Top 5 Chests of the 1980's
The 1980’s comprised two bodybuilding eras. The beginning of this decade was a continuation of the lightweight era (1976–83), during which the only over-200-pound Mr. Olympia was a downsized version of Schwarzenegger. The rest of the decade was filled by six of Lee Haney’s eight years of mass-with-class dominance.

Training, too, was in a transition from the high-volume, high frequency Schwarzenegger era. Here’s how changes in training affected chest workouts:

  • MORE MECHANICAL:  The greater availability of pec decks, Smith machines and chest pressing machines led to greater variety on chest days, although free weights still dominated the workouts of those with the best chests.
  • LOWERED FREQUENCY: As opposed to the thrice-weekly workouts of the mid ’70s, bodybuilders worked their chests and other body parts less, such as twice every eight days on the popular three-on, one-off split.
  • PUSH WORKOUTS: One of the most common splits was called push-pull, grouping pushing muscles on one day, pulling muscles on another and legs on a third. Chest was thus trained before shoulders and triceps.

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[[{“type”:”media”,”view_mode”:”wysiwyg”,”fid”:”427766″,”attributes”:{“alt”:””,”class”:”media-image media-image-right”,”style”:”width: 225px; height: 173px; margin: 4px; float: right;”,”title”:””,”typeof”:”foaf:Image”}}]]2. LEE HANEY: His record eight Olympia victories (1984–91) came in large part because of his pec size and quality, which were winning factors in every front and side pose. For example, pec thickness was crucial to his signature front lat spread. Haney credits pyramided barbell presses as paramount to his “chestiness.”

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