Retired bodybuilder Dana Linn Bailey recently shared an intense push day workout on her YouTube channel and shared some insightful bodybuilding tips to get the most out of this training routine.
Dana Linn Bailey is a pioneering figure in the Women’s Physique division of the IFBB Pro League. She won the first-ever Women’s Physique contest held at the 2011 Jr. USA and also became the inaugural Women’s Physique Olympia champion in 2013. However, the 40-year-old’s success is not limited to her achievements as a competitive bodybuilder.
Since retiring from the sport in 2015, DLB has ventured into several initiatives ranging from fitness modeling, powerlifting, and owning a gym to content creation, to name a few. Bailey tried her hand at powerlifting at the 2018 Arnold Sports Festival and lifted a total of 877 lbs (396.9 kg) at the show. She was also the owner of the Warhouse gym that she co-founded with her husband Rob Bailey. However, the couple had to close it down during the coronavirus pandemic due to financial issues.
Over the years, Dana Linn Bailey has become one of the foremost female fitness influencers, amassing a whopping 2.6 million combined followers on YouTube and Instagram. She continues to train hard to be in good shape and has not completely ruled out a potential return to competitive bodybuilding. Her natty status has been brought under question on several occasions. However, Bailey fiercely defends it and has even said that she would prove it with routine drug tests.
At the moment, Dana Linn Bailey is focusing her energies on improving her fitness even further. As a result, she has embarked on her ‘4.0 summer shredded’ fitness challenge to get lean, and more muscular.
Dana Linn Bailey goes through a chest and triceps workout
The 40-year-old recently went through a push-day workout to reach further in her fitness journey. The video of this training session was posted on Bailey’s personal YouTube channel. So without further delay, let’s see what pro tips the retired bodybuilder has in store for us today.
Incline Bench Press
Dana Linn Bailey started the workout with an incline bench press to emphasize the upper chest. She first performed a few warm-up sets without loading the barbell with weight plates.
“I would prefer that you do a barbell bench press because we have a very special set of 21s at the end that you’ll be moving your hand placement. You can’t always do that on the machine. So if you can, get a barbell!” Bailey stated.
DLB performed four sets of incline bench presses maintaining an eight to twelve-rep range. She then performed a 21s set with different grips. For the first seven reps, Bailey used a close grip. The ‘close grip’ here refers to a grip that is only slightly closer than the regular grip. It does not refer to the close grip bench press that is often performed to work the triceps. The next seven reps were performed with the regular grip and the last instalment of seven reps employed wide grip.
“The first part (close grip) is going to hit that inner chest, then (with regular grip) you’re going to hit your mid chest, then you’re going to hit your outer chest for the last seven,” Dana Linn Bailey explained.
The 40-year-old prefers the incline pressing movements as they help build the upper chest and also engage the anterior deltoids. As a result, she advanced over to another incline exercise next.
Superset – Seated Incline Cable Flyes and Push-Ups
Bailey switches between the standing and seated cable flyes to bring variety in her chest training. However, she is biased towards the seated incline cable flyes as they allow to concentrate a little more on keeping the shoulder blades together. She took to this isolation exercise to stimulate the pectoral muscles further and superset it with a compound bodyweight movement.
Godfather of Bodybuilding Charles Glass has helped a lot of people in realizing their fitness goals by sharing bodybuilding knowledge. Turns out that Dana Linn Bailey is also one of the beneficiaries of the legendary coach’s training methods.
Bailey took to the popular push-up variation that Charles Glass advises to direct all the compression towards the chest muscles as the second half of this superset. After pushing through all the sets within this superset with furious intensity, she jumped into the next exercise.
Dumbbell Flat Bench Press
Bailey went back to free weight training and performed the dumbbell flat bench press next. While explaining a pro tip to improve bench press strength, the former Women’s Physique Olympia winner stated:
“Big thing here is making sure you set those shoulder blades into the bench an you’re really pushing with your lats. If you’ve a big bench press, most likely you have incredible lats.”
She performed four sets of dumbbell flat bench presses maintaining a six to ten rep range and finished with one drop set to failure.
Chest Dips
The chest workout concluded with chest dips to work the chest, triceps and anterior deltoids. While explaining the correct technique to do chest dips for keeping maximum focus on pectoral muscles, DLB explained:
“I want you leaning forward and your legs are actually going to be out in front of you. If you want to hit more triceps, you’re gonna be more upright and your feet can be straight up and down or even behind you.”
Bailey performed three sets of chest dips to failure. For those who can push beyond 15 reps per set before reaching, the retired bodybuilder advised to add some weight to stimulate the muscle with added resistance.
Superset – EZ Bar Skull Crushers and Close Grip Bench Press
Bailey kicked off the triceps training part of the workout with this superset. She started out with the EZ bar skull crushers and superset it with the close grip bench press. For the skull crushers, she advised keeping the arm at a slight incline when at the top of the movement so that the arm joints are not stacked on top of each other along a vertical axis.
“You should have some sort of an angle. As soon as your wrist is on top of your elbow, which is on top of your shoulder, you’ve lost all the tension in your triceps,” Bailey added.
The former Women’s Physique Olympia champion performed four sets of 8 to 12 reps of both exercises. She then followed up with the fifth set performed to failure and proceeded to the final exercise of the day.
Rope Triceps Pushdowns
Dana Linn Bailey wrapped up the workout with four sets of this staple exercise for triceps. She used relatively heavier weights to execute the rope triceps pushdown and performed four sets of 20 reps each.
Since this was the last exercise and Bailey was fatigued at this point, she slightly modified the form to reach the set goal of 20 reps per set. She performed 10 to 12 reps in each set with the strict form, kicking the arms all the way out for maximum contraction of the triceps. She then assumed a more upright posture for the last 8 to 12 reps, pushing the arms straight down to finish the set.
Overall, the workout included:
- Incline Bench Press – 4 sets of 12, 10, 8, 8 reps and one set of 21s
- Superset – Seated Incline Cable Flyes and Push-Ups
- Dumbbell Flat Bench Press – 4 sets of 10, 8, 6, 6 reps and one drop set
- Chest Dips – 3 sets to failure
- Superset – EZ Bar Skull Crushers and Close Grip Bench Press – 4 sets of 12, 10, 8, 8 reps and final set to failure with maximum weight
- Rope Triceps Pushdowns – 4 sets of 20 reps
Dana Linn Bailey is a huge source of pre-workout motivation for millions of people around the world. Irrespective of whether she returns to the competitive stage or not, her training journey and bodybuilding wisdom will continue to help others reach their fitness goals.
You can watch the full chest and triceps workout video below, courtesy of Dana Linn Bailey’s personal YouTube channel:
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