The Basics of Building Your Chest

When it comes to bodybuilding your chest is where your physique begins. As the center of the body’s mass, it holds a position of natural dominance over other bodyparts. When you see an impressive physique, your eye naturally focuses first at that center of mass, then follows with the assimilation of other details of the form. Because the chest is so conspicuous, it must be fully developed, thick and full on the top, sides and bottom, with strong shoulder tie-ins and separations.

That’s why the chest is the first bodypart I work in my training cycle. I train six days a week, twice a day, hitting the entire body twice during that period. Mondays and Thursdays I work chest in the morning, followed by triceps, then shoulders later in the day. Tuesdays and Fridays are for legs, and Wednesdays and Saturdays, for back and biceps. As you can see, I use the push-pull technique, throwing legs in between the two.

Prior to chest training, I always warm up my shouders with a few stretching movements, since the shoulders - especially mine - are stressed so heavily during a chest workout.

I mix up my chest exercises quite a bit. Some days I go with dumbbells; other days I’ll go with the straight bar. Lately, however, I’ve been staying with dumbbell movements because they seem to provide a much fuller extension and contraction, and, especially important in my case, they prevent my shoulders from coming into play as much. In fact, at times my shoulders have been an impediment to my efforts to maximize my chest development in that they take over the chest exercises. Even when I bring the barbell down in strict fashion, my shoulders always come into play first. Next, my triceps take over, and last is my chest. So in using dumbbells, I can concentrate that work directly into my chest from the start of each rep.

That’s not to say I don’t use barbells, because I like the feel of the heavy bar. It’s just that I have to work hard to position my body and arms properly if I want to minimize shoulder involvement. Along these lines there is one barbell technique that has worked well for me — keeping my elbows close to my body while using a false grip.

Bodybuilding Chest Routine
Simple, full, heavy, basic movements have worked best for my chest. They have brought it up considerably, so my program now is based on three exercises of four sets each for eight to 12 reps per set. I begin with flat bench dumbbell presses, and while it is a basic exercise, I vary it frequently, sometimes twisting the dumbbells as I press them upward and at other times keeping them in a fixed position.

The second exercise is the incline dumbbell press or, at times, an incline barbell press.

I finish with incline flyes. For these, I vary the motion constantly. Sometimes I touch the bottoms as I bring them up, sometimes the tops and sometimes the sides. I also contract different areas of my chest, depending upon which area I want to work.

Bodybuilding Chest With Free Weights
Since I try to hit my chest from all angles, I will often substitute other exercises for flyes in successive workouts, such as incline flyes, decline barbell presses and pullovers. (For pullovers, I lie lengthwise on the bench, bend my elbows slightly and bring the dumbbell no further forward than my forehead in order to concentrate the work into my upper chest.)

As you can see, for building mass I am a firm advocate of free weights. However I sometimes like to add cable exercises to really striate my chest. When I use cables, it’s from many different angles - standing, kneeling, lying on a bench, inclined, and at times pulling them together downward, other times straight to the front, and at still others, upward. Cables usually involve five sets for as many reps as I can get, up to 20.

Beginners should take a couple of basic movements and go with one or two sets. Their major objective should not be to lift as much weight as they can, but to concentrate on becoming accustomed to using the barbell or dumbbells correctly without worrying about their muscles getting bigger.

The idea is to keep it simple - only a few sound, basic exercises are needed in your bodybuilding chest training. That works better than anything. Then, constantly think your chest to the development stage you want, and eventually it will respond with explosive growth.