IFBB pro bodybuilder Derek Lunsford had an incredible rookie season in 2017. He won the NPC USA Championships Overall and earned his IFBB Pro Card before going on to win the Tampa Pro 212 title in the very same week. He was touted as one of the men who could potentially dethrone seven-time 212 Olympia champion, Flex Lewis. He ultimately fell short, finishing second to Lewis at the 2018 Olympia, a placing he repeated in 2019, where Kamal Elgargni prevailed victoriously.
Lunsford dropped to fourth place at the 2020 Olympia where Shaun Clarida won the show. But hard work and persistence paid off for Lunsford at the 2021 Olympia, where Lunsford beat the reigning champ (Clarida) and won his first Olympia title. The champ is training hard to defend his title and recently posted a chest session from the Gods of Iron Pro Gym in Columbus, GA, to his YouTube channel on April 19, 2022. Check it out below:
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Derek Lunsford’s “Huge” Chest Session
The full session details from the workout are below:
Standing High-To-Low Cable Fly
The session started off with a few sets of standing high-to-low cable flyes to warm up the chest and delts before presses. For this variation, the handles are set to the highest notch on the cable machine and the movement involves bringing the arms from a high-to-low position. This emphasizes the lower portion of the pectorals called the sternal lower, though it still activates the whole chest.
Moreover, flyes and, more specifically, cable flyes are among the best exercises to fully stretch out the pecs before getting maximal contraction through full adduction (bringing the arms toward the midline), which is an important component of building a complete chest. Lunsford used thick grip handles for this exercise.
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Incline Dumbbell Press
Lunsford found his way to the dumbbell rack like most of us do during chest day. He did a few progressive sets of the incline dumbbell press before knocking out what he said to be an easy 10 reps with 130-pound dumbbells. The IFBB competitor was hyped for chest day and it was time to go big or go home.
I’m going to go up baby, yeah!
Lunsford jumped up another forty pounds (total) and cranked out eight to nine reps with 150-pound dumbbells. Four sets were shown in the video.
Arsenal Strength Chest Press
The 212 champ jumped over to the Arsenal chest press machine and pumped out some demanding reps using a neutral hand grip. He received some assistance for the last few reps to really annihilate his chest muscles. Two sets for this movement made it into the video.
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Pec Deck
Lunsford returned to another flye variation, the pec deck, where he performed a combination of two-arm flyes and single-arm flyes. There is value in training one side at a time because it helps identify strength imbalances. The former wrestler was pumped to the max.
I’m lit up, I’m blowing up right now.
Lunsford is training his chest really hard to it bring up to match his dense back and thick delts.
I’ve been trying to…make sure every rep I’m practicing my form and…maximizing my efforts to grow this chest.
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Lundsford has also improved his legs which were a notable weak point but they were good enough last year to earn him the Olympia victory. Two sets of the pec deck exercise were shown.
One-Arm Cable Straight-Arm Pushdowns & Triceps Pushdowns
Lundsford attached a thick grip handle to the cable machine at about head height and performed straight arm pushdowns. He admitted to having never done this exercise before and felt it a little crossbody and in his lower pecs. After two sets, he did some posing and meeting with fans before finishing up with some triceps training. To finish the session, Lundsford used an abdominal crunch machine to perform a few sets of triceps pushdowns.
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Derek Lunsford’s Full Chest Workout
We’ve included the exercises in the same order performed during Derek Lunsford’s workout. Due to the video editing, we were not able to provide the exact number of sets and reps for each movement.
- Standing High-To-Low Cable Chest Fly
- Incline Dumbbell Press
- Arsenal Strength Machine Chest Press
- Pec Deck
- One-Arm Cable Straight-Arm Pushdown
Derek Lunsford is looking to become a two-time 212 Olympia champion at the world’s biggest bodybuilding competition scheduled for December 16-18 in Las Vegas, NV.
Featured image: @dereklunsford_ on Instagram
