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With These Three Simple Movements
Meet Your Trainer
As Training and Development Manager at Fit Stop, Mark Samson lives, works and breathes fitness. Mark has 20 years of training experience, which includes strength training, power lifting, bodybuilding, weight-loss management and sports training. He is certified through the American Council on Exercise and is also pursuing a career in physical therapy.
Mark is also a competitor and tries to compete in bodybuilding shows at least once a year. “I’ve always been a very competitive person when it comes to sports. But with bodybuilding, it’s more so a competition with myself. I’m always trying to better myself by improving my symmetry and adding lean muscle.”
Currently, Mark is training for the Indiana State bodybuilding show and will be assessing his condition soon to see if he’s ready to compete. He’s in the heavy weight class and would compete in the masters division.
Outside of the gym, Mark is a devoted dad to his 9-year-old son, Nathan, who motivates him to excel as a father: “I think watching my son grow and learn has been amazing for me. He surprises me all the time with things he has learned. Just knowing he looks up to me and depends on me to always be there motivates me to be the best dad I can be.”
The Exercises
The three exercises shown here are meant to work the entire chest area. Mark believes that by combining these three movements, it will give the most mass gains, with perhaps a greater focus on the upper chest. When a man has a full upper chest, it makes the entire chest look much larger.
The first of the three exercises is the Smith Machine incline bench press, which works the upper chest. The second exercise is a flat bench dumbbell press, which works the middle chest (Pectoralis Major). This muscle group makes up the majority of the chest. Finally, the last exercise is the chest fly, which works the entire chest, and according to Mark, recent studies are showing that this movement might be one of the best mass gainers for the chest.
While the chest isn’t necessarily a hard muscle to work, Mark says that most men don’t understand that they need to incorporate the negative portion of the exercise to get the full benefit. When you perform these three movements, be aware that the push is the positive movement and slowly resisting on the way down works the negative movement. By doing this, the muscle will fatigue much faster.
When doing these exercises, start out with two warm up sets, light weight. For the three working sets, adjust the weights so that you fail at eight to 10 reps.
Mark’s Training Schedule
Mark says: When I train, I try and concentrate on adding more lean muscle to my physic. I train five days a week and train one or two muscle groups per day. I break up my legs into two separate days. My workout week looks like this:
Monday: Bicep/triceps
Tuesday: Back
Wednesday: Hamstrings
Thursday: Chest/shoulders
Friday: Rest day
Saturday: Quads
Sunday: Rest day
