“How To Build Chest Muscles”Alright, you’re reading this page now because your sick and tired of having a puny chest.
Listen, I don’t blame you and I understand your desire to build some quality chest muscle. I’ll be the first to say that anyone, and I mean anyone can build a large and powerful chest.
I’ve seen guys with so called “chicken chests” build huge, powerful chests. These were the guys that had absolutely no chest development whatsoever but with some strong determination, and the right weight training programs, built very impressive chest muscles.
Now, some of you reading now may have very under developed chests. I understand and I’m going to pass along some tips that will help you pack on some muscles in your upper torso area.
Also, since summer is fast approaching, I’m going to bet you want to build some of that upper body muscle so you can feel good about yourself wearing a t-shirt or tank top.
Alright, let’s get down to it than. How do you build chest muscles? Well, I’ll tell you right now that there are no secrets to attaining a hard, chiselled chest. The main things you have to remember about building huge chest muscles is that it takes: 1) The right exercise selection; This is it. If you can manage to follow the above noted criteria, your going to build a large chest. Alright, it’s not as simple as that but once you understand how yo put the above noted elements together, your going to start seeing the results you want. Alright, let’s break down the above noted elements. 1) The right exercise selection One of the most important aspects to building chest muscles is that you need to choose your exercises carefully. Now, I’m guessing your reading this page now because you have an underdeveloped chest and are most likely under weight. Well, I’m going to say this is the most important point in building your chest muscles - You Need Multi Joint Exercises. That is, you need to really concentrate on multi jointed, compound movements in order to effectively stimulate growth and strength in your upper torso area. If you can structure a weight training program that effectively uses multi jointed exercises using the right progressive resistance schedule, you’ll build huge muscles - No doubt about it. The real secret to building big chest muscles are the compound movements. Compound movements are actually massive growth movements and must be performed if you ever want to get out of the 30 inch chest phase and move on to big time measurements (45+ inches). Believe me, no one has ever built a big chest by simply doing cable cross overs and pec decks. If you want to build a huge chest, you must perform heavy compound movements. Compound movements are multi joint exercises that involve more than one muscle group. Compound movements allow you to use more weight than isolation exercises. I like to think of compound movements as “spreading the weight around” where each muscle involved has a chance to benefit from the weight being used - Which is the real secret to building muscle. Let’s take the bench press for example. Although the targeted muscle group is the chest, the triceps and front deltoids are directly involved in the movement. As one muscle group gets stronger and bigger, the other ones will too. The point I’m trying to make is that you absolutely must stick to the heavy, compound movements if you ever want to build a big chest. If you’ve been training for any length of time and you still have a puny chest, drop all isolation exercises immediately and start concentrating on multi jointed exercises. In fact, get rid of all isolation exercises in your training routine and go with compound movements. To this day, I never start any of my workouts with isolation movements. Unless your dieting and preparing for a contest, get rid of them. Here are some examples of multi jointed exercises for the chest muscles: • Bench Press; These are some of the multi jointed exercises you should be performing in your chest routine. Now, I don’t recommend you do all of them because you don’t need them all. All you want to do is concentrate on one or two of the above noted exercises. For example, I would simple take the bench press and an incline press and concentrate on those two. Now, you don’t need to concentrate on isolation exercises yet because your not at the right stage yet to start incorporating those exercises into your training program. Here are some example of chest isolation exercises: • Pec Deck; At this point, you don’t really need these exercises. Your main concern is getting strong on the bench press and an incline press. That’s it. After your initial training cycle is done, you may want to include one of these exercises but not as your primary exercise. Your primary exercise is a multi jointed exercise, followed by another and than an isolation exercise. Here’s an example: Exercise 1 - The Bench Press So, now you know which chest exercise you need to build your chest. Let’s move on to the second point, the right training program - specialization. 