Hey everyone,
I’ve been following a pretty standard push/pull/legs split lately, but since I’m a long-distance runner, I usually only hit legs once a week. I’m not exactly as "scrawny" as people usually expect when they hear I'm a runner - I’m 184cm, 78kg, and sitting at about 11% body fat.
My big issue is that my chest has hit a total wall lately, both in size and strength. I’m doing incline and decline bench, dumbbell presses, flys, and some push-ups, but it just won’t budge. It’s frustrating because my shoulders have blown up and my triceps are definitely showing progress, but the chest just feels weak by comparison.
i feel u on the chest plateau. honestly if ur shoulders and tris are growing but your chest isnt, ur probably letting them take over the lift. try doing some pec deck or cable flys before u hit the bench to really "pre-exhaust" the chest so it actually does the work.
maybe try hitting chest twice a week? if ur only doing legs once u could probably sneak in a second push day or just add some extra chest volume to your pull days. at 11% bf u probably just need more food too if ur running high mileage!
man the "running vs lifting" struggle is real lol. your legs are probably taking a lot of your recovery capacity so your chest is just stalling out. id drop the decline bench and just focus on getting really strong on the incline- usually fills out the frame better anyway.
78kg at 184cm is pretty lean man! u might just need to eat in a bigger surplus for a bit. its hard to grow a stubborn chest when ur doing tons of cardio- your body probably just doesnt have the extra calories to build new muscle tissue right now.
have u tried slowing down the reps? i had the same issue where my triceps did all the work on bench until i started doing a 3 second negative and a pause at the bottom. it hurts like hell but it forces the chest to actually fire lol.
