Welcome to fit24vibes, your ultimate destination for all things fitness! If you’re looking to build a strong, impressive and muscular chest, you’ve came to the right place. In this article, we’ve put the ultimate guide for the best chest workout at the gym, designed to help you achieve maximum gains and desire physique chest. We’ll cover a range of exercises, from the classic bench press to effective dumbbell movements, instructions and muscle group it target ensuring you have a comprehensive plan for your chest day
WHY CHEST WORKOUTS ARE CRUCIAL?
Before diving into the best chest workout at the gym, it’s essential to understand why chest workouts are crucial. Chest muscles, particularly the pectoralis major, pecs in short, require much attention and time-consuming as they are one of the largest muscle groups in a human body.
The Chest Muscles is made of 2 muscles groups:
- The Pectoralis Major (attached to the front of the body on the rib cage. This muscle helps to move the shoulder joint and attaches the arms to the body.)
- The Pectoralis Minor (sits underneath the Pectoralis Major and helps to move the shoulder forward.)
A well-developed chest not only enhances your physique but also improves your overall strength. For the upper body, your chest muscles is crucial because it contribute to plenty of movements! Moving your arms up and down, pressing, and pulling are movements that your chest helps facilitate. Since chest exercises is both essential for men and women, most anyone can find chest workouts incredibly useful, especially for daily tasks. Strong chest muscles support various upper body movements and can help prevent injuries. Additionally, a solid and perfect chest workout can boost your confidence and contribute to a balanced, muscular look.
Benefits of Chest Exercises
- Strengthen and Build Upper Body– Chest exercises not only strengthen the muscles but also strengthen and build the upper body tone muscles. While performing the chest exercises (i.e. push-up) it cover the biceps, triceps, shoulder and back.
- Improve Posture and Confidence– Not only it build the chest muscles it improve the posture of your body as it is also target the back muscles and bone. With posture it bring confidence and boost self-personality with a defined chest.
- Improve Blood Circulation– The chest exercises include push and pull movement with weight and bodyweight. The repetitive movement enable the better flow of blood which your brain sharp and heart health.
- Versatile Workout– The chest exercises is versatile workout at home and at gym where you can perform with weight and bodyweight.
The Best Chest Workout at the Gym
At fit24vibes we will explore the best chest workout at the gym which is divided into several key exercises, targeting different parts of your chest. This full chest workout at the gym will ensure you hit the pectoralis major and minor muscles from various angles for optimal growth.
Here are the 5 best chest workout at the gym which you can try and add in your workout routine:
1. Bench Press
The bench press is a compound chest exercise that targets the upper body muscles which involved the Pectoralis major and minor, the anterior deltoids, and the triceps brachii.
It involves lying stable on the bench and pressing weight upwards either using a barbell or a pair of dumbbells. During the bench press, you lower the desire weight down to the chest level and pressing the weight upwards while extending your arms. The movement is known as one repetition or reps.
The bench press have various variations for chest workouts and each work on different muscle groups of chest. It include barbell or dumbbell bench press, incline or decline bench press or depending on the grip of your hand neutral or reverse.
Instruction:
- Lie on your back flat on a bench with your feet firmly planted on the ground. Grip the barbell or dumbbells with hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
- Engage your core and maintain a neutral spine posture throughout the movement which will avoid arching your back.
- Lower the bar or dumbbells slowly to your chest, keeping your elbows at a 45-degree angle from the body.
- Hold the bar or dumbbell at the chest level for few secs and push the bar or dumbbells upward at the starting point along extending your arms.
- Perform the movement for 10-12 reps depend upon the weight used up to 3 sets.
Tips:
- Keep your back straight on bench and core engaged throughout the movement.
- Don’t lock your elbows at the top to maintain tension in the chest muscles.
- Don’t allow the dumbbells to touch each other at the top of rep as it will bounce back together may cause you to lose stability and injure yourself.
- Squeeze the bar or dumbbells as tight as possible which promotes the shoulder stability.
- If you feeling pain in shoulder joint during the reps them make sure to your shoulder blades are pinched together.
- Keep your feet flat on the ground during the movement and don’t allow the lower body to move during the set.
2. Incline Bench Press
The incline bench press is also a compound chest workout and one of the variations of bench press which target the upper chest muscles involve the Pectoralis Major. The main focus of this chest exercises is to work more on the upper pecs.
It is perform by lying on the bench but by setting the bench at an incline position (i.e. 15 to 30 degree) and pressing weight upward either using the barbell or a pairs of dumbbell. When you perform the incline bench press, you also activate shoulder(deltoids) more since it is comparable to shoulder press so you do not need to work for shoulder next day.
Instruction:
- Lie on the incline bench by adjusting the angle at 15 to 30 degree as you required and place the feet firmly to ground.
- Hold the dumbbell in each hand or barbell using the shoulder width grip and make sure the elbows should be at 90 degree angle.
- Lift the bar or dumbbells straight above your chest with your arms locked.
- As you inhale, low down the weight slowly until the bar or dumbbells is an inch away from the chest and hold this position to one count of movement
- With one big exhale, push the weight to the starting point and hold and again make for another movement.
Tips:
- Keep your back straight on incline bench and core engaged throughout the movement. Make sure the bench mechanic is set properly.
- Don’t lock your elbows at the top to maintain tension in the chest muscles.
- Always keep your arms at 45 degree and tucked at your side.
- Don’t allow the dumbbells to touch each other at the top of rep as it will bounce back together may cause you to lose stability and injure yourself.
- Squeeze the bar or dumbbells as tight as possible which promotes the shoulder stability.
- If you feeling pain in shoulder joint during the reps them make sure to your shoulder blades are pinched together.
- Keep your feet flat on the ground during the movement and don’t allow the lower body to move during the set.
