The Show Up Fitness Podcast
Join Chris Hitchko, author of 'How to Become A Successful Personal Trainer' VOL 2 and CEO of Show Up Fitness as he guides personal trainers towards success.
90% of personal trainers quit within 12-months in the USA, 18-months in the UK, Show Up Fitness is helping change those statistics. The Show Up Fitness CPT is one of the fastest growing PT certifications in the world with partnerships with over 500-gyms including Life Time Fitness, Equinox, Genesis, EoS, and numerous other elite partnerships.
This podcast focuses on refining trade, business, and people skills to help trainers excel in the fitness industry. Discover effective client programming, revenue generation, medical professional networking, and elite assessment strategies.
Learn how to become a successful Show Up Fitness CPT at www.showupfitness.com. Send your questions to Chris on Instagram @showupfitness or via email at info@showupfitness.com."
The Show Up Fitness Podcast
How to build your CHEST #Chesticles
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Ready to transform your chest training and finally see real growth? This episode dives deep into the science and practical application of optimizing chest development for both beginners and experienced lifters.
Starting with a case study of an online client who successfully grew his social media following to 250,000+ followers, we analyze his current chest training program and identify the key opportunities for improvement. You'll learn exactly how a professional trainer thinks when designing programs that drive results—from understanding chest anatomy (the three regions of the pectoral major) to calculating optimal training volume for hypertrophy.
What makes this episode uniquely valuable is our no-nonsense approach to program design. We break down why most people aren't seeing chest gains (hint: it's not just about pressing heavy), and provide specific protocols you can implement immediately. You'll discover why weighted dips with eccentric focus, strategic drop sets, and forced overload fly variations might be your missing ingredients for growth. We also explain why training to true fatigue matters, how to incorporate pushups effectively, and when deload weeks become necessary for continued progress.
For personal trainers, we share how elevating your knowledge of exercise science can directly translate to charging higher rates and providing superior client results. Whether you're looking to develop an impressive chest or you're a fitness professional wanting to upgrade your programming skills, this episode delivers actionable insights that will change how you approach training forever. Ready to stop leaving gains on the table?
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Welcome to the Show Up Fitness Podcast, where great personal trainers are made. We are changing the fitness industry, one qualified trainer at a time, with our in-person and online personal training certification. If you want to become an elite personal trainer, head on over to showupfitnesscom. Also, make sure to check out my book how to Become a Successful Personal Trainer. Don't forget to subscribe, rate and review. Have a great day and keep showing up. Howdy y'all. Welcome back to the show fitness podcast. Today we're going to help you grow those chesticles. Every Monday is international chest day.
Speaker 1:I'm working with a client online, mr Rim really cool story. He went from less than 500 followers. Mr Arim really cool story. He went from less than 500 followers. Now he has over 250,000, generates over 15K per month online, has a really cool clothing brand in Turkey and he's kicking ass. So proud of you, my man. This podcast is for you. I've also done some prior with him, but we're going to take a look at his programming because he had a question on if he could optimize his chest days. So I'm going to take you through what my mind goes through when I'm working with clients, because I do have about 10, 15 people who I work with regularly doing their online programming, and so the first thing I'm going to do is say show me what you're doing. So he sent me over his programming and then I'm going to give you an idea of what my mind goes into and then what I asked for and then the application on the back end. So he sent me his chest day.
Speaker 1:He has an interesting split chest and quad on Monday, back and hams on Tuesday. Wednesday, shoulders, thursday, legs. Friday is going to be chest and triceps and arms, a little bit of biceps too. So when we go through that, first chest day starts out with incline dumbbell press, three by five to eight. So I interpret that as eight reps for the first set, get down to six to five on the second one and then five on the third one. Exercise two chest press machine three to five by eight, so similar to the first one. And then he does a cable fly three by 12, and then a cable fly low to high, three by 12. And then the next time he does chest is on Friday. His incline dumbbell press, again three by eight, and the machine chest press three by eight. He's doing a total of 18 sets. Day one he's getting roughly a hundred reps, and then the second time he trains, on Friday, he's getting 24 per exercise, roughly 50 reps.
Speaker 1:So what goes through my mind is first go through anatomy. What does the pectoral major do? The pec major is one muscle, three parts. The quote unquote upper is going to be the clavicular region, which is going to flex the humerus with slight horizontal adduction. The middle portion is the sternal region of the pec, which is going to be more horizontal adduction as well as internal rotation, and then the lower portion, which is the sternocostal region, is going to be more adduction as well as horizontal adduction. So we want to make sure that we're hitting all of those actions and taking it through a full range of motion.
Speaker 1:If we want to grow a muscle, we need to focus on the main driver for hypertrophy, which is total tension. People will misconstrue that and think time under tension is what that is interpreted by, which does definitely play a role. But we're looking at maximal tension from an intensity standpoint. I'm looking at volume, frequency and intensity, total reps he's doing per week and I'm also going to ask him, as I did how often do you get sore? And he said he doesn't get sore that much. So that gives me a pretty good indication that he could probably be doing more sets. Soreness isn't an indicator of hypertrophy, but if you've been training for months on out and you're never getting sore, let's change up some of the exercise variations, the rep schemes, the rest, all of those acute factors. So what I told him to do is I want you to start, because he's not focusing on total force production. He's not concerned like I am right now, my road to 315. So I'm not too concerned about going that heavy.
