Q: The full POF chest routine in The Ultimate-Mass Exercise Guide [pictured below] has been giving me a deep pec ache and pump. I like it a lot, but I’m thinking that maybe it can be shortened. I feel you don’t really need dumbbell flyes because cable flyes train both stretch and contraction. Do you think using only cable presses and cable flyes is more efficient?
A: You’re right—to a degree. But the torque curve is different on dumbbell flyes vs. cable flyes…
In other words, you get more pec stress at full stretch with the dumbbells as opposed to the cables.
That’s because with the dumbbells, the resistance tails off to near zero after the bottom two-thirds of the stroke.
The dumbbell flye is stretch dominant, so you get more pec stress at stretch…
With cables, you have full-range resistance. If you increase the poundage to make it stretch dominant, you won’t be able to get to the contracted position…
For those who don’t have chest-mass difficulties, you can delete the flyes. But add X-Rep partials, as explained in OMYM2, at the end of the cable flyes to achieve more stretch emphasis.
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