Bodybuilders are not the only people who desire well-defined pecs. What most bodybuilders and experienced exercises know, however, is that there are three pec muscles and each one requires different exercises to build strength, muscular endurance and size. These muscles collectively are known as the pecs, but it is more correct to classify them as the pectoralis major and pectoralis minor.
Pectoralis Major Exercises
The pectoralis major consists of two portions, the lower and upper. You can emphasize the upper chest by performing chest exercises on an incline. Performing exercises at a decline emphasizes the lower pecs. Chest exercises such as bench presses and pushups that are neither on an incline nor a decline work the pecs equally.
Other pectoralis major exercises include cable crossovers, chest flyes, using a pec deck machine, dumbbell pullovers and chest dips. There are many variations of these exercises, too, such as wall pushups, medicine ball pushups, knee pushups and stability ball pushups.
Pectoralis Minor Exercises
The pectoralis minor is much smaller than the pectoralis major. It connects from your shoulder blade to your third to fifth ribs. The job of this muscle is to abduct, downwardly rotate and depress your shoulder blades, or scapulae. This means to pull your shoulder blades away from each other and to push them down. Exercises that work the pec minor include the chest dip and cable standing fly with a cable machine. Your shoulder blades abduct when you bring your arms forward for a cable fly and when you press your body upward during a chest dip.
Training for Pec Strength
Training your pecs for muscular strength is not the same as training for endurance. For strength gains, you must lift heavy to very heavy weights with your pecs. This limits how many times you can lift the weights, called repetitions. One to 12 repetitions performed in sets of three to six increase strength.
To force your pecs to adapt by getting larger, train within a range for hypertrophy. Hypertrophy results when you perform three to four sets of eight to 12 reps. You use less sets because with eight to 12 reps, you perform more total repetitions than if you lift fewer than eight times.
Training for Pec Endurance
Training for muscular endurance lets you contract your pec muscles repeatedly without rest. It also trains your stabilizer muscles.To meet this fitness goal, use light weights of whatever weight you are able to lift for 12 to 25 repetitions. One to three sets is ideal for stabilization endurance training. You can use free weights for either strength or endurance training, but because machines -- instead of your muscles -- do the work of holding the weights in place, they are better for strength training than for endurance stabilization.
Training Program
Once you know your fitness goal, choose one to two exercises for your chest, and do them as part of full-body workouts three days a week, or as little as two days if you are a beginner. Include some pectoralis minor exercises in your weekly workouts, though you do not have to do one exercise each per workout, because chest exercises use both muscles to some degree.
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