3. Push Ups
The push ups is common chest exercises performed by raising and lowering your bodyweight with your arms on ground. As it target the most of body muscles such as triceps, deltoids, back, biceps, core, scapula and other muscles depend upon the variations of push ups you perform.
Push-ups are the basic exercises that human can perform as it also uses in the training procedure, physical education and defence training. In the most of defence services, it is known as punishment of disciplines.
The push-ups have various variations for chest workouts such as normal push-ups, diamond push-ups, knuckle push-ups, clap push-ups, incline or decline push-ups, push-ups with dumbbell or weight plate and many more.
Instructions:
- Get your body on the floor with support of all limbs on ground.
- Keep your palm width-open and arms little bit away from shoulder-width.
- Keep your knees straight, hips tucked, back slightly curve and core tight throughout the movement.
- Now inhale and slowly lower the elbow toward ground where face pointing down and hold the elbow for one count.
- Now exhale and slower push your body at starting point from the ground until arms are extending straight.
- You can perform the push-ups as per your body level but for beginner do 10-15 reps of 3 sets.
Tips:
- Your knees and back need to be straight throughout the movement.
- When you lower down the body, your elbow should need to be at 45 degree angle.
- Don’t curve the back while performing the push-ups, the hips, knees, and back are need to be align with shoulder straight.
- If you are beginner and getting difficult to stand on 4 limbs then fold your knees otherwise you can do the push-ups on higher altitude from ground.
- To increase the intensity of push-ups you can use weighted plate on back and perform it but the weight need to place at upper back.
4. Chest Dips
The chest dips is one of the most advanced bodyweight exercises which is performed on parallel bars or on a pull bar and dip station. It primarily target the chest, triceps, shoulders and core muscles.
The chest dips is performed by raising yourself to the parallel bar with torso leaning forward and the elbows out from the torso. Changing the angle of torso allows you to put more focus on chest and triceps
Instructions:
- Grab a parallel bar or dip bar and raise yourself so you can stand over the bar with your elbows fully extended.
- Slightly tilt your body forward and curl your legs. It will put your weight to the shoulder, elbows, and wrists.
- Tilt your body more and extend your chest forward for more advantageous position.
- Inhale and lower yourself until your elbows at 90 degree but maintain your body’s rigid position during the repetition.
- When you fell good stretch on your pecs, push your body with your elbows at 90 degree at the starting point and exhale out.
Tips:
- During the movement keep the shoulder, back pulled back and chest raised.
- The more you lean forward at the angle the more it will recruit your chest muscles.
- Tilt your body till 90 degree before pushing back which will protect the shoulders.
- You can add weight to your bodyweight using dumbbells b\w your feet, weighted belt, or dipping belt for advanced chest dips.
5. Cable Flyes
The cable flyes is the isolated and chest workout variations using the cable machine to target the chest muscles (pectorals major and minor), along with deltoids, and triceps .
The cable flyes is performed on cable machine which have 2 cables with a single handle attachment. The placement of cable pulleys can be altered to emphasis the upper or lower portion of chest. If the cables is place on lower position it emphasis the upper chest, the high position emphasis the lower chest, and the shoulder height emphasis the middle chest.
The cable flyes has other variations like seated cable flyes, dumbbell chest flyes, incline or decline dumbbell chest flyes, and dumbbell floor flyes.
Instructions:
- Set the cable pulley machines as per your requirement i.e., high, low, or middle with a single handle attachment on each.
- Stand away from the cable machines, have a proper grip on each handle and step forward in a lurched position.
- Start by pushing the cable handles in front of your chest together where palm facing each other.
- Allow the handles to move towards the cable machine making sure the arms moves in a arc direction with a soft bend in elbow.
- Squeeze the chest when handles are together in line, push through the arms extend and slowly bring the handles back in starting position with same arc movement.
Tips:
- You can set up the cable machine at different height to target the different muscle groups in chest.
- Make sure to step forward in staggered position.
- Maintain the arc movement when you push the handles together the chest.
- Select the weight which allow you have a soft bend in elbow and don’t loch the elbow.
HOW TO STRUCTURE YOUR CHEST WORKOUT PLAN?
To structure your best chest workout, i recommend to include all the best chest workout you have explore above in your chest day program at least twice a week.
To progress your chest workout is to simply add weight. As it is the easiest and most effective way to progress as it is measured easily. But i recommend you to start your progress with less weight as it will ensure consistent progress
But don’t continue the same progress for a long run, when you fell comfortable to your schedule structure it is time to increase the weight or sets.
Perform the following chest exercises in the order listed below, where you can change the structure as per your requirement:
- Bench Press: 4 sets of 8-12 reps
- Incline Bench Press: 4 sets of 10-12 reps
- Push-Ups: 4 sets of 20-25 reps
- Chest Dips: 4 sets of 10-12 reps
- Cable Flyes: 4 sets of 8-12 reps
Make ensure that you should perform all these workouts in a proper form but at the beginning start with a warm-up sets for 5-7 reps so that your muscles memory will wake for the performance and take a rest between the sets for 1-2 minutes for recovery time.
If you are beginner, keep the rep range max. for 2-3 sets with less weight which are your are comfortable to lift. For intermediate and advance, you can increase the weight and perform 10-15 reps for 4-5 sets.
Including the best chest workout at the gym into your fitness routine can lead you to achieve strength and muscle gains. By focusing on the mix of compound and isolation workouts, you can engage your chest muscles effectively and achieve a well-rounded, powerful physique. Remember, to stay consistent and disciplined as they are the key to any success. Keep pushing and exploring yourself, trust the process, and you’ll see impressive results.
I hope that by following fit24vibes, you’ll be on your way to developing a strong and impressive chest. Happy Lifting!