2) The Right Training Program - Specialization The second thing you have to remember about building a big chest is prioritization. Building a big, powerful chest requires special attention and like anything else in building muscle, it requires specialization. Specialization is a term used in building muscle to refer to improving a certain body part or exercise by concentrating solely on that particular muscle or body part through exercise and diet. What you want to do is pay special attention to the body part or exercise you want to improve, in this case, chest. It is of the utmost importance that you train your chest first and foremost. Your priority should be on making your chest the main focus of your training. Chest should be number one and your other body parts number two. In order to do this, you must train chest alone. Do not train any other body part when you train chest. All of your energy must focus on your chest. You will have to cut down on the amount of energy you expend on other body parts, saving it for the chest workouts. You cannot continue to go full out on other body parts while turning up the throttle on your chest workouts. You want your chest to recuperate fully before each workout, otherwise, you'll exhaust your body and your training system won't work. So, on the first day of your training cycle, you will only train chest and nothing else. Keep all of your chest movements in the compounds range such as bench presses and incline presses. With a specialization routine, you should train your chest once per week, twice maximum. Here’s what a sample routine will look like: Day 1 - Chest; Remember, this is a sample and can be adjusted to fit your schedule. Just remember that if you want to build a big chest, you need to prioritize your chest. In terms of what is an effective training routine for building big chest muscles, here’s my suggestion. This is a sample schedule and remember, it’s open for adjustment. Day 1 - Chest Exercise # 1 - Bench Press; Yes, I know, it doesn’t look like much but it’s not going to be about quantity, it’s going to be about quality. Remember that and you’ll build a huge body! Here’s what this kind of program is going to look like: Chest Exercise #1 - Bench Press
Alright, the set and rep scheme looks as follows: Set one: Warm up 1 x 20 repetitions - 40% of max For your warm up set, your going to do 20 light repetitions to really give your chest a good warm up. After you’ve completed your set, do some light stretching for the chest and rest for about 1 minute. For your first set, your going to do 8 repetitions with a light weight. You are still in the warm up stage and want to get your body ready for the heavier weights without tiring your chest muscles out. Use about 50% of your max. Perform these reps nice and slow. Once you’ve completed the set, make sure you do some stretching. Rest for about 1 minute. For your second set, your going to be doing 8 repetitions with a moderate weight. You should be using 65% of your max. I still consider this set a warm up and you should not be using a challenging weight for this set. The reps should be somewhat easy and you should be able to perform these reps without any difficulty. Remember, your priming your chest, shoulders, and triceps for the heavy weights so don’t tire them out with high reps at this point. Your goal is to get your upper body muscles ready for heavy weight. Once you’ve completed the set, make sure you do some stretching. Rest for about 1 minute to 1 minute and a half. For your third set, your going to using about 70% of your max. This is your work set and one you should have a spotter on. Very important! Make sure you have a spotter to help you, just in case your muscles give out. Now, you should be able to complete 6 reps by yourself. If you can’t, lighten the weight next workout and make sure you can complete 6 reps by yourself. Perform these reps nice and slow. Once you’ve completed the set, make sure you do some stretching. Rest for about a minute and a half. For your fourth set, your going to be using about 80% to 85% of your max. Your going to definitely need a spotter for this set, because what you want to do is get 6 hard reps. You should be nearing your failure mark around the 5th or 6th rep. Remember, if you go to failure at the 3rd or 4th rep, your weight is too heavy. Lighten the load and get 5 solid reps on your own. Now, this is very important for your growth. For your next workout, your going to use the same weight but what you want to do is get 6 repetitions