Speaker 1:What I would suggest for him to do is I like these sets he's doing. He's getting down to five. As a guy, I know you like to lift heavier weights. He's not doing bench because it hurts his shoulder. What I'm going to suggest is he likes doing inclined dumbbell presses, but I'm going to incorporate more sets. So I'm going to suggest four versus three and I want to see more drop sets in the first one. So I'd like to see you get down to five reps whatever he's doing. Probably like 50 pounds, not that big. I know you got to put some size on those chesticles. So let me say you're doing 50s for five reps, then I would drop it and go to the 30s and then do AMRAP and then rest three to four minutes and then repeat for four rounds and then now incorporate some exercise that you're not doing. I'd like to see some weighted dips in there, not the stupid ones behind your body for your triceps, I'm talking about bar dips. It's really going to give you a great stretch.
Speaker 1:Focus on the eccentric on these. I'd really want to see at least four seconds down, pause for a good stretch and then come up concentrically. That pausing in the deep stretch can induce some hypertrophy. They did a really cool study with birds back in the day and they had poor little fellas but they had them stretch their wings out with weights on their wings and they just held that position for like 60 seconds and what they found is just holding a weighted stretch like that induced hypertrophy. I'm not recommending to do that per se, but we can implement some of these variables to help induce the hypertrophy that he's going for. So when you're doing your dips, you come down to that end position hold and then you come up as fast as you can, concentrically, and you're going to do that for eight to 12 reps.
Speaker 1:I like to do what I call she sets or that first set, so in this case it would be the dumbbell incline press. You get in that strength range one to five reps. This is based off the NSCA and the quote unquote hypertrophy range would be like six to 12 and then endurance would be 12 plus. Now, as we know, hypertrophy can be induced at any rep range. If you were to be doing sets of 30, you can get bigger. You can get bigger by doing sets of three to five. It's just the volume is going to be a lot lower. So you need to do more sets. If you wanted to go that route, because you like lifting heavy, I'd want to see 10 sets of five versus three sets of five. Then you're looking at 50 total reps versus 15.
Speaker 1:My suggestion is to incorporate some drop sets in that first one, do some dips on the second one and then I want to do more flies. But I love doing flies where we hold that end position and then we pull it into our chest and we press up concentrically. So it's like a forced overload, heavy, eccentric fly. So let's say that you can do, you know, 30s for a chest fly for six reps. I'd want you to go to 40s and do six, but instead of coming up concentrically in that fly position in the transverse plane. You tuck it to your armpit and then you press up and then you overload it down and then, when you're completely fatigued, then you just press out reps. So again, it's like a variation of a drop set which is going to increase that total volume.
Speaker 1:If we do four exercises on day one for four sets each, we're going to be hitting a total of 16. Comparative to the prior times, he's hitting 12. That's about a 20% increase in volume. And then I would do the same for on Friday, instead of doing two exercises, three by eight, I would do three exercises and now I do four. Now when we look at the optimal amount of volume, you're going to hear people saying it's 15, it's 20. Don't do more than 20. You don't have to do as much. You need to do full range of motion. There's so much chaos out there. I take a look at what you've been doing and then we're going to increase 20 to 30% total volume per week. He was hitting 18. Now I want to get closer to 24 to 26 total sets and see how your body handles that. I would also incorporate pushups regularly. If you want to do them daily, that's fine.
Speaker 1:It's fun to challenge yourself and be, in science, what we call an N1. You're the subject. This may be defying what the scientific studies will say out there, but you are testing what your organism is capable of and I don't see us doing it that much today. We look at one person who has a big following and we just follow that strictly In the beginning. Yes, you need to do that If you want to get stronger. You do some West side barbell conjugate stuff, follow it to a T, but then on the backend, after that program is complete, you use your creative mind, implement the acute variables and then try it out on yourself. We are essentially scientists. We're in the trenches. So if you're not seeing size improvements doing 18 sets, let's start getting up to 25, 30 sets per week.
Speaker 1:The upper limit, what we've found, is about 40 sets maximal, as minimal as eight to 10. It depends on where you're at your age, how you're sleeping, your nutrition. Are we getting one gram of protein per body weight, which he is, so his nutrition is locked in. We don't need to address that, which he is, so his nutrition is locked in. We don't need to address that.
