The chest is probably the largest showpiece muscle group in the sport of bodybuilding- perhaps even more than the arms, especially when it comes to winning shows. Here are a few tips for kicking your chest training into gear and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of your weekly workouts. Stop singing the Monday blues Ever tried finding an available flat bench in your gym on a Monday at 6 pm? It’s not an easy task. Chest training is often the start of most bodybuilder’s training weeks. Ever since the beginning of time when man first learned he could tie two rocks to a branch and count his repetitions, Monday has been bench day. You should re-work your schedule so your Monday is either a rest day or Leg day. You’ll later discover you have the entire ...

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Perhaps your rotator cuffs need a break from the pain you inflict upon them on a weekly basis. Maybe you want to focus upon power and control, rather than pushing and balance, for a chest workout or two. Or, maybe you just don’t have access to a standard Olympic bar at the moment. Whatever the reason, you’re looking for a chest workout which allows you to fully stimulate the chest using means other than the standard flat and incline barbell presses. Let’s look at a sample workout which would thoroughly stimulate the chest without the use of barbells. Incline Smith bench press This is a good movement to push the pectorals to their maximum while you are still at your relative strongest point of the workout. Without the need to balance or control the weight, you can ...

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While the chest is actually considered to be a single muscle group, it actually contains five separate yet equal areas which need to be developed to their fullest if you wish to display a full and complete chest. Let’s check out these five areas, along with exercises which hit them most effectively. The Inner Chest Close-grip bench press (used for triceps) is a great way to isolate the inner chest. Also useful are incline and flat dumbbell flyes. The contraction and flexion you feel at the peak of every repetition is highly important as well. The Outer Chest Cable crossovers, wide incline dumbbell flyers, and parallel bar dips work to help develop that pectoral-shoulder tie-in area. Remember that this part of the upper chest shelf is visible in many poses, and its development is essential if you want ...

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Pectoral training can be a very confusing ting, given the wide variety of exercises and routines out there. Here is a breakdown of the seven most effective exercises for building and shaping the pectorals. Other movements should be used occasionally, but these seven movements should be the cornerstone for your mass building chest routine. Incline Dumbbell Bench Press This is the granddaddy of all chest movements. Targeting the upper and middle pectorals while keeping the shoulders and triceps pumped, this exercise belongs in every chest routine, at least seven times every two months. Keep your rep range in the 7 to 12 area, and employ at least two warm-up sets to avoid injury. Flat Bench Press This movement is used most by bodybuilders, particularly in the beginning of their training. Many lifters evolve into powerlifters based upon their ...

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Are you satisfied with your chest progress? Do you feel you’re getting the most out of your training? It may just be time to re-evaluate your training practices to determine if you are undermining your efforts in any way. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself before you hit the gym for your next chest training session. What is your primary goal? This is often the hardest question of all for trainers in the gym. Invariably, the answer will usually be something along the lines of “To get bigger and stronger”. This response doesn’t provide enough of the meaningful information required to properly design a training protocol. Do you want to be a bodybuilder? If so, you should be training for muscle mass, which will include higher rep range sets, and a wide variety ...

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Body builders have different goals and aspirations for their bodies. You don’t have to be a professional body builder or athlete to have a broad muscular chest. You can still be the bank manager, chief chef or the college book worm but still leave the ladies staring at your muscular body. It won’t hurt a single bit, on the contrary it will do wonders to your ego and self esteem. As they say, look good feel good. First things first. You must be eating right; foods that help your body build muscles, provide energy and increase your endurance. I won’t go into the details of how to cook your chicken breasts but all I can say is that you need them. Meat, both red and white are very good sources of tasty proteins. If you’re a vegetarian it doesn’t mean that ...

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Bodybuilders love to bench press. It’s a movement which allows one to demonstrate his strength, and pump up most of the upper body at the same time. Chest, triceps, and shoulders all receive stimulation from this very useful movement, and body mass grows as a result of its use. In some individuals, however, the movement does lead to problems in chest development. Whether it be due to short arms, chest shape, muscle insertion locations, or just plain lifting technique and feel, many bodybuilders develop great shoulders and triceps, but poor triceps, as a result of using the bench press. When this occurs, it can be an irreversible problem. Great bodybuilders such as Lee Priest and Kevin Levrone, and more recently Phil Heath, all have suffered from a genetically narrow chest, which causes their triceps and shoulders to ...

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Ask any bodybuilder how he built up his chest, and your answer will vary. Some will credit heavy bench pressing. Others will cite the dumbbell work they enjoy. Some will point at the Hammer Strength machines. Others will tell you that some change to diet, sleep, or AAS patterns caused their positive change which resulted in their chest growth. Follow up your question with this one: “how important is feel when training the chest”? There is a very good chance that suddenly, the answers will become quite uniform. Nearly all bodybuilders agree that gains in pectoral muscle mass are a result of being able to “feel” the muscle being contracted. Most won’t answer that way, but when given that as an option, most will certainly choose it. Here are a few tips for ...

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Q: I’m working to bring up my lagging chest development with flat and incline bench presses. But these exercises don’t seem to give me a pump in the pecs, only in my triceps and delts. Should I give up on these and focus on stretching movements like flyes? A: The two exercises that you’re currently doing are by far the best movements for adding mass onto the chest for the simple reason that no other exercises allow for as much direct pectoral stress over a greater range of motion. So, the problem is not with the exercises themselves. It’s with the mode of execution. When you’re using a compound exercise to target a specific muscle group you have to be totally focused on working that muscle exclusively. The slightest mental slip and you’re prone to falling into the cheat zone, where ...

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