Maaxx West's Muscle-Building Chest and Triceps Workout
Get a defined chest and killer triceps with this upper-body workout from WBFF Bikini Diva and Olympus Lyfestyle athlete Maaxx West.
Training chest and triceps together is a classic pairing in body-part splits. This makes sense, as the triceps are an ancillary muscle group to the chest. You might feel like these workouts would get old after a while, but with a little creativity in your rep schemes, you can keep triggering new gains—along with some pain, of course.
In this workout, Olympus Lyfestyle athlete and WBFF Bikini Diva Maaxx West—with help from her husband and training partner, Olympus Lyfestyle athlete Carlos Bustamante—takes you through a combination of compound and isolation exercises to hit the chest muscles from all angles and with varying loads. The second half of the workout incorporates higher-rep triceps movements to push the tris to their limit.
On the majority of these movements, you're asked to slow your tempo during the concentric, or positive, and eccentric, or negative, phases of the lifts, so be sure you are consistent with your tempos on each rep and that you're using an appropriate weight.
Here's the workout:
Maaxx West's Chest and Triceps Routine
Start with a few warm-up sets on the machine flyes, then get to work!
Machine fly: 3 sets, 5 reps slow on the positive, 5 reps slow on the negative, then reps to failure
Seated chest press: 3 sets, 5 reps slow on the positive, 5 reps slow on the negative, then reps to failure
Bench press: 3 sets, 5 reps slow on the positive, 5 reps slow on the negative, then reps to failure
Triceps dip: 3 sets to failure
Cable fly: 4 sets, 10 reps pushing forward, 10 reps pushing downward
Rope push-down: 3 sets, 5 reps slow on the positive, 5 reps slow on the negative, then reps to failure
Reverse-grip push-down: 3 sets, 5 reps slow on the positive, 5 reps slow on the negative, then reps to failure
Overhead triceps extension: 3 sets, 12 reps
Stretch cool-down
Technique Tips
Machine Fly (aka Pec-Deck Machine)
Sit with your back flat against the pad, shoulders back, and abs tight. Set the machine so that your hands are just slightly behind your shoulders at the start. For the first 5 reps, bring the weight slowly to the center with a 5-second count before returning to the start. For the second 5 reps, bring the weight in at a normal tempo and return to the start with a slow tempo. After you complete those 10 reps, do as many as you can at normal pace until you reach failure.
Remember to maintain good form by controlling the weight—it should be challenging, but you shouldn't have to muscle it to barely reach full range of motion.