Build A Bigger, Better Chest With Isometrics | Jason Wittrock

Don't just put down the weight when you finish a set! See how isometrics and shocker sets can magnify your chest pump in this completely new pec workout.
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Sometimes the toughest workouts aren't the longest. EAS and Bodybuilding.com athlete Jason Wittrock has created a unique chest workout that might be considered a breeze if measured by the stopwatch, but what it lacks in length, it more than makes up for in terms of intensity. Wittrock himself calls it "an all-out assault," combining both conventional and unconventional training elements.
At the heart of Wittrock's approach is a technique called isometrics. After completing a set with a weight you can do for only 10-12 reps, you squeeze your hands together and flex your chest with as much effort as possible to intensify the pump. You do this after a set of inclines, declines, and flat-bench presses with corresponding isometric squeezes that target the upper chest, lower chest, and middle pecs, respectively.
| Introducing Isometrics |
An isometric is simply a muscle contraction in which there's no movement, like what happens when you push against a wall. In this workout, you push your hands against each other to contract the muscle, but there's no movement. Done at the tail end of a set, it'll most certainly boost the pump in your chest.
When doing incline presses, Wittrock does a high-incline chest flex in which he brings his hands together above his chest, pushing them against each other. With machine bench presses for the middle pecs, his arms are directly out in front of him, which he calls a mid-chest isometric chest flex. And with decline presses, he brings them together near his navel, similar to a most-muscular pose.
Experience has taught Wittrock that not only is squeezing the target muscle with isometrics important, but so is the protocol. In each instance, he recommends nine short pulses with about 75 percent effort followed by a final all-out isometric squeeze for a full 10 seconds. (He counts that as 10 reps total.) That last one, he says, should leave you "shaking like a leaf."
But Wittrock relies on more than just standard exercises and unique isometric holds to build a champion chest. He likes to ensure maximal growth with finishing "shocker sets" that include dropsets, negative reps, and static holds.
Take your first exercise, the incline dumbbell press, as an example: You do the first working set with 10-12 reps, then up the weight and hit 6-8 reps. After you fail at 6-8 reps, you do a "shocker" dropset in which you immediately reduce the poundage by about 50 percent and continue on with as many reps as you can do.
The combination of the isometric and shocker dropsets is a one-two punch that'll magnify the pump in all regions of your chest, but Wittrock also likes negative reps to finish off the occasional exercise. A negative (or eccentric) rep is one in which you take about four seconds to lower the bar, then your partner helps you easily lift it back to the top. It'll leave your muscles screaming.
As if those moves weren't enough to finish you off, Wittrock also includes a bodyweight superset at the end of the session that will ensure you're fully tapped.
One final note before launching into the workout: It may go without saying, but if you want to give yourself every opportunity to grow, don't forget about pre- and post-workout nutrition. A solid pre-workout supplement will help you give your all in the gym, branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) provide a great source of mid-workout energy, and post-workout protein will help kick-start muscle recovery and repair.
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