Comparing VRT chest fly with traditionnal one.

[Focus]

Hi, all of you,

The only fitness equipment I have at home is 2 pull bars, 2 dumbbells, and a fitness elastic band.
When I still lifted my dumbbells, one of the 2 exercises I did with them was the chest fly. In this move, You spend great energy to lift your dumbbells when they are at their lowest position, but the higher you go, the easier it is - for obvious gravitationnal reasons.

With VRT chest fly, the highest tension can be given all along the gesture.


BUT, when you lift dumbbells, you only contract the targetted muscles (the chest). With VRT chest fly, you contract the chest and the antagonist group.

So, when we give maximal tension with VRT chest fly, the energy we spend to contract the antagonist muscle group is an amount of energy which is not invested in the chest.


To finish with : is a VRT chest fly as efficient (for the chest) as the traditionnal one?


Focus

[VRT Man]

Focus,

There's no doubt it is. Remember with the traditional chest fly, the pull or muscular tension is always gravitationally downward, and the stress is not completely on the pectorals through the whole range of motion. With VRT it must be. In addition, there is the concentric exercise of the trapezius and latissimus dorsi through the eccentric contraction of the pectoralis major. (Think I've got the con/eccentric thing right, and not the terms reversed. If not, anyone please correct me.) I find chest exercises that mimic the bench press or dumbbell flies or the pec deck all make the chest larger than weight exercises that are specific for the pecs alone. Why? your back is megapumped too, and I found I put 8 inches on my chest throughout the time I've performed VRT.

--Greg Mangan

[gruntbrain]

Focus
In addition to conventional & VRT flyes, try some weighted flyes with timed isometric stops at various points.

[douglis]

Focus,
as you discoverd by yourself,a great advantage of VRT is that the tension is constant through full ROM and not depended on leverage and gravity.
But in my opinion the greatest advantage of VRT is the number of muscles involved in every exercise.For example in chest fly you oppose the concentric contraction of chest with the eccentric contraction of rear delts,middle trapezius,rhomboid and latissimus dorsi.The involvement of so many muscle groups at one exercise can cause a great anabolic response(release of testosterone,GH,IGF1 etc.) contrary to traditional chest fly which is just an isolation exercise that involves only chest.
So in my opinion VRT flyes are even more effective.

[gruntbrain]

Try some isometric flyes using JP's adjustable Power Belt; they'd be a nice complement to VRT flyes.

[Focus]

Thanks a lot for all your advice.

To tell the truth, I no longer use weights, because I feel the efficiency of VRT compared with weighted workout. In fact, I've been using VRT for a very short time, but I already seeI have gained some bigger muscles. For practical strength I don't know, but I guess i have gained also.

BTW, I wanted to put things in more intellectual terms, to go beyond my feelings.

Thanks again.

Focus

[vegetus25]

I took the kids to the recreation center yesterday and while we were there I did a little experiment. I have not lifted in years, so I have kind of forgotten what it felt like to do a fly. I grabbed some dumbbells and performed some. After one rep I could feel the difference between weight lifting and VRT. There is no comparison. VRT wins hands down when comparing muscle contraction (not only for the chest, but for a bunch of other muscles in the back). Just thought I would share.

God bless,

Veg