It is useful, therefore, to describe in detail processes involved in actually doing these exercises. This will help beginners to start out using correct techniques before moving on to potentially more dangerous heavy weights. If it also helps more experienced lifters to redress some of little faults that have almost imperceptibly crept in over years, all better.

In this article we'll take a close look at flat dumbbell fly.

MUSCLES TARGETED: pectoralis major

STARTING POSITION

In recent weeks your workouts have probably lost some of their effect so, even though you're lifting bigger weights, your muscles now need even greater stimulation to generate maximal growth. Don't expect miracles though - from this point onwards, every little bit of improvement will take even greater and more intensive work than before.

Because you'll be working your muscles more intensively, they'll also need more recovery time to adapt and grow and that's why you'll be reducing your workouts to three a week. Each primary muscle group trained will now need one full week to recover. After being used to whole body sessions and more workouts per week it may seem as if you're not doing enough but point is, you'll be working your muscles very, very intensively and making better use of your time.

As you gain more experience you'll be able to tweak or re-design your basic muscle building program to suit your own individual needs, but program described here should provide a useful starting point. What I'm proposing is basically a 3-split of body on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

MONDAY (Chest, Triceps, Shoulders)

1. Chest Exercises

Incline dumbbell press - this is a compound exercise that targets chest but also works triceps and shoulders to a lesser extent.

Pec-deck flye - this is an isolation exercise that works pectorals.

2. Triceps