Saturday, October 24, 2009

Ingredients for a Great Chest Workout

Today I will be working my favorite body part, chest. To me nothing makes you feel more virile and powerful than the pump you feel after working chest. I start out with bench presses 4 - 5 sets including one warm-up set. When bench pressing focus on using your chest muscles to push the weight. Bring the bar down slowly then explode upwards once the bar touches your chest. Never bounce the weight or arch your back as cheating does not increase your muscle mass or strength and you will also leave yourself at risk for shoulder and back injury.

The next chest exercise is one of my favorites, inclines presses. No muscle burn feels better to me then the deep muscle ache you feel during a hard worked set of inclines. A well developed upper chest gives you that powerful table-top look that people really admire. I usually perform 3 - 4 sets of 8 - 12 hard fought reps. That does the trick for me. If you do these correctly you should have a difficult time even lifting the bar after the last set.

I complete my chest workout with either dumbbell flyes or cable crossovers. When performing dumbbell flyes your motion should be similar to that of you hugging a tree. But be careful and don't extend to far down at the bottom of the movement as you leave yourself vulnerable to shoulder injury. Same with cable crossovers, use a moderate weight and flex your pecs at the peak of the movement. Don't overload the weight as you will also expose yourself to injury.

When your done working with the weights spend a few minutes flexing your pecs in front of a mirror to really bring out the cuts and striations with this isometric exercise.