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What’s makes up the majority of your chest muscles?
Chest Muscles: The pectoral muscles!
Your pecs are a thick muscle that sits just under the breast. Responsible for moving your shoulder, even a small injury to the pecs can cause all sorts of problems. If you’re thinking about starting a chest-building workout routine, then you’ll need to learn how to grow your chest, without stressing out your body.
From knowing the right number of reps to eating right, this chest-building guide will cover everything you need to know to accomplish your goals. Are you ready to have the body you’ve always envisioned?
Read on to learn how to build your chest, the right way.
However, before we dig deeper, let us tell you that sometimes doing these exercises could lead to the possibility of muscle cramps, fatigue, damage, or soreness. So, you need to make sure you have something to address these issues, like a portable massage gun from Exogun DreamPro. This deep tissue massager will boost your muscle function and recovery after every workout by encouraging blood circulation and increasing the oxygen flow to targeted areas. Used by the pros, Exogun delivers the ultimate recovery.
Best Chest Exercises for Men and Women
Let’s start by looking at the best types of chest exercises based on different fitness goals. Here are a few common fitness goals when it comes to chest growth:
- Increase chest mass overall
- Better chest definition
- Emphasize upper chest
- Emphasize lower chest
In addition to the list above, you could also make it your goal to perfect your weight lifting form. Another great goal is learning how to exhaust each muscle group equally. The more specific you can be about your health goals, the easier it’ll be for you to customize your workout routine.
Increase Chest Mass Overall
When you’re training for mass, the key is to start your workout with multijoint movements. Next, target each muscle group from a variety of angles, while accomplishing a high volume of sets and reps. Since you’ll be doing a lot of reps, it’s best if you choose a weight that will help you reach muscle failure at the right time.
Better Muscle Definition
When you want a lean, well-defined chest, high reps aren’t your friend. Instead, you’ll need to focus on boosting the calories you burn during and after your workout. To become a calorie-burning machine, you’ll need to perform supersets, while reducing your rest periods. The shorter your rest periods are, the easier it’ll be for you to keep your heart rate up.
When your heart rates up, your weightlifting routine can double as a cardio exercise, which is great for shedding fat. It’s also important that you perform multijoint chest exercises at a high volume to get rid of man boobs.
Finally, as you begin your workout, you’ll want to use heavier weights. Heavyweights are great for boosting your metabolism by maintaining muscle tissue.
Upper Chest
Is your main goal to bulk up the upper part of your chest? If yes, then you’ll want to focus on exercises that use an incline bench. An incline bench will help your upper pectoral muscles get the attention they need. Lastly, if you have a spotter, complete 3-5 forced reps for the heaviest set of each exercise.
Lower Chest
If your goal’s to target your lower chest then you’ll need to use a decline bench instead of an incline one. During dips, you can target the lower chest by leaning forward and bringing your feet up behind you. Finally, let your elbows push out as you descend.
Building Chest Muscles as a Woman
All of the exercises we’ve discussed so far will work for men and women. However, since women have larger muscle fibers, it can be harder for them to achieve muscle fatigue.
If you’re a woman looking to tone her chest or increase the mass of your pectoral muscles, you’ll need to perform higher reps. The increased number of reps will help your muscles reach the necessary stage of fatigue for growth. The larger muscle fibers in women’s bodies also mean that they can handle more volume (longer workouts) than men.
Benefits of a Pre-Exhaust Workout
Are your triceps extra sore after a strenuous chest workout? There’s a good chance that you might be working out your triceps harder than your pectoral muscles. To solve this problem, you’ll need to minimize the amount your triceps move by completing a pre-exhaust workout.
For instance, you can start with a single joint exercise that isolates the pectoral muscles without engaging the triceps, like a cable crossover. After the isolation exercises, your chest will be fatigued.
Now, you can begin performing multijoint exercises, and your triceps won’t be exhausted. You’ll notice that you can complete your workout with the chest muscles fatiguing before the triceps start to give way.
Top Chest Training Mistakes
Don’t let the excitement of transforming your body cause you to fall prey to one of the top chest training mistakes. Here are some of the biggest mistakes you’ll want to avoid:
- Overtraining
- Too much shoulder rotation
- Excessive bench pressing
- Ignoring the upper chest
Another big mistake to watch out for is neglecting your diet.
How to Grow Your Chest With Nutrition?
Lastly, let’s look at how to grow your chest by following the right type of diet. To build mass, you’ll need to increase your daily caloric intake. However, not just any calories will do. Instead, you’ll need to learn how to properly divide your diet up into the right amount of fats, proteins, and carbs.
Eggs, peanut butter, lean chicken, and greek yogurt are all great protein sources. Whereas, whole-wheat pasta or bread can help satisfy your carb requirements. For healthy fats, you can turn to foods such as cheese, dark chocolate, and nuts.
Plan a Chest Workout
Now you know some of the best tips about how to grow your chest. However, knowledge without application isn’t worth anything in the fitness world. Take a moment right now to write down your fitness goals.
Once you have your goals outlined, create a customized workout plan. Finally, pick 1 day this week that you can dedicate to starting your new fitness regime! The more consistently your workout and diet, the better your results will be. For more ways to invest in your health, read another one of our articles.
