Pectus excavatum is a condition where your breastbone is sunken, making your chest look like it is caving inward. It is more common in males than females and is usually present at birth, but it may worsen during adolescence. In severe cases, pectus excavatum can cause a decreased exercise tolerance, respiratory infections, chest pain and heart murmurs; however, most cases are fairly mild, and while it may affect your self-confidence, training is not likely to cause further complications. Weight training can in fact build muscle, which improves the appearance of your chest.
Step 1
Train your chest twice per week. If there is one particular muscle group you wish to focus on improving, then train it at a higher frequency. In one workout, perform all your exercises with moderately heavy weights for four to six sets of five to eight reps. In your second session, lower the weight and do two to three sets of 12 to 15 reps.
Step 2
Start your workout with a bench press. Place your hands shoulder-width on the bar and have a spotter help you un-rack it. Lower the bar to your chest under control, pause for half a second, then explosively lift it up again. Corrective exercise specialist Mike Robertson recommends drawing your shoulder blades together and keeping your elbows tucked in throughout the movement to avoid shoulder and elbow injuries. Use a weight that is difficult but enables you to complete all your sets with good technique.
Step 3
Do a superset of pushups and dumbbell flys as your next exercises. Charles Poliquin, owner of the Poliquin Performance Center for elite athletes, advises that supersets -- where you do two exercises back to back with no rest between -- are a very effective way to stimulate muscle growth and boost your training capacity. Perform a set of pushups with perfect technique form, then grab a pair of dumbbells and do a set of flys lying on a weight bench. In your heavy session, wear a weight vest or raise your feet on boxes to make the pushups harder, and change the weight of the dumbbells when doing flys.
Step 4
Eat a healthy, high-calorie diet. To build muscle, you need to consume more calories than you burn. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends that females eat between 1800 and 2400 calories and males eat between 2000 and 3000 calories per day to maintain weight. To gain weight, start off slightly above these guidelines and adjust your intake in accordance with your progress. Base your diet around meat, fish, dairy products, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds and whole grains.
Things You'll Need
- Well-equipped gym
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