Chest (Pec) Exercises
Building massive pecs is often the first goal of bodybuilders. What do you need to buy? Although you can make great progress in strength and mass just buy doing pushups, dumbbells gives you a lot more exercise options. Please don't waste money on new equipment though, you can get dumbbells used for pennies on the dollar from craigslist Your muscles don't know if they are lifting used, rusty, old dumbbells or new, expensive, shiny, chrome ones so just buy a used set! As a last resort buy a new weight set
Many say I have over-developed pecs, what can I say - I guess that chest workouts are the one thing I have perfected. Its not that I work them out harder or more often than any other muscle group, I guess I just work them out smarter.
When trying to build a big chest, most beginners make the mistake of just doing bench press. Even non-bodybuilders know what bench press is from the movies so its natural that this is the first, and often the only, exercise that people do for chest. Just doing bench press for chest is bad because it really limits the size and strength of your pecs, pushing exercises (like bench press) are only half the story when it comes to chest gains. In my opinion, the squeezing chest exercises (like dumbbell flys) are even more important than the pushing chest exercises when it comes to mass and strength gains. I'm 50 years old and I haven't done bench press in over two decades, hasn't hurt my chest development any :) People always are interested in how much I can bench and I always answer - "Sorry, no idea but I do flys with 95lb dumbbells". To maximize your chest development, you need to do both pushing exercises and squeezing exercises - neglect either and you limit your potential for mass and strength. From personal experience I have found that a 50/50 split of pushing and squeezing exercises provides optimal results. I have also found that alternating between pushing and squeezing exercises during the workout maximizes results.
Another mistake people commonly make is they try to specialize, they want to work "inner pecs", "upper pecs", "lower pecs" or "outer pecs". No! Big mistake. You need an all-around pec workout that has you pushing and pulling from all angles. Genetics play a huge role in the shape of your pecs, some people have square pecs, others round ones. Some people have a big gap between their pecs, some have a triangular gap, and the lucky ones have no gap at all. Its genetics, there is nothing you can do about it. Just do give 110% to all the chest exercises and then all people will notice is you massive pecs, not the gap between them :)
I'm going to start off with some complete chest workouts, then at the end of this section show you the individual exercises. I show eight variations of pushup exercises, from easy to killer - these can be done with no equipment at all. Then I show the dumbbell chest exercises, including the all-important squeezing exercises.
Complete Chest Workouts
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. |
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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 We will do each superset three times and take 2-3 minutes rest between. You can also watch this video in fullscreen. |
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"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. You can also watch this video fullscreen. |
Pushups
If I could only do two exercises for my upper body, it would be pushups and pullups - the bench press wouldn't even make my top 10 list. Pushups are awesome for beginners and advanced bodybuilders alike. There are infinite variations that can make the pushups as easy or as challenging as you like. The form used for doing all pushups is the same, lets cover that first. We will be doing the pushups from our fists, pushup stands, or octagonal dumbbells - but NOT our palms. Doing them on your palms will result in wrist injury, don't do it! Second, its very important that you hold your torso rigid and straight like a plank, flex your abs to do this. Watch yourself in a mirror or have a buddy watch you, most people make the mistake of sagging as they get tired. Next form item is speed, most people do the pushups way too fast in an effort to eek out more reps with horrible form - don't do it. One to two seconds to go up and one to two seconds to go down - that's a long time! Toward the end of your workout you will get very tired, don't let your form suffer. 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. The pushups here are listed from easiest to hardest
Difficulty:Easy |
Knee Pushups. Video Clip showing pushups for beginners. When starting out, the weight is on your knees and your hands. Put padding under your knees to avoid injury. Do as many as you can with good form. |
Difficulty:Med |
Basic Straight Pushup. Video clip showing proper form of the basic pushup. Body is straight and rigid as a plank. |
Difficulty:Med |
"Squeezer" Pushups. Video clip showing this advanced pushup which is a combination of an isometric fly and a pushup. While doing a pushup, you squeeze your hands together as hard as you can. |
Difficulty:Med |
Ultrawide Pushups. For this advanced pushup we take a really wide stance. How wide? Try and put your fists 4-6" further out than your elbows. This pushup is a real challenge although you wont be moving very far up or down (because of the wide stance). |
Difficulty:High |
Rolling pushups. Video clip of this amazing chest exercise! They are a combination of pushup and fly. For this exercise you use dumbbells as pushup stands and loosen the collars so they roll. To perform this exercise, you try to keep your arms as straight as possible and squeeze your pecs together which rolls the dumbbells together and moves you to the up position. |
Difficulty:High |
Backpack pushups. Video clip of the backpack pushup. If you are an advanced bodybuilder and cant get enough of a workout from normal pushups, here is an old idea - backpack pushups. These come in handy too when you are on the road and cant bring any fitness equipment along. The basic idea is to put some heavy weights in a backpack and then do pushups with the weight providing extra resistance. |
Difficulty:High |
Hip pushups. Video clip of the hip pushup. In most pushups, your hands are wide apart but in this variation they are down at your hips. Very, very important on this one - do NOT do these on your palms as you will hyperextend your wrists and do serious damage. Do these on pushup stands, on your fists, or on your fingertips (for you martial arts folks out there). |
Chest Exercises Using Dumbbells
Dumbbell Flys 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 straight but not 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. |
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It is best to do dumbbell fly laying on the floor to safely limit your range of motion. To hear more about doing heavy chest exercises safely without a spotter, watch this video on self-spotting techniques for chest. |
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Starting Position. Arms nearly straight but elbows are not locked, palms are up. Slowly squeeze the weights up while breathing normally. Raising the weights should take about two seconds. |
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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 out loud "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. |
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Video Clip showing proper form of the dumbbell fly. Form is everything, try for 2s up and 2s down. |
Incline Dumbbell Flys Here is a cool variant of the dumbbell fly that you do on an incline bench (or a board leaning against a wall). For this incline fly use a light weight, approximately 20% of what you use for incline dumbbell press. In this exercise we keep the arms straight but not locked and the arms are not perpendicular to our sides like in a normal fly, are not alongside our legs, but halfway in between. The palms are facing up at a 45 degree angle. |
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Starting Position. Arms nearly straight but elbows are not locked, palms are up. Slowly squeeze the weights up while exhaling. |
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Ending Position. Arms still nearly straight. Now lower weights slowly back to starting position while inhaling. |
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Video Clip showing proper form of the dumbbell fly |
Dumbbell Press The dumbbell press works the chest very similarly to the pushup, the advantage of dumbbell press is that you can use precisely the weight you need to challenge yourself. 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. |
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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. |
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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) |
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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) |
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Video Clip showing proper form of the dumbbell press. This video is old, a better video is coming later this summer. |
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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. |
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Starting Position. Upper arms are inline with each other, elbows are 90 degrees. Push up slowly while exhaling, should take a count of three to get the weights up. |
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Ending Position. Now lower slowly back to starting position while inhaling, it should take a count of three to get back down |
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Incline press video showing proper form. In this video I use a self-spotting rig but you can use a spotter or do them on the ground as I do in the above two pictures. |
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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. |
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Starting Position. Elbows touching your sides lightly. Hold the dumbbells like ski poles. Push up slowly while exhaling, should take a count of three to get the weights up. |
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Ending Position. Now lower slowly back to starting position while inhaling, it should take a count of three to get back down |
| Video clip showing proper form of the incline front press | |
Still have questions? You can ask your chest exercise questions 24/7 on the free Bulking Up and Gaining Muscle forum.