Killer Advanced Chest Workout Video

Here is an advanced chest workout you can do at home with a cheap dumbbell set. Big gyms are nice but when you can get a killer workout at home without the overhead of getting to and from the gym. This workout is a complete 70 minute workout and consists of four superset:

superset 1: incline dumbbell press and flys
superset 2: dumbbell press from the hip and thumbs up flys
superset 3: incline flys and ultrawide pushups
superset 4: pushups, flys, and dumbbell press

We will do each superset three times and take 2-3 minutes rest between. You can also watch this video in fullscreen.

Chest Workout For The Complete Beginner Video

In my opinion, pushups are the #1 best exercise you can do! They are simple to do and are a great upper body workout.

Start by doing knee pushups. If you can do more than 20 of these then they are too easy for you and you should do full pushups.

We want to start slowly to avoid injury. If your joints and muscles feel ok, you can slowly increase the frequency and duration of your pushup workouts until you are doing pushups 3x/week for 20minutes. When you get to the point where you can do more than 20 pushups in all your sets, then its time to move on to a more advanced workout. You can also watch this in fullscreen.

Pushups

Pushups are the #1 best exercise you can do for chest and they are easy to do at home for beginners and advanced bodybuilders alike.  First, the most important thing is using correct form.  Depending on your strength, you will be doing pushups from your knees or your feet.  It is better to use good form from your knees than bouncy, jerky form from your feet.  All pushups are done slowly (2 seconds down and 2 seconds up) and your body is held rigid as a steel I beam.  The hand position is very important, do NOT do pushups from your palms - you will damage your wrists!  The pushups are done from either pushup stands or fisted hands like you are punching the ground, this wrist position not only keeps you from hyper extending your wrists but allows you to get full range of motion on your pushup as it puts you 3" higher off the ground.  Make sure to either do the pushups on a foam pad or a thick carpet to save your hands and knees.  Toward the end of your workout you will get very tired, don't let your form suffer.  Use the alternate pushup position if you cant do more than 5 pushups.  Important on all these exercises is to keep your elbows and hands in front of the plane of your body, your shoulder is very unstable and prone to injury if you hyperextend it behind your torso.  Your pectorals are a big muscle group and take a hard workout to make them grow but don't sacrifice form.  You will get a more amazing pec pump from doing these simple pushups than you will from a heavy bench press.

pushups for beginners

basic pushup

Video Clip showing proper form of the basic pushup.  Note how slow I am going, try for 2s up and 2s down. If you cant do the pushups this slowly then do knee pushups to build up strength till you can. Really important when you are doing pushups is that your torso and legs are frozen into a solid, straight plank as you see in the thumbnail on the left. Your abs are flexed hard during the entire exercise supporting your lower back and preventing injury while holding your body plank straight. Dont let your butt drop making your body droop like a banana or let your butt pop up making your body into a tent shape - straight and still as a plank. Many of the people who do those stupid pushup records use horrible form, watch them on youtube and make sure NOT to do it like they do! You can do lots more reps if you do a saggy-bounce-pushups like those record holders but we want to get stronger and gain muscle, not break some stupid record!

Advanced Pushups

Dumbbell Flys

Pushups alone can give you a great chest workout, however with a dumbbell set you have some other options as well.  The dumbbell fly is one of my favorite exercises and is what I feel has given me my chest size.  If you do flys on a bench, you need a spotter and need to make 100% sure that you don't let your elbows drop lower than your shoulders as this would hyperextend your shoulder and put it at risk of injury.  Like all exercises, the key is to do this exercise very slowly and with strict form - no cheating.  Keep your arms nearly locked, if you have to bend your elbows then use a lighter weight. Bend your knees and put your feet flat on the ground, this puts your lower back in a safe position. When lifting, flex your abs for additional lower back support.

Ending Position.  Arms still nearly straight.  Now lower weights slowly back to starting position while breathing normally.  Much of the benefit in this exercise comes from the negative portion (lowering the weight to the ground) so don't deprive yourself of its benefits by mushing thru it. Resist gravity! Try and lower the weights as slowly as you can. Tremble and shake, swear and grunt but don't let those weights down fast. Try and take at least 3 seconds to lower the weight (count outloud "one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand"). If you cant lower the weights that slowly then you should consider using a lighter weight.

Incline Dumbbell Flys

Dumbbell Press

Pushups alone can give you a great chest workout, however with a dumbbell set you have some other options as well.  The dumbbell press is a good alternative to the pushup if you find pushups uncomfortable. Another advantage of dumbbell press is that you can use precisely the weight you need to challenge yourself the right amount. If you are a beginning bodybuilder then you may not have the strength yet to do pushups By using light dumbbells you can provide just enough resistance to allow you to slowly build up strength so that you eventually be able to do pushups. Conversely, if you are an advanced bodybuilder, basic pushups are not much of a challenge. Dumbbell press for the advanced bodybuilder allows the use of weights far in excess of bodyweight so that the muscles can be sufficiently challenged to grow.

