BUILDING MUSCLE MASS: CHEST

There's nothing quite like the feeling of leaving the gym with a completely blown out chest. Your pectorals are one of the biggest muscle groups in the body and therefore demand your attention and care to shape these potentially massive plates of muscle to the shelf of meat you desire. Building your chest is important as it is linked to your shoulders, back, arms and core. When people think about training the chest the one thing that pops into their head is the...the bench press, the almighty infallible bench press. But is the bench the best workout for your chest?

No, while the bench is a great exercise to use don't think that you can do a few sets of flat bench and be done. So what were going to go over are exercises that use both dumbbells and the barbell versions of bench style exercises, along with others as well.

Barbell Flat Bench

The flat bench as mentioned above is the king of the chest workout. It is very effective in developing the middle portions of the chest. A lot of pros like to use the flat bench as part of their warm up or around the mid-point of the workout.

Light Weight

4 sets
15-20 reps
30 sec rest

Medium Weight

4 sets
10-12 reps
30 sec rest

Heavy Weight

5 sets
5-7 reps
1 min rest

Dumbbell Bench Press

One of my favorite exercises and a very effective one at that. What these allow you to do that is so different from the barbell version is range of motion. Increased range of motion mean more stretching of the muscles through the contraction and more work for the muscles. Adding in simple dumbbell variations of exercises will help your muscle growth exponentially.

Medium Weight

4 sets
8-10 reps
30 sec res

Dumbbell Flys

Another Dumbbel Exercise that uses inreased range of motion. While performing the chest fly try not to spread your arms out too far as it will cause strain on the tendons and front delt and can cause injury.

Light Weight

3 sets
12-15 reps
30 sec rest

Medium Weight

3 sets
8-10 reps
30 sec rest

Incline Chest Press

The incline chest press works out the upper portion on the chest and can also be done with dumbbells for an increased range of motion.

Light weight

4 sets
15-20 reps
40 sec rest

Medium Weight

3 sets
8-10 reps
30 sec rest

Incline Chest Flys

These chest flys are similar to the flat bench style but targeted towards to upper portion of the chest.

Light Weight

4 sets
15-20 reps
30 sec rest

Medium Weight

4 sets
8-10 reps
30 sec rest

Decline Bench Press

The decline bench is a fun exercise personally and I'm not sure why I enjoy it so much. It can be a bit awkward at first if you've never done these as they require you to lie in an inverted position. The decline movements workout the lower portions of the chest.