Ok, first thing I want to say is that we will not give you some kind of “perfect workout tips”.. nothing is perfect. I will tell you the basics of training chest, what works better, some stretching tips and some exercises to stick with. But keep in mind that if something works well for me it does not mean that it will necessarily work good for you – so we will keep it pretty basic.
If you want to build serious chest you should learn a bit of chest anatomy first.. so here we go – anatomy:
- Pectoralis major – The pectoralis major is a large fan-shaped muscle that covers the rib cage. It consists of two parts, upper and lower. The pectoralis major’s primary functions is to flex, adduct, and medially rotate the arm.
- Pectorialis minor – The pectoralis minor is a small, triangular muscle, located deep under the pectoralis major. Its primary functions are to depress and rotate the scapula downward.
Ok, enough of anatomy – move to exercises. These are not the only one exercises -these are the most popular ones and that if for reason – they work!
- Bench press – the main chest training exercise.
- Incline dumbbell bench press – exercise is targeted to the upper pecs – the part of chest witch is very difficult to develop. If you would look to 100 bodybuilders in line you would notice that a lot of them has quite poorly developed upper pecs, many attributes this to genetics, but this is not the only thing that matter this time.
So – how to perform this exercise. Get a bench and dumbbells! Drop your elbows and place them a bit forward, stick your chest out and place your shoulders back. If you will do this correctly you will feel the stress in your pecs, not elbows.
- Flat bench press – similar to bench press with barbell but safer and allows longer range of motion witch is good. As said for previous exercise – chest out, shoulder back. Squeeze your chest after every repetition.
- Flat dumbbell fly – great chest isolating exercise! Technique the same as previous exercises, but be careful, start with very little weight because you can easily live in some serious injuries if you will not do it properly. Good workout finishing exercise.
- Decline machine bench press – minimized risk of injuries performing this exercise, great to finish workout because after performing this one your pecs should be nearing failure. Also a good exercise to finish workout.
Stretching my friends! THIS IS IMPORTANT! You should.. no you MUST stretch your chest! If you will not stretch the chest you will get bad posture after some time of intense training.. and if you will have round back (witch is not good anyway) your shoulders will be pulled towards making your chest look smaller and many, many more problems – it is easier to stretch.
You can stretch your chest in several ways, but I will show you the most common and most effective – bent arm chest stretch. This movement is performed as follows – place the inside of your forearm on the wall, and turn your body away from your bent arm. If you place your elbow lower on the wall, the upper chest becomes more stretched, and if you place your elbow higher on the wall, the lower chest gets more stretched.
The training frequency – I suggest you to train chest once a week. This is because your muscles need to recover after training. If you will train more often you will probably end up over trained and your progress will be slow. So train once a week and take a week off from trainings every couple of months because your body must recover fully at times too.
