levels, and when all is said and done by great looks, it will work for everybody every time.

Even professional bodybuilders like Jay Cutler use this principle because of its pump, giving more nutrients to the muscles and stretching out the muscle's fascia to create more growing space.

In this article, I would like to introduce one of my favourite tri-sets for packing on muscle fast, in this instance for the chest.

You can naturally use the same principle for any old body part. That is not a problem. Feel free to experiment, as that approach will also provide the much-needed variation. These frequent changes give a fresh stimulus to both the body keeping adaptation going and the mind. Training never has to be boring.

If you then throw in some advanced training strategies like agonist/antagonist alternation and reverse insertion exercises, your results will go through the roof.

Note: Reverse insertion exercises are a specialized approach to maximizing muscle "damage", resulting in increased hypertrophy (muscle growth). A good example is super-setting close-grip chin-ups with flat bench curls for the biceps. Here, the muscle will be trained in the stretch and contracted positions, again providing the highest possible growth stimulus.

After every workout, we will also do a high lactate finisher, boosting HGH to maximum levels. We all know what that means: anti-catabolic, fat-burning = lean and ripped muscle mass.

Altogether, we will utilize some or all of the following:

Pump the muscles into oblivion.
Pre-exhaust and post-exhaust them.
Do one heck of a lot of work in a short time.
Train in the shortened as well as the lengthened positions.
Use the Reverse Insertion principle.
Boost HGH (human growth hormone) with effective finishers.

Many guys have trouble building their chests, so allow me to introduce my infamous Chest Tri Set.

Arnold used and taught it 30 years ago. It works by building up the outer lateral fibres of the pectoralis major and flattening out the whole structure simultaneously, resulting in that attractive, broad, square look the ladies love. Additionally, your shoulders will be spared the strain of heavy benching.

This workout has another benefit: it is all done on one station, an adjustable incline bench, and the same pair of dumbbells. That means even in a busy gym, you do not have to worry about standing in line for your equipment because you can stay with your station throughout the short and very effective workout.

Genetics be damned

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Franko Columbu used this exercise that I call the Arnie Dumbbell Flies, and they both had incredibly broad pecs. It did the same for me and will work for anybody who applies it.

Let us hear what Arnie has to say about it:

"They stretch the rib cage and build the outer pectorals. They're one of my favourite exercises and have had the best effect on my pectoral muscles, causing them to grow wide and low, with a lot of definition ... Doing a fly is like hugging a large tree. You make a wide circle with the dumbbells.

Many guys do it with the weight so close to the pecs that it becomes a pressing movement. Be sure to get a full stretch by lowering the dumbbells as much as possible for each repetition. I rarely see anybody using the correct form, but people I have taught to do it correctly have developed massive pecs. One of them is Franko Columbu."

Another thing about chest workouts: if you build up the pecs any old way, you might have a droopy-booby look. I do not know about you, but that does not look good, big chest or not.

So, build up the chest but in all the right places. This Chest Tri Set will do just that for you, and I will present the workout in this order: Notation, Table, and Explanation.

The Arnie Flys Chest Tri-Set

Notation

Arnie Flys, 3-5 x 10-15 reps, 1010 tempo, 10 seconds rest
Incline Dumbbell Presses, 3-5 x 15-20 reps, 1010, 10 seconds rest
Arnie Flys, 3-5 x 8-10 reps, 1010 tempo, 120 seconds rest.

Table

Repeat Tri-Set	Sets	Reps	Tempo	Rest Interval
Arnie Flys	3-5	10-15	1010	10 seconds
Dumbbell Incline Presses	3-5	15-20	1010	10 seconds
Arnie Flys	3-5	8-10	1010	120 seconds

Explanation

Grab the adjustable bench and a pair of dumbbells.

Begin with the Arnie Flys by pumping out 10-15 repetitions smoothly and in a controlled manner. The 1010 tempo means lower for 1 second, zero pauses at the bottom, so reverse direction immediately and raise for one second, with zero pauses at the top of the movement, going directly into the next repetition. That translates into 10-15 smooth and continuous repetitions.

Now, you take a 10-second pause, adjusting the bench to a 45-degree angle. Then, it is right into the incline dumbbell presses: 15-20 repetitions at the same smooth 1010 tempo. Lower the weights as far as possible for a maximum stretch. Set done. Ten seconds pause, and now you repeat the first exercise—Arnie Flys once again—for presumably only about 8-10 repetitions since your pecs are already pre-exhausted.

Repeating the Flys twice means emphasizing the most crucial exercise for a maximized training effect.

Now, take a short, 2-minute rest before doing the whole thing again, 2-4 times, for 3-5 sets.

That's all, and outside of warm-up, it would take approximately 25-30 minutes at most (for five sets).

The Warm-Up

Warming up is very important. The primary cause of injury in the weights room is either a complete lack of warm-up or doing the wrong one. We can keep this example relatively simple: I recommend using the same weight and doing five reps for each exercise in a row. Then pause for a minute, and away we go. That is alright here since the intensity (the weight) is relatively low, and consequently, so is the injury risk.

How much weight?

Use approximately 15% of your flat bench max for each hand/dumbbell. So, say you can do 220 pounds on the bench for a single max rep; you would use 22-pound dumbbells. That is all you need.

The Arnie Flys

I want to add two things:

The elbows should remain locked at a 30-degree angle, and the stretch in the bottom position is to be emphasized.
On the last rep of the set, I like to hold the stretch for 2-3 seconds in the bottom position.

In "The Education of a Bodybuilder", Arnold points out that in this particular exercise, the pecs are stretched out so well that you do not need to stretch them anymore afterwards.

Page Reference

If you quote information from this page in your work, then the reference for this page is:

KISLICH, M. (2013) The Best Chest Workout for Wide and Square Pecs [WWW] Available from: https://www.brianmac.co.uk/articles/article118.htm [Accessed 29/7/2025]

About the Author

Mark Kislich is from Iceland and works as a strength and conditioning coach with Olympic and other elite athletes. He keeps fit through weight training and judo.

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