If you’re like me you start thinking about Monday, International Chest Day, right after you finish your chest workout. This gives you about 6 solid days, depending on your training schedule, to get in the right mindset to dominate your chest day.
I wouldn’t have it any other way. Chest day is the best day, and all other days suck. There’s just something awesome about working your chesticles and feeling like you’ve got such a badass chest pump that you could actually shop in Victoria’s Secret.
If you’re also like me, you’ve probably done your fair share of chest day routines, from training for pure strength with barbell bench, to primarily dumbbell work, to hitting the cables hard.
And all of them are awesome. But I’ve got an exercise that you ought to consider throwing into your chest day routine to mix things up.
I give you The Squeeze Press.
The squeeze press has quickly become one of my favorite movements to do towards the end of a chest day routine because of how much it blows my chest up. I’ve known about it forever, but like a dumbass I didn’t start doing it again until recently.
How to do the squeeze press.
If you look in the video above where I’m squeeze pressing you’ll notice that it looks like I’m bringing the dumbbells a little lower on my body than normal, and this is by design.
If you’re holding the dumbbells together in a neutral grip it’s not going to be as easy to bring the dumbbells down to where you normally do during a dumbbell bench press. Additionally, you’ll notice that my forearms stay more or less vertical. This is the hallmark of proper pressing form to keep your shoulders healthy. If you’re not pressing with vertical forearms you’re asking for shoulder issues.
The biggest key here is constantly pushing the dumbbells together. Remember, tension is the name of the game when it comes to growth. Push the dumbbells hard throughout the movement to accumulate as much tension as possible.
I also like to do this towards the end of my workout since it’s not a movement I’m going to use a ton of weight with. Because of that, I also like to vary the tempo of the lift. In the video I’m using a slower eccentric and pushing the weight back up quickly.
Play with the tempo a bit and see what helps you feel it the most when you first give this bad boy a try.
Why does it work so well?
The squeeze press isn’t all that different from the regular dumbbell bench, which is already a badass chest exercise. But changing the hand positioning and actively pushing the dumbbells against each other works as a complete game changer for a few reasons.
- Neutral grip pressing is safer on your shoulders, so you get badass chesticle work without potentially hurting your shoulders.
- You overload your chest with tension via actively pushing the dumbbells together throughout the pressing motion. When it comes to growth, tension is the name of the game.
- You also get excellent tricep work in, which is always nice since having great triceps is one of the biggest keys to getting great arms.
Remember, if you’re going to give this a try, which you should, then place it towards the end of your chest day routine. If you’re feeling extra masochistic and looking for a massive chest pump you can also drop set after the squeeze press immediately into dumbbell flyes. It will definitely suck, but you’ll probably be a D cup afterwards.