If you do dumbbell press using a bench, you need a spotter and need to make 100% sure that you don't let your elbows drop lower than your shoulders as this would hyperextend your shoulder and put it at risk of injury.

I strongly recommend that you do dumbbell press on the floor rather than on a bench for two important safety reasons. First, if you get into trouble and the weights come crashing down, your shoulders are protected because the weights will hit the floor before your shoulders hyperextend. Second, the floor safely limits your range of motion and doesn't allow your elbows to drop behind the plane of your back. Many people get injured jerking heavy dumbbells into the starting position, on the floor this is a simple matter. Use a stack of big books like encyclopedias to set the dumbbells on, the weight causes the books to sag into a trough so that the dumbbells will not roll off. Use enough books so the handles are about a foot above the ground. Its then an easy matter to roll the dumbbells into the starting position. To hear more about doing heavy chest exercises safely without a spotter, watch this video on self-spotting techniques for chest. For those people who insist that they need more of a range of motion (I disagree), you can lay on a 2x10 on the floor which will give you another 1.5" of range but still maintain the other advantages of doing the dumbbell press on the floor.

Starting Position.  Upper arms are inline with each other, elbows are 90 degrees.  Push up slowly while breathing normally, should take a count of two to get the weights up.  While pushing the weights up, you are using two motions which combine for a maximum lift. First, obviously you are pushing, that is obvious to everyone. What is not obvious is that you also need to try to squeeze the weight up. What do I mean by squeezing the weight up? Grab a basketball and hold it about 2' away from your body at shoulder level (elbows slightly bent) and try to pop the ball by squeezing it. Squeeze the ball repeatedly while watching yourself in the mirror until you get the feel for that. When you get the hang of that, pretend you are a mime, put the ball away, and pretend you are squeezing the imaginary ball. Your muscles should tense up just as they did when you were squeezing the ball. When you have mastered that, you can easily apply that to your dumbbell press and squeeze the weight up. When you are doing the dumbbell press you are pushing and trying to pop that basketball. (click on thumbnail for larger view)

Ending Position. OK, we have squeezed and pushed the weight slowly up till the weights are over our head. We will NOT clank the weights, its annoying and you can get metal chips in your eyes. Most people just get excited about the pushing portion of this exercise and rush thru the negative portion which deprives them of much of the benefit of this exercise. Pressing the weights up looks impressive but much of the gains occur in the negative portion of the exercise, that is, when you are lowering them to the floor. We want to make this negative portion as agonizing as possible - remember, no pain, no gain. First, we want to lower the weights very slowly. How slowly? Say out loud "One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand" - that's how long it should take you to lower the weights. If you cant lower them that slowly then you are using too much weight. As with pushing the weight up, we are focusing on two things while we are lowering the weights - pushing and squeezing. Work hard on the squeezing. The negative portion of the exercise is SO important that many people use techniques which emphasize it. For example, if you have a spotter you can use a weight 10% higher than you can lift and have the spotter help you get the weights up and then lower them slowly (and agonizingly) under your own power. Don't cheat yourself, emphasize the negative! (click on thumbnail for larger view)

Incline Dumbbell Press

The incline dumbbell press is a simple variant of the dumbbell press.  If you have an incline bench, that's great.  I make one by tying a 2x8 to my coffee table, it works great and I don't have to store a huge bench.  If you do this, make very sure that everything is completely secure and will not move while you are doing your exercise.  As with the dumbbell press, make 100% sure that you don't let your elbows drop lower than your shoulders as this would hyperextend your shoulder and put it at risk of injury.  You either need spotter(s) on this exercise or you need a self spotting rig to safely lift heavy weights. 

Incline Front Press

The incline front press is a simple variant of the dumbbell press.  In this exercise the elbows don't point out to the side as they do in the dumbbell press, instead they are parallel to your body.  If you have an incline bench, that's great.  I make one by tying a 2x8 to my coffee table, it works great and I don't have to store a huge bench.  If you do this, make very sure that everything is completely secure and will not move while you are doing your exercise.  this insures that you will not drop your elbows too low and injure your shoulder.    This exercise works both pecs and shoulders in about equal amounts.

"No Time" chest workout

OK, you are a busy person and don't have time to drive to the gym, let alone do a workout but that is not going to get in the way of your progress!  Here's a great 15 minute chest workout you can do at home with dumbbells that will make you sore combining three of the above exercises into one quick, killer workout.  We are going to workout 15 minutes continuously, no rest, so get ready to sweat.  First we are going to do pushups, then dumbbell flys, then dumbbell press, then repeat.  The only rest you get is to remove plates of your dumbbells to make them lighter, but don't lollygag!  Do NOT sacrifice form here, keep the movements very slow and controlled - no jerking, bouncing, or flailing.  You can make the weights as light as you want but keep the form perfect.  On the pushups, do them from you knees if you cant do them smoothly and slowly from your feet.