on your own without any help. Once you can do this for the weight that you once went to failure with on your prior workout, you can increase the weight by 10 to 20 pounds on your next workout. This is the key to muscle growth. For your final set, your going to be doing a drop set. This is a high intensity technique and will flush your chest with blood. Here’s what your going to do. First, your going to take a 1 minute break from the previous set. Once you’ve done that, reduce the weight on the bench to about 75% of your max. You will than proceed to do 6 repetitions. Once you’ve completed the set, get up and reduce the weight to 60% of your max and do another 6 repetitions. Once you’ve completed that, reduce the weight to 50% of your max and immediately do another 6 repetitions. Chest Exercise #2 - Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
Alright, this is a straight up incline dumbbell press with nothing fancy. Your going to do 4 sets of 8 repetitions all the while increasing the weight from sets 1 to 4. The first two sets are going to be your warm up sets while sets 3 and 4 are going to be your work sets. Here’s how the set and rep scheme will look like: Set one: 1 x 8 repetitions: 50% of your max; For sets one to three, you should not be taking your sets to failure. However, for your last set, you want to be able to barely complete the set. If you’re failing at the 4th rep, lighten the load and make sure you can at least get 6 or 7 reps on your own with no assistance. However, it might be a good idea to use a spotter. As I mentioned before, the key to growth is something I like to call “progressive workload”. That is, with each passing workout, you want to increase the weight until you can do 8 reps on your last set without using any assistance. Let’s take a closer look. Let’s say for week one, my set, rep, and weight scheme looks as follows: Set one: 40 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with little difficulty completing the set - Unassisted Set two: 55 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with some difficulty completing the set - Unassisted Set three: 65 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with moderate difficulty completing the set - Unassisted. Set four: 80 pounds x 8 reps - Clean, hard reps with difficulty completing the 7th rep - Assisted at the 7th and 8th rep. Now, for week two, my goal is to complete 8 reps for the final set, keeping everything the same. Let’s say my workout looks as follows: Set one: 40 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with little difficulty completing the set - Unassisted Set two: 55 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with some difficulty completing the set - Unassisted Set three: 65 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with moderate difficulty completing the set - Unassisted. Set four: 80 pounds x 8 reps - Clean, hard reps with difficulty. Completed the entire set without any assistance. As you can see, the last set went unassisted and it is this set that I call the true “growth set”. This is something that you should always be striving for. Never mind about the prior sets because they are not as important as the last set. Your mind should be channelled into the last set only. The first three sets are warming up to that last set. Now, for week three, your going to add more weight to your final set. Here’s how your new rep and weight scheme will look like: Set one: 40 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with little difficulty completing the set - Unassisted Set two: 55 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with some difficulty completing the set - Unassisted Set three: 65 pounds x 8 reps - Clean reps with moderate difficulty completing the set - Unassisted. Set four: 85 pounds x 8 reps - Clean, hard reps with difficulty completing the 7th rep - Assisted at the 7th and 8th rep. Notice any thing different? Yep, I’ve increased the weight by 5 pounds. Your going to strive for 8 reps again but chances are, your going to give out around 7 reps or so. The following week, your going to strive to complete 8 reps unassisted. Don’t increase the weight until you can do 8 reps on your own for the final set. This is very important and will keep you on the right track for muscle growth. Chest Exercise #3 - Dips
This is a great finishing exercise. I recommend that you do 4 sets of 12 repetitions for the first two weeks. If after two weeks, you find that 12 repetitions is fairly easy to do, start adding some weight. You can use a weight belt, which you can find at your local gym or Walmart. However, if you don’t have access to a gym or dip station, simply use two benches to perform the dips. Check out the image below, courtesy of bodybuilding.com.
