A chest exercise program is used to strengthen and tone your pectoral muscles. These muscles run along the front of your upper body. They are responsible for pushing and pulling movements of the upper body as well as supporting movements of the shoulders. A weekly chest exercise program can help improve your muscular composition and improve muscle function by improving stamina and strength.
Guidelines
Warming up and stretching will help prepare your muscles for activity and reduce your risk for injury. Move around for three to five minutes to help get the blood flowing; try arm circles, jogging or jumping jacks. After you are done working out, stretch your chest with a few static stretches. The chest stretch is beneficial for your pectoral muscles. Interlock your hands behind your back and lift your arms upward as high as you comfortably can.
Proper form is also vital for success in a chest exercise program. Always perform each repetition of each exercise in proper form. Never sacrifice your form to fit in another repetition. Improper form can lead to injury and will not help you gain any fitness results.
Frequency
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, you should complete at least two weekly sessions of strength training with eight to 10 exercises. You can perform three or four sessions of chest exercises each week as long as you allow enough time for your muscles to rest and recover. Rest periods allow your muscles to repair and grow. Wait at least 48 hours in between each workout.
Types of Exercises
There are two basic ways of lifting weights and performing strength exercises. You can make your goal to build a significant amount of muscle mass or improve your muscular endurance without adding a lot of size to your chest. To build more muscle mass, you need to lift heavy weights and perform low repetitions. That means for each exercise you perform, you need a weight that you can only perform six to eight repetitions with. To build endurance, you need to use lighter weights that allow you to perform 12 to 15 repetitions per exercise. Regardless of the goal you have in mind, the last three repetitions of any exercise should feel challenging.
Variety
Variety in your chest exercise program is also crucial to success. If you perform the same exercises over and over, your muscles will learn to adapt. As they adapt, you can hit a strength-training plateau. To avoid this from happening, try new exercises every three to five weeks. You will also need to shift the amount of weight you use over time. As the exercises become easier and the last three repetitions are no longer challenging, you will need to use a heavier weight.
Exercises
There are a variety of exercises you can perform for your chest muscles. You can perform bodyweight exercises such as pushups and dips. You can also use free weights, like dumbbells and medicine balls, to perform weighted exercises like the chest press and chest fly. If you primarily workout on weighted machines, you could perform the bench press, the butterfly or pec deck, and lying down chest press with them.
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