How to Build a Bigger Chest with the Best Exercises

How to Build a Bigger Chest with the Best Exercises

If you want to know how to build a bigger chest you’re in the right place."I’ll give you all you need to know including the best chest exercises"

Let’s start by discussing some anatomy basics about the pecs. There’s an upper head of the pecs known as the clavicular head, and there’s a lower head of the chest known as the sternal head. There’s also a pec major and a pec minor.

What you really need to know are the following two facts:

1) You can definitely target the upper pecs and lower pecs with different exercises. 

Most people will be deficient in upper pec size so it makes sense to do more of your chest work on an incline. That being said it’s important to note that you can’t isolate either head. Both will work during all chest exercises.

2) The pec major muscles are performance muscles that are predominantly fast twitch.

That means most of your pressing should be done with low reps if you want the fastest results. While some muscle groups can grow with weights that are 60-70% of your one rep max (1RM) the chest is not one of them. You’ll want to train the chest with weights closer to 80% of your 1RM. I like an average of about 5-8 reps for the majority of pressing exercises.

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 2) The pec major muscles are performance muscles that are predominantly fast twitch

 That means most of your pressing should be done with low reps if you want the fastest results. While some muscle groups can grow with weights that are 60-70% of your one rep max (1RM) the chest is not one of them. You’ll want to train the chest with weights closer to 80% of your 1RM. I like an average of about 5-8 reps for the majority of pressing exercises.

That’s what the research shows, though I and many of my trainees have seen impressive results with even less total volume than that.
It’s always better to start on the low end of the scale and work your way up from there. Progressive overload and getting stronger is always going to be the most important thing. Volume is a secondary concern. Only do as much volume as you can recover from and that allows you to get stronger on a consistent basis.
Because it’s predominantly fast twitch and needs to be trained with lower reps the frequency of chest workouts should be less than that of something like rear delts or biceps (which can easily be trained twice per week, every week).

What Are the Best Chest Exercises?

For an exercise to be deemed a good muscle builder it a has to meet a few criteria.
1) It has to involve a large amount of muscle mass taken through a complete range of motion.
2) It has to allow for the greatest amount of weight to be used.
3) It has to be something that will allow for a large strength increase over the course of weeks, months and years.


Having to meet these qualifications always narrows down the field of best exercises very quickly. You’re usually left with no more than a handful of good exercises for each muscle group.
For chest this leaves us with the following list of best chest exercises:

• Flat barbell and dumbbell presses
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• Incline barbell and dumbbell presses
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• Weighted/suspended pushups
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• Dips
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How to Make the safe dumbbell press?

 

1. Lie down on a flat bench with a dumbbell in each hand resting on top of your thighs. The palms of your hands will be facing each other.
2. Then, using your thighs to help raise the dumbbells up, lift the dumbbells one at a time so that you can hold them in front of you at shoulder width.
3. Once at shoulder width, rotate your wrists forward so that the palms of your hands are facing away from you. The dumbbells should be just to the sides of your chest, with your upper arm and forearm creating a 90 degree angle. Be sure to maintain full control of the dumbbells at all times. This will be your starting position.
4. Then, as you breathe out, use your chest to push the dumbbells up. Lock your arms at the top of the lift and squeeze your chest, hold for a second and then begin coming down slowly. Tip: Ideally, lowering the weight should take about twice as long as raising it.
5. Repeat the movement for the prescribed amount of repetitions of your training program.

Caution: When you are done, do not drop the dumbbells next to you as this is dangerous to your rotator cuff in your shoulders and others working out around you.
Just lift your legs from the floor bending at the knees, twist your wrists so that the palms of your hands are facing each other and place the dumbbells on top of your thighs. When both dumbbells are touching your thighs simultaneously push your upper torso up (while pressing the dumbbells on your thighs) and also perform a slight kick forward with your legs (keeping the dumbbells on top of the thighs). By doing this combined movement, momentum will help you get back to a sitting position with both dumbbells still on top of your thighs. At this moment you can place the dumbbells on the floor.
Variations:
Another variation of this exercise is to perform it with the palms of the hands facing each other.
Also, you can perform the exercise with the palms facing each other and then twisting the wrist as you lift the dumbbells so that at the top of the movement the palms are facing away from the body. I personally do not use this variation very often as it seems to be hard on my shoulders.

                                 ( Lock your arms at the top of the lift and squeeze your chest)