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 By: Seth Pauley I'm going to introduce you to the 3 Phases of the Double-Shock System, which takes advantage of supersetting opposing muscle groups - so let's go through a comprehensive outline of Phases 1, 2, and 3.
Phase 3 is for testing the boundaries of strength built up in Phases 1 and 2. I know that everyone responds best to different amounts of sets and workloads, so I will assume those beginning this system have already found their ideal amounts. To say you know exactly how many sets another person needs means you are already wrong. You should listen to your own body for the answer to that question, because it will tell you best - everytime. 
To View Reps & Sets Articles, Click Here.
I personally do know that if you work out with the necessary intensity for big gains, you won't be able to do too many sets. Having said this, I will now describe some tactics that improved my results from phase 1 of Double-Shock. Keep in mind that the first day of Phase 1 (Monday) is for the extremely heavy and ruthless workout, and the second day of training for the bodyparts will be lighter but higher reps in the 6-15 range. No max sets on Day 2, because Day 1 is so dang stressful! This variety of training two days in a row slams both the strength and endurance fibers resulting in size and quality gains.
I know that a lot of you guys give your chest & bench press #1 priority - so the following is for you.
On the first day of the split, begin it with chest instead of shoulders so you can hit it fresh and strong. I love using tactics that enable me to attack a weight that is almost too much. This can be accomplished several ways. Partials have worked for me best along with some negatives (pure) where the lowering is done only using a crushing weight.
On week 1, warm up first and then do negatives as your first exercise. I would recommend doing them on an incline because it is a less stressful angle on your rotator cuff, and it makes your pecs sit higher on your chest. You might notice that the pros recommend inclines over flats very often. Do not overuse this method, however, because it is extremely stressful on your joints as well as muscles.
On week 2, warm up and then start with partials as your first exercise. These would be safer to do on a flat bench than the negatives. Load up a weight on the bar that you cannot cleanly press for one rep. Take the weight down to a point (it won't be all the way down, but don't worry about it) where you can press it back up. You should keep putting more weight on the bar until you can barely balance and press it in the first few inches. The immense bone crushing weight of this forces your chest into responding and teaches you how to handle that huge weight you formerly believed was impossible. You must absolutely smash your fear of this weight and attack it like a warrior fighting for his life. You will never succeed in physical training without the proper mindset - period.
Be your own mental drill sergeant! To add hardness to your chest, do 2 drop sets immediately after your heaviest set of partials - for example, if you use 315 lbs for your partials, then right after your 315 set, have your spotter strip off a 45 off of each side of the bar.
Immediately bang out more reps until you can barely hold the bar over you, then rack it, and then strip off 2 more 45's. Immediately do full reps with this light weight till you can do no more and then do partials with it till you can barely hold that over you! This will sear an excruciating burn deep in your chest like never before. A basic compound exercise like the bench press performed with enough intensity is all you need for size and strength gains. This is how hard I had to work to shock my chest because it is my most stubborn bodypart to respond. It worked for me extremely well, however.
On week 3, you should repeat the week 2 workout.
On week 4, your joints will be very taxed so I recommend using pre-exhaustion supersets. The workout that worked best for me was doing cable crossovers first to tire the pecs only. After doing 3 sets of these, go on to the supersets.
The combo that worked best for me was doing dumbbell flyes directly into incline bench presses. You must rest as little as possible for this method to be effective. It increases the level of stress on the pecs because they are already tired when you do your benches and they are forced to a higher level of fatigue because they will give out first rather than the smaller triceps. In normal sets of bench presses, the triceps fail before the pecs because they are smaller and therefore weaker. This superset overcomes that and creates a very good stimulus for the pecs to respond. Train balls out and harder than ever before and enjoy! Recommend this article to a friend by e-mail here!
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