The chest contains two muscles known as the pectoralis major and pectoralis minor. The pec major is activated when your upper arm moves across the front of your body, and the pec minor gets activated when your shoulder moves in a forward direction. When it comes to chest development, you need to overload the muscles with resistance that they are not accustomed to. If you are not big on free weights or machines, you can fully develop your chest by doing push-ups.
Function
Push-ups are body weight exercises that are done to add variation to your regular chest workouts. They can also be performed at home if you do not have access to a gym or you simply do not like the gym atmosphere.
Types
To get a maximal amount of recruitment, you should target your chest muscles from different angles. Traditional push-ups, for example, are done on the floor with your body in a straight line. These target the middle portion of your chest. Decline push-ups are performed with your feet elevated. This type of push-up targets your upper chest region. Incline push-ups are performed with your upper body elevated, and they target your lower chest.
Equipment
With traditional push-ups, no equipment is necessary. All you have to do is get on the floor and go. However, you need some form of support to do decline and incline push-ups. If you are at a gym, you can prop your feet and hands up on a bench. If you are at home, you can use chairs, a bed, a low table or steps. If you are really up for a challenge, you can use a stability ball with your decline and incline push-ups. Being that your body is off balance, you will recruit a maximal amount of chest and core muscle fibers.
Form
Beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most important factor with push-ups is proper form. If you do not execute proper form, then you will not achieve full development and you will also open yourself up to injury. That being said, no matter what angle of push-up you are doing, there are specific rules that apply. Always keep your core tight, back straight and gaze looking slightly ahead. Your hands should be slightly wider apart than shoulder-width and your toes should be approximately hip-width apart. When lowering your body, stop when your chest is within a fist-width of the floor or the object you have your hands on. When rising up, stop just short of fully locking out your arms. Lastly, you need to breathe properly. Whenever you exert force, you should be exhaling. Take the traditional push-up for example. As you lower your body toward the floor, take a long inhale and exhale the whole time you push back up.
Identification
The inner part of the chest is often targeted with exercises like close-grip bench presses, dumbbell flyes and cable crossovers. If you want to achieve full chest development with push-ups, you can target your inner chest with sliding push-ups. These are performed with a set of towels and a slippery floor surface, such as linoleum or laminate. Simply place one hand on each towel, get into a push-up position, the slide the towels out to your sides and back to the start. Being that these are intense, you should start out doing them with your knees on the floor until you adapt.
Time Frame
Your chest needs to be worked hard and rested properly for full development. If you do not give your muscles the rest they need, then you will not experience proper growth. Take two days off in between each push-up workout to maximize your recoveries. In between each set of push-ups, take a 45- to 60-second rest. Work your upper chest, middle chest, lower chest and inner chest in that order. This is going from hardest to easiest. If you do your easiest exercise first, you will not have enough energy to finish your harder exercises.
Size
Reps and sets are an important part of your push-up plan. When first starting out, perform eight to 10 reps and four to five sets of each exercise. Every other workout, add one to two reps to each set until you are easily able to do 15 to 20 repetitions. At this point, strap on a weighted vest for added resistance.
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