Updated: April 2020

It’s 2020, have you heard of Feeder workouts? If not you’re missing out on the best damn way to grow your chest! It’s the best way to get a pump and train like a king.

Feeder workouts work, and and it was the main method of Rich Piana’s workouts. But if you’re new to this concept what the hell are Feeder workouts?

 

 

What Are Feeder Workouts?

This is an excerpt from the original article The Truth About Rich Piana’s Feeder Workouts

The idea behind a feeder workout is that you are going to pump your muscle like crazy with high repetitions.

This will then force blood, oxygen, and other nutrients into the muscle thus ‘feeding’ the muscle.

When performing a feeder workout you use very light weight, very minimal rest, and focus entirely on the pump.

What’s the point of a feeder workout?

Good question! The point is to grow your muscle.

“BUT DON’T I NEED SUPER HIGH WEIGHT TO GROW MY MUSCLES?”

Not entirely true! Like always there are many different philosophies and we’ll dive into the reasoning behind this and why it actually works.

So you pump, pump and pump up your muscle full of blood for ultimate muscle growth. You can hit your chest with heavy ass weight for years on end and get no growth. What most guys do is throw some plates on the on the bar, bench some ungodly weight and pat themselves on the back.

You can’t just simply move the weight and expect a huge barrel chest!

One of the core concepts in bodybuilding is the mind-muscle connection. You have to really think about how your muscle feels during the exercise. By creating a strong mind-muscle connection, you can distinguish different muscles easier. This will allow you to really target the muscle group you’re after, whether it be your chest, arms or legs.

It wasn’t until I started hitting my chest with tons of volume that I noticed growth

Don’t believe me? Here’s a progress picture of feeder workouts before and after so you know I’m not bullshitting you. This is a few months of incorporating chest feeder exercises into my workouts.

 

I ditched the super heavy-ass weight of 6-8 reps and starting doing feeder exercises for chest. You don’t always need to lift heavy to achieve growth. Yes, it can help, don’t get me wrong, but your body reacts to a new stimulus. If you’re doing between 8 and 12 reps for most exercises, your body is going to be like WTF when you kick it into overdrive and hit 100 reps.

What are the best feeder workouts for the chest?

Since you’ll be lifting the weight for 100 reps (yes, that’s not a typo), we have to keep in mind safety. The last thing you want to do is injury your body somehow and be out of the gym for a week. For chest exercises especially, your shoulders get used substantially. As such, you want to avoid any shoulder injuries and impingements.

Have you ever been benching or some sort of chest pressing movement and feel a tingle in your shoulder? That right there is the path to injury. Once you notice something doesn’t feel right, stop right there and check your form!

My recommendation is to warm up your shoulders with resistance band pull aparts. These are a fantastic warm-up exercise because the bands put constant tension on your shoulders and chest, and allow you to get a full stretch. Pick a band that you can do at least 30 reps, and start pulling! Read what resistance bands I use and what you can do with them.

Now that you understand the concept of feeder workouts, let’s jump into the best feeder exercises for the chest. Pick either Workout 1 or Workout 2 and add them to your current program.

Workout 1

Incline dumbbell hex press – 50-100 reps

Mid-level cable flyes – 50-100 reps

Workout 2

Barbell bench press -50- 100 reps

Low-to-high cable flyes – 50-100 reps

Workout 3

Landmine Chest Press – Kneeling – 50 reps

Pushups to failure

What I love is the dumbbell hex press. It really nails your upper portion of your chest, putting the bench on an incline makes it even more difficult. We combine this with mid-level (chest level) cable flyes to finish off the workout and hit the main part of your pec muscle.

Next, for Workout 2 we stick with the gold standard of chest building, the barbell bench press. Again, make sure your shoulders and chest are warmed up before benching! I cannot stress this enough, we’ll be doing 100 reps today!

Low-to-high cable flyes are another awesome upper chest builder. I want you to really focus on the squeeze of the muscle, and don’t go too fast either. Flex your pecs during the entire exercise, from the bottom to the top.

Add feeder exercises to your chest workouts and I guarantee you’ll get results. There’s a reason why it’s so popular: it works!