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The chest is made up of 2 muscle groups, the Pectoralis Major and the Pectoralis Minor. However, when it comes to chest workouts and developing chest muscle, you don’t really have to worry about the minor muscle group. It sits under the major pec muscle mass, and although it develops as you workout, and helps you build strength, it doesn’t really contribute to the overall size and more importantly the look or mass of your chest.
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What’s more important is that you focus on the fact the Pectoralis Major muscle is worked as if it is 3 separate muscle groups.
This means that the best chest workout will include an upper, middle and lower chest exercises to develop all portions of the chest muscle mass.
Working these 3 separate areas of the chest is mainly achieved by changing the angle at which you carry out the various chest workout routines. For your upper chest incline the bench to an angle no greater than 45 degrees. For the lower chest, lower the head of the bench to a similar angle.
If you don’t have a bench or perhaps you are looking for the best home chest workout, it’s difficult to replicate the declined bench press position. But you can easily simulate the inclined bench press and target the upper chest by doing a push up with your feet elevated.
Simply put your feet on a chair and carry out the push up as normal. This transfers the workload to the upper chest.
Another upper chest workout using the push up, demands that you raise your bum in the air. Unlike the traditional push up where you hold your core strong and your body straight, here you create a V shape with your body (like the downward dog position in yoga) and your feet positioned in a wide stance for stability.
There is however a slight challenge with the exercise which can be easily overcome. Because of your angle, your head will hit the floor first, reducing the amount of movement you get in you chest, so my top tip is to you use push up bars. These allow you to get a much greater range of movement, plus I find they also take the load off your wrists, preventing strain or injury.
I’m not going to dictate which exercise to carry out, there are plenty of other articles, videos and posts at our website that will describe these, but I will suggest that for each of your chests workouts, you decide on an upper, middle or lower chest workout theme.
The exercises can be the same, but for each chest workout, decide to carry out those exercises in a flat, inclined or declined position. Changing the theme each time you workout not only works the different parts of the Pectoralis muscle for better shape best chest mass, but it also creates a certain amount of muscle confusion, which can also be great for stimulating growth.
