Building the "peck" or pectoral muscles can be very challenging for some trainees. The fan-shaped pectoral muscles are made up of the upper and lower pectorals and they allow the body to push things away. Examples are doing a push-up or a pressing movement. The bench press is a great overall upper body exercise, but many fail to achieve the chest development they desire by bench pressing. Individuals with naturally lower blood flow or poor chest muscle enervation can build great pectorals by following a few basic guidelines.
Step 1
Begin your workout with the bench press, incline press or decline press with a barbell or dumbbells. A common bench press mistake is flaring your elbows away from your body, which puts emphasis on the shoulders, according to expert Elliot Hulse of LeanHybridMuscle.com. Instead tuck your elbows closer to your body while pressing to put emphasis on the pectorals. "3-D Muscle Building" authors Lawson and Holman recommend using the decline bench press because it naturally takes the shoulders out of the movement.
Step 2
Start with 50 percent of the weight you will use and do five repetitions, lowering the weight slowly to a four-second count. Then raise the weight to the top position and pump out five mini-reps at the very top of the range of motion. Repeat for a second warm up with 75 percent for four full reps and four mini-reps. Lawson and Holman recommend these occlusion sets to pump blood into the pectoral muscles and prepare your joints and tendons for training with heavy weights.
Step 3
Do one to three heavy sets of your chosen pressing movement in the eight to 12 repetition range, resting 90 to 120 seconds between sets. Take each set to positive muscle failure, meaning that you can no longer perform another controlled repetition. Advanced trainees may opt to do a couple more sets or add one or two sets of another compound movement such as incline bench presses, as recommended by Jeff Anderson in "Advanced Muscle Building." However, even they can benefit from simplifying their chest workout.
Step 4
Do one or two sets of a stretch overload exercise, such as the dumbbell flye for eight to 12 reps. Exercises that apply stretch overload have been shown to trigger a 300 percent mass increase in only a month in animal research, according to Lawson and Holman. Lower the weight to the lowest possible stretch position and then brings your palms together in front of your chest as if you were hugging an invisible tree.
Step 5
Finish your pectoral workout with one or two sets of an isolation exercise, such as cable crossovers. Make sure to fully contract the chest on every rep. Use a drop-set to extend the tension on the pectoral muscles. To do this start with a weight that allows you to get eight to 10 reps, immediately lower the weight and do five or six more reps until you reach exhaustion.
Step 6
Take in a post-workout nutrition shake containing 30 to 50 g of whey protein and 60 to 100 g of high-glycemic carbohydrates from dextrose, maltodextrin or waxy maize starch. According to "The Carbo Rater" by Jordana Brown carbs play almost as important a role in muscle recovery as protein.
Tips and Warnings
- Train chest on its own day and first in your weekly training split to specialize and benefit from your weekend recovery days. For example, do chest on Monday, back on Tuesday, legs on Wednesday, shoulders on Thursday, arms on Friday and rest Saturday and Sunday. If you do not have a partner or spotter, use the self-spotting Smith machine or dumbbells for your heavy pressing movements.
- Never train to failure without a spotter.
Things You'll Need
- Whey protein
- Dextrose
- Maltodextrin
- Waxy maize
References
- "3-D Muscle Building;" Jonathan Lawson and Steve Holman; 2006
- "Advanced Muscle Building;" Jeff Anderson; 2008
- Muscle & Fitness Presents 2010 Edition The Ultimate Supplement Handbook; "The Carbo Rater;" Jordana Brown
- LeanHybridMuscle.com; The Lean Hybrid Muscle Newsletter; Elliot Hulse
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