That’s it. If you can follow the above noted chest routine, I’m 100% positive that you’ll start to see results in a few short weeks. Ok, now you know that in order to build a big chest, you need to prioritize your chest training. Remember, train chest alone, and first and foremost in your weight training program. Let’s move onto our third point, consistency. 3) Training Consistency This is where most trainers fail. You need to be consistent with your training if you want the results your looking for. I’m not going to lie to you, this takes time, patience and motivation. If you’re looking for a quick fix, this won’t work. You need to put in the time and effort to build a big chest. Remember that building muscle is a slow process and takes months to see any quality results. The first thing you have to remember is that muscle just doesn’t magically appear. The first thing your going to notice is that your strength is increasing. Once this happens, you muscles will slowly start to get bigger and bigger to accommodate new weight loads. New muscle will follow anywhere from 1 to 3 months after you start to get stronger in your main compound movements. Could be less, could be more, it depends on your body type - Just remember that muscle size is coming once you start to notice strength gains. You need to be consistent and monitor your progress. Don’t miss any workouts for any reason, well, except for sickness and other emergencies. What I’m talking about is if you come home from work and you feel a little tired and want to stay home and watch a movie. This is where you have to get off your ass and get in the gym. Be Consistent! Alright, this next point is probably the most important aspect to getting strong and building muscle, so you don’t want to skip it. 4) Proper Nutrition I’ll be frank with you, if you don’t have a proper nutrition plan in place, your not going to get a big chest. This is about as straight up as I can get. If you don’t eat the proper nutrients to accommodate new strength levels, your not going grow. If your interested at all in building hard, lean, muscle mass, you might want to listen up. To truly add hard and lean muscle mass, you have to understand the magic of quality nutrition. Only a quality nutrition program that’s geared for mass, will you be able to get super strong, get over training plateaus, and get that huge, hard ripped look. Now, if your thinking of dieting while trying to build the maximum amount of muscle mass, it’s not really going to happen. What you need to do is give your body top quality nutrients, day in and day out. Whether you’re an athlete, body builder, or training for fitness, gaining body mass is a food game. Yep, it’s all about the food you choose to put into your body that will determine how big, strong, and lean you get. Have you ever wondered why some people go to the gym, day in and day out, train hard and heavy but never, ever seem to grow? I’m gonna tell you now that it’s not a lack of motivation or ambition, but a lack of nutritional understanding and how to implement those nutrients in order to grow. As you start to get stronger and stronger in your compound exercises, your body will need more and more quality nutrients to sustain new strength levels. Once this happens, new muscle growth will occur. If you want to gain, you gotta eat, and I mean a lot. I want you to eat at least 500 more calories per day on top of your usual diet. Now, I’m not going to get into a full discussion here because there are two pages that go into much more detail. Check these pages out for a detailed discussion on gaining quality muscle mass: These pages should give you an idea of what you should be eating in terms of adding more muscle size. Alright let’s move onto our last point. 4) Consistent Nutrition; Well, this point ties into the third point. If you can stick to eating quality meals every two hours, you’ll grow. The most important point you can remember here is that if you want to grow, you need to be consistent with your nutrition. You need to feed your body a correct balance of calories, protein, carbohydrates and fat. Complete muscle building nutrition is the key. If you can find this key, I'll guarantee you that your muscle building efforts will sky rocket. If you really want to build a complete muscle building diet complete with menus and supplement schedules, click here. If you want to build muscle you need to prepare a well balanced weight lifting diet that is rich in quality calories. Most people who start out weight lifting usually overlook the importance of a well balanced weight lifting diet when they are trying to build muscle. Alright, there you have it. If you can start using the above noted points, you should have no problem building your chest up. Now, what about supplements? Well, I wouldn’t recommend you try supplements until after you have your training and nutrition program in place. After 6 weeks of steady training and nutrition, you might want to consider using supplements. Check this page out for further details on using supplements: For further reading about building strength and muscle, I would recommend you take a look at a couple of resources. Both are paid, but they are very good. The first resource is Sean Nalewanyj's book called "Muscle Gain Truth". Sean is a former 120 pound skinny guy who managed to add 80 pounds of solid muscle in 3 short years. He outlines how he did it and how you can also do it. Check out my Sean’s journey here. If you want to go straight to his site, click here. The second resource is by Vince Delmonte. Vince is another former skinny guy and he shows you how he added 40 pounds of pure muscle. Vince’s guide is for skinny people and his guide includes a 190 page ebook, 29 week roadmap, nutrition guide, 3 months email support and 3 hours of teleseminars. You can check out the program here. If you can keep consistent and train hard, you should have no problems building your chest muscles. Good luck! Send someone this chest workout routine
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