Big Chest Workout | Mike Rashid

The session begins before a single plate touches steel. I sit still for five minutes, eyes soft, breath in through the nose, out through the nose… slow, deliberate. Mindfulness meditation tunes the nervous system. Cortisol eases down. Heart rate steadies. Mental noise fades. In that hush the body primes neurotransmitters for focus. A calm brain recruits muscle fibers with sharper precision. Meditation is not fluff. It is software calibration before heavy hardware activation.

Warm up follows. I rack an empty bar and treat it like it’s heavy. Perfect practice makes perfect execution. When the bar is bare, the only weight is your intention. You groove the exact bar path, reinforce scapular retraction, lock the rib cage, and engrain elbow tracking. If you move sloppy when it feels light, your motor cortex memorizes sloppy mechanics. Under load those flaws bloom into joint stress and power leaks. Respect the bar even when it weighs nothing. The movement should look identical at zero kilos and at record load.

Now the work. Progressive loading on the flat bench locks in strength without shocking connective tissue.

135 pounds for ten smooth reps… blood starts to flood, joints heat up

225 for another ten… muscle fibers wake, but the mind stays calm

315 for five… force production climbs, bar speed stays intentional

365 for three… near maximal territory, core locked, lats tight

I finish each top set with slow negatives, three to four seconds on the descent. The eccentric phase creates the greatest micro trauma and mechanical tension. More tension signals greater protein synthesis, thicker myofibrils, and stronger connective tissue. Controlled negatives also engrain stability under fatigue, protecting shoulders and elbows when ego usually takes control.

Next comes the movement I rarely love yet always respect, the incline dumbbell press. Four methodical sets. The angle targets upper pectoral fibers that help fill out the clavicular shelf, giving the chest that armor plate look. Dumbbells demand unilateral stability so weak side lag is exposed and corrected. The deeper stretch at the bottom lengthens sarcomeres, contributing to a broader, denser chest over time.

To close, I drop to the floor for a burnout set of push ups. No count. Just continuous reps until the chest refuses to generate another inch of motion. Burnouts deplete residual glycogen, flush the fibers with metabolites, and send one last hypertrophy signal while doubling as a mental test. Finish lines teach the spirit to commit fully even when the load is only bodyweight.

Throughout the workout I sip Hydroglyph from the Ambrosia Collective. Its matrix of essential amino acids, electrolytes, coconut water powder, and glycerol serves three critical roles. First, cellular hydration. Sodium, potassium, and magnesium pull water into muscle cells, sustaining performance as set volume climbs. Second, muscle building. The full spectrum aminos keep leucine availability high so mTOR flips on and repair begins while you still train. Third, muscle preservation. When intensity is high and carbs are low, the formula spares muscle from catabolism by offering readily available substrates, so the body never raids its own tissue for energy.

That is the session. Breath to sharpen the mind, perfect practice to protect the frame, progressive overload to provoke growth, strategic angles to sculpt symmetry, burnout to empty the tank, and smart intra workout fuel to keep tissue hydrated and anabolic. Execute with intent… record your numbers… and return stronger.