If you say so. A big chest and biceps with a piss poor back and core looks silly, combine that with twiggy legs and no glutes and you have one silly looking dude.
edit: Also, a combination of other exercises + a light bench press routine works the chest enough for aesthetic purposes, anything else is just bragging rights.
I gotta agree. I have to work traps, deltoids, lats & core if I wannna look good shirtless. And cardio to keep my legs hard & body fat low.
And yeah, for me, working out is all about looking good naked.
At this point your axe to grind with bench pressing seems a bit irrational. If one’s objective is to build muscle mass (that’s my objective–it helps me to burn calories among other things), than work all your major muscle groups, using a regimen that employs heavy weights. That includes chest.
Don’t distance yourself from the bench press nitwits by not doing chest at all (or minimally). How does that make sense?
And, yes, if a result of your workout is pronounced beach muscles, bonus! What’s wrong with that?
Same here. I never noticed a big effect from creatine. Nothing affects my performance so much as how much I weigh and whether or not I’m gaining, losing or stable at the time. I weighed about 35 pounds more last year, and I was absolutely mashing the weights. This year, still respectable, but not nearly as strong.