The OG: Chest Training

Let's talk about Vince's approach to training specific body parts, starting with the chest

Welcome back to THE OG, my long-running series on all things Vince Gironda. After last week’s humorous, but nonetheless edifying, discussion of all the reasons Vince might kick you out of his famous gym in North Hollywood, it’s time to look at Vince’s approach to specific body parts. We’ll start with the chest and work our way around from there.

All quotations are from The Wild Physique (1984), unless otherwise stated.

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A high percentage of people who are into the sport of bodybuilding feel that I advocate some pretty unusual exercises, and that even when I do regular exercises I perform them in an irregular way. They can't believe that I prefer the hack lift to the back squat. My answer is: Who wants a big butt? Then there's my habit of crossing one leg over the other while doing seated curls. I do this to prevent the dumbbells from hitting my thighs! Frequently, I am asked if I really prefer the wide-grip parallel bar dips to bench pressing. My answer? You bet I do. Dips build the outer flair to the pectorals—something no bench press will ever do! And what about my favorite way of chinning—pulling upward until the bar and chest meet instead of the bar and chin? My way works the lats more thoroughly! (WP, pp.27-8)

This, in Vince’s own words, is how many think of his style of training: as a series of unusual exercises. Maybe they even think Vince chose those unusual exercises simply to be different, to distinguish himself from his competitors—or maybe even because he was just a weird guy.

As I’ve been demonstrating over the past few months, there is more than an apparent method to Vince Gironda’s “madness.” The “unusual” exercises he chose for good reason: because he felt that they targeted specific muscles better than many of the conventional exercises, such as the back squat or the barbell bench press. Over the coming weeks, we’re going to look at some of these Gironda staples as we examine his approach to training specific body parts, starting with the chest.

When we talk about Gironda and chest training, the basic point is that, as he said above, he didn’t think the bench press was a good exercise. The bench press is too much front deltoid and not enough chest—certainly not enough for it to be considered primarily a chest exercise. There’s a little more to it than that, but in general Vince called for different, more specific, exercises that targeted the chest better: Gironda’s modified dips, and his “guillotine” neck press.

Specificity is one of the key Gironda Principles I outlined at the beginning of this series. But another Gironda Principle against which the demand for specificity must be balanced is individual body type: we’re not all the same. We can see this illustrated in the case of Serge Nubret.

If you are not a natural, what exercises should you do? It is true that Serge Nubret developed one of the best chests of all time primarily from the barbell bench press. However, it is also true that most people will get anterior deltoid and central pectoral development from the bench press, but never get a chest that looks anything like Nubret's. (WP, p.36)

Before we go any further, it’s worth noting that Vince had very specific ideas, too, about how the chest should look. He didn’t like male chests that looked like breasts. Not one bit.

I've never understood why male bodybuilders want to build huge, bulbous chest muscles. The area just isn't set up to carry 20 pounds of beef. The pectorals or "pees" run across the top of the rib cage and should be slablike in appearance, not bulging and hanging from sheer weight. A man's chest development should not in any way resemble women's breasts. (Breasts are glands and not greatly influenced by exercise; pectorals are muscles that can be changed in size and shape.)

You have to add muscle in the proper places. Slap it on where it counts. When I first took on the training of Mohamed Makkawy, he had big pecs—yes—but there was no shape. They didn't add to his physique. We changed all that by working the outer portions of his chest. After training with my methods for eight weeks, he entered contests looking like a brand-new bodybuilder. People started calling him "The Magic Egyptian.'' They didn't know why, but I did! (WP, p.99)

The aim, as always, should be balance, symmetry and proportion. “Creating the illusion”—as Vince said.