2 Good Chest Workouts – Get Pecs Like Arnold!
Are you trying to build a wide, thick chest to give yourself that powerful look? Have you been toiling away at the bench press or chest machines to no avail? Of course your back, legs, and other muscle groups are important, but everyone wants that big, bulging chest that commands respect! Here are three good chest workouts that will help you sculpt the physique you want…
1. Simple and Effective
If you think your bodybuilding workouts need to be long and complicated, think again! There’s a saying that says eighty percent of your results come from twenty percent of your work, and building muscle is no exception. Do you think those easy exercises like flies and pec dec are what really builds a big chest? No way! Heavy movements are where it’s at.
For this workout, you’ll start with the classic, the barbell bench press. Don’t get sloppy, though! Plant your feet firmly on the floor, take a medium-width grip, and keep your shoulder blades tightly pinched together. Use a full range of motion and work up to 2-3 hard sets of 6-8 reps. These sets are the meat of your workout, so don’t get lazy! Move up in weight, reps, or both every time you do this workout.
After the bench press, you’ll have just two exercises left. Hit up the incline dumbbell press, and work up to 2 hard sets of 8-10 reps. Then, head to the dip station and bang out as many reps as you can with your bodyweight in 3 sets. Once you get to the point where you’re totaling 40-50 reps over those 3 sets, start adding extra weight.
2. Quick but Not Painless
Do you often find yourself in a hurry at the gym? If so, don’t worry! You can get good chest workouts in record time. If you don’t have time for your normal hard and heavy pec training, or if you’re just feeling too tired to make it through your normal routine, try this fast-paced and intense workout!
When you work with heavy weights, you’ve got to allow plenty of time to warm up properly and rest between sets. Therefore, you’ll need to take the weight down a notch in this workout and use training techniques that give you a killer pump and burn! Supersets, drop-sets, and higher reps are the name of the game for now.
Start the workout with a superset of dumbbell presses and dumbbell flies. This will allow you to get two exercises done on the same piece of equipment and save even more time. In case you don’t know, a superset simply involves doing as many reps as you can on one exercise and then immediately doing the same on another exercise. Once you’ve warmed up, do 3 rotations of 15 reps on the dumbbell press immediately followed by 20 reps on the flies. Once you’re done, your chest will already be pumped to the max!
Next, you’ll be doing drop-sets, which simply require you to perform as many reps as you can with a certain weight, lower the weight, and continue. An example would be performing 15 reps, lowering the weight, and performing another 10. It sounds simple, but it’s grueling! To be safe on your joints and allow you to continue your fast pace, head on over to your favorite machine bench press. Since you’re already warmed up, go straight into 3 drop-sets with as little rest between them as possible. You can pick the weight, but make sure each drop-set has a total of 20-25 reps!
To finish up the workout in just a few minutes, head on over to the cable crossover station and do 2-3 sets of 15-20 reps. It doesn’t matter exactly how much you do here, just that you end with a killer pump in your chest. If you have time at the end, do a couple of minutes of hard stretching on your pecs. This can help stretch the film that surrounds your muscles and allow them to grow even faster!