Speaker 1:I'm more concerned about the volume and the intensity. So I want to see him doing these lifts. Is he saving three, four reps in reserve, sticking to that comfort zone which a lot of us do? Why not hire a trainer? You will get in the best shape of your life working with a trainer or training with someone who's stronger than you. I guarantee you, if we were working out regularly, your chest would grow significantly if we worked out twice per week, because I'm going to push you out of your comfort zone. Normally, if you're doing the incline dumbbells for a set of six, I'm going to push you for two more. We're going to do super overloads. He doesn't like doing bench, which is fine, because bench really isn't a great hypertrophy exercise for your chest. I want to see more isolation, really more so for the ego you do. How much you can press in that first exercise and then really rack up the volume in the full range of motion on the back end. I want your chest to be sore.
Speaker 1:When you implement a new program. It's a good indicator that we're changing it up, that muscle confusion, which isn't a thing. But if we've been coasting along the last three, six months and we're never getting sore, it's a really good indication to me that we're not pushing ourselves that hard, we're not going through the full range of motion, we're not taking the muscle through its planes of motion we should be taking it through and we're also not training to fatigue. So let's start doing that program. Monday and Friday incorporate pushups on the back end so on Monday you can do pushups. Later on go get your grub on, get a good couple hundred grams of carbs to refuel that glycogen, get your protein and then later on that night crank out a bunch of pushups. He's a very capable individual. He's younger, the body is spectacular, so push it Now.
Speaker 1:If you were a beginner listening to this and you put this program on yourself, you could potentially get rhabdo. That's not my suggestion here. You have to look at the individual case and then challenge it accordingly, but not with blanket statements. You should be doing 300 pushups a day, every day for the next 90 days. That's just a blanket statement. That may work for some, but it could injure others. So for beginners, start out with two to three days a week. Choose two or three. Exercise you like for your chest.
Speaker 1:Train regularly for a couple months, notice your gains, take before and after photos, monitor your strength, take some deloads if you need to A deload would be doing this for a month. Maybe we work up to close to 30 sets and then one week we just cut the volume in half. So you still show up to the gym but instead of doing three sets of eight, we're going to do two for five. But we're not coming anywhere close to volitional fatigue. You're just going through the motions. Maybe we focus more on our jumping or our calves, because you have tiny ass calves. We got to work on those. Whatever it may be, focus on that other stuff on the backend during that deload week. So when you come back on week six, then you're going to feel a lot refreshed, better performing, and then you recycle through another program.
Speaker 1:If you have some struggling muscles that you want to upgrade and get in better shape physically, I'm always taking on clients. If you want month to month programming, reach out to me. I can take a look at what you're doing, look at your form and then design a significantly better program for you to get you to those goals that you want. We have relaunched our partnership with the Prehab Guys. If you're a trainer or you have clients who are in pain, go and get their app, sign up with the code SHOWUP and you're going to get a special little discount for that. This app, in my opinion, is a game changer for trainers because it levels up your confidence when you have a conversation with someone who has discomfort and you know that prior to the assessment, you go into the app. You find some exercises, whether if it's for Achilles, tendonitis or shoulder issues low back. Choose a couple of the exercises, let the client know you did your research and that you work with physical therapists using this great app. You can show them the exercises but then you can send it to them so the clients can start doing it Really levels up your assessment game.
Speaker 1:Trainers should be charging significantly more than they are when you're qualified. I see a huge gap with trainers missing out on the prehab rehab stuff. When it comes to pain management, too many trainers just skip completely. Your client comes in with shoulder pain oh, we're just going to focus on lower body. You are competent to take them through screens if you need to refer out. That's why you need to have a physical therapist on your team and that's what you get when you get the certification. With the soft tissue, you're going to learn the screens how to implement the appropriate exercises. The soft tissues are 100% game changers and you are the tool, not your hyper ice or your Theragum. You are the tool. You get into that area that is sensitive. Bring it up to a threshold of six or seven, hold parasympathetic breathing. Bring it down to two or three and then they get into the workout feeling better. They will give you that black Amex faster than you've ever seen in your entire life, which builds up your confidence. So you can go from charging $60 per hour to $100 per hour.
Speaker 1:Your clients see the value in your continuing education. You need to voice this to your clients that you're investing into your education. Hell, you can even ask your clients to sponsor your certifications. Hey, jack, I want to let you know I'm doing this amazing certification through one of the best courses out there Show Up Fitness. Once I get that, I'm going to be increasing my pricing from 60 per session to 85. If you were to sponsor me and pay for the certification it's 800 bucks then I will not upgrade your pricing for the next six months. Do you want to invest into me? And you're going to find your clients will pay for your certifications.
Speaker 1:We are victims today. We love to say, oh, it's too expensive. I can't go to a seminar which we're going to be in Beaverton, oregon, september 26th and 27th, if you haven't been to a seminar. They are the biggest game changers, because your confidence goes through the roof. You charge more, you make more but, more importantly, you're better equipped to serve your clients and help them with their goals. Check out the Prehab Guys app. Use the code SHOWUP and you will change your client's game. I guarantee it. If you have any questions or podcast suggestions, find us on the Facebook group Qualified Personal Trainers Community. Make sure to leave that five-star review. Read the book, volume two. Throw it into your story and remember big chest muscles are better than small ones, and keep showing up.