Advertisement
If you’re looking to build chest muscle, it’s important that you’re choosing your exercises wisely because the exercises you choose will have a large impact on the type of progress you make. Failing to include the right chest exercises in your workout program could result in slowed growth or even overuse injuries if not planned out properly.
Let’s have a quick look at the various exercises that you can use to build chest muscle so you can get a good feel for what you need to do.
Flat Barbell Bench Press
Likely the most well known exercise that you can use to build chest muscle is the flat barbell bench press. This exercise is ideal for those who are looking to gain the maximum amount of strength. Most people will find they’re lifting the most weight while doing the exercise compared to some of the other exercises they may decide to complete.
This exercise will primarily hit the sternal pectoralis major muscle; however it’s also going to call the clavicular pectoralis muscle into play as well as the deltoid and triceps that will act with the sternal pec muscle to really drive the weight up there.
Advertisement
Incline Bench Press
The next exercise to build chest muscle, and likely the one that’s most common after the flat bench press is the incline bench press. This one is going to work primarily the same muscles as the flat bench however now it’s also going to target the shoulders as well.
If you plan on doing this within your upper body workout program, you may find you’re weaker if you’re also doing a shoulder press, so it’s something to be aware of. You may consider doing the shoulder press on another day throughout the workout week or just using this exercise or the shoulder press instead.
Chest Fly’s
Moving on, the third exercise that you can use to build chest muscle is chest fly’s. While the other two exercises above are more compound in nature as they’ll also really hit the triceps, this exercise tends to place the focus more intensely just on that chest muscle.
The primary muscle it’s going to hit is the pectoralis major and it’ll really help to bring out that dividing line between the two chest muscles.
Chest Dip
Finally, if you’re looking for a full upper body strengthening exercise, this movement really can’t be beat. The chest dip can be performed with or without weight so the difficulty can definitely be adjusted based on your own personal requirements.
This exercise to build chest muscle is going to also hit the sternal pectroalis major muscle but will also call into play a number of different muscles as well. You’ll work the anterior deltoid, the triceps, the clavicular pectoralis major, the pectoralis minor, the rhomboids, the latissimus dorsi, as well as the teres major. When this one is added to your workout, you’ll really cut back on the number of additional exercises that need to be completed.
So be sure that you’re keeping these main chest building exercises in mind. You shouldn’t be performing them all in a single workout however having a nice mix as you progress throughout your workout routine is something to aim for.