Weight Training Tips and Articles

Building Bigger Pecs

Building bigger pecs is something that most men who weight train want to do. Thick, powerful looking chest muscles are a must for an optimal muscular physique. Most weight trainers also enjoy doing chest exercises. However, to succeed at building bigger pectorals there are some things you must do.

You must focus on compound chest exercises for building bigger pecs. They’re the exercises that will help you build the most strength and size. This means that bench pressing exercises (flat, incline, and decline) and dips should make up the majority of your chest workouts. Save flyes and cable crossovers for the end of your workouts. You must actually build bigger pecs before you try to add shape to the muscles with isolation chest exercises.

Another great tip for building bigger pecs is to use proper form on your exercises. The bench press is, without a doubt, one of the most abused weight training exercises there are. So many weight trainers will do anything to lift more weight when they bench press. However, constantly cheating will only lead to joint pain or an injury. On the bench press and all other chest exercises you must focus on doing full repetitions with complete control of the weight. You will build chest strength if you perform these exercises the right way. This gain in strength will lead to you building bigger pectorals.

You must train with high intensity to build bigger pecs. If you always stop short of failure your chest won’t be forced to adapt and grow. Try to get as much as you can out of every single set you do. For most chest exercises this means that you’ll need somebody to spot you for safety. Have your spotter assist you for an extra rep when you reach positive failure.

Another key to building bigger pecs is to regularly switch things up. If you always do the same exercises for the same amount of sets and reps your body will get used to it and you’ll hit a plateau. Try a chest weight training routine where you do a workout with high reps and light weights, one with medium reps and medium weights, and one with low reps and heavy weights. Your chest muscles won’t get used to always doing 8 to 12 reps on every set and you’ll build bigger pecs. You should also regularly switch the exercises you do. Switch between decline bench presses and dips every other workout. You can also do dumbbell bench presses on a core ball every now and then.

To succeed at building bigger pecs you also need to avoid overtraining. Doing 20 or 30 sets per chest workout is just too much. You can actually get a great workout from 10 total sets for chest or even less if you work hard enough during each set. You also need to give your chest enough time between workouts to recover and grow. Training the pecs every 5 to 7 days depending on how much you do per workout should be enough.

As long as you follow these rules, you’ll be on your way to building bigger pectoral muscles.

Best Weight Training Exercises For The Chest

Most men who weight trainers want to build thick pectoral muscles. Nothing tops off your physique like a powerful looking chest. With the right chest exercises, you can build bigger pecs.

Without a doubt, the best chest exercise is the bench press. This is the most popular weight training exercise there is. You can (hopefully) deadlift and squat more weight than you can bench press, but it’s inevitable that somebody who notices the size of your muscles is going to ask “How much can ya bench?”. With proper form and enough rest between chest workouts, the bench press can do wonders for you physique.

Another must do chest weight training exercise is the incline bench press. Nothing is better for building the upper pecs. In fact, if you do a lot more flat benching than incline benching, you can give your chest a droopy appearance. If this happens to you, the best thing to do is to start your chest workouts with inclines rather than flat benches. If you have extremely overdeveloped lower pecs in comparison to your upper pecs, you may want to ditch the flat altogether for a while.

Many weight trainers do decline bench presses to get that chiseled look in their lower pecs. Of course, you don’t want to overdo this and get that droopy appearance. A superior chest exercise to try instead of declines are weighted dips. If your gym has a belt that allows you to add weights to it, you can do weighted dips on a dip bar.

Flat, incline, and decline bench presses done with dumbbells are also excellent chest exercises. They’ll allow for a deeper stretch at the bottom of a rep since your chest won’t stop them like it would with a barbell.

The best isolation chest weight training exercises are flyes and cable crossovers. You can do flyes with dumbbells, cables, or machines. Cable crossovers are sort of like standing cable flyes. When you do either of these chest exercises, concentrate on a good stretch at the start of a rep and a strong contraction at the end of it. For the most, you should save the isolation exercises for the end of a chest workout. A couple of high rep sets to finish off a workout is the best way to use these exercises.

An old Arnold Schwarzenegger trick was to use dumbbell pullovers as a chest exercise to stretch out and expand the rib cage. Expanding your rib cage will make your pecs appear thicker.

You don’t need to do every one of these chest weight training exercises every time you train your pecs. Doing so may very well lead to overtraining. Switch up the exercises you do regularly to keep your body guessing and growing.

Pre Exhaustion Weight Training For The Chest

  While the chest is one of the most popular muscle groups to weight train, there are many lifters, particularly those who are tall and have longer arms, who can’t seem to get a good pump from bench pressing. If you have long arms you’ll likely be using the triceps a lot while you bench and consequently won’t get the pump you need for more muscle growth in the pectorals. One great weight training tip to remedy this situation is to use pre exhaustion for the chest.

  To use the pre exhaustion weight training technique you do a superset of an isolation exercise for a large muscle group followed immediately by a compound exercise for that same muscle. To pre exhaust your pecs during a chest workout you should try a few supersets of dumbbell or machine flyes followed by bench or incline presses. You’ll directly target the chest with the flyes, which will put you in a position where the chest is already somewhat spent while you bench press and is forced to work harder. This will give you that pump that you haven’t been able to get and will help you build up your chest. If you just can’t seem to get your pecs pumped up from doing normal chest exercises you should give pre-exhaustion a try. It may be just what you need.