rich2814m's picture
rich2814m
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How to built a bigger chest??

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Just looking for some views on how to build a bigger chest, been working out forever off and on and been on for a good 6 months now and still cant seem to build my chest up in strength or size, If anyone has some good pointers on how to remedy this problem it would be greatly appreciated..

Bulkdaddy's picture

1 min pause between sets
Flat bench 6 sets 15,12,10,4,4,15
Incline 4 sets 12,12,10,10
Machine chest press 4 drop sets (10,10,10) 30reps
Pec Deck 4 drop sets (12,10,10) 32 reps

Plus depends on your food too. Take plenty of carbs and protein before and after workout...

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DfromPhilly's picture

Weighted dips. Hands down had the biggest impact on my chest size. Back when I was trying to gain size I dropped bench press as my main chest movement and swapped it in with weighted dips. My chest blew up.

When I went back to benching my bench had gone up like 40lbs, and I hadn’t benched in 6 months.

  • Weighted dips (heavy! Like 3 reps heavy for 7-8 sets. Working up is ok they don’t all have to be the same weight, just make sure no sets are easy)
  • Incline Dumbell bench (med 8-12)
  • Incline barbell (heavy 4-6)
  • Flat dumbbell with your hands pronated and wide at the bottom of the rep and neutral grip and close at the top of the rep. (Med 8-12)
  • Dumbell Flys (light 15-20)
  • cable cross overs (light 15-20)

Split them up into 2 days of the week. One heavy, one med and one light each day.

Oh... and don’t forget your back! Work your back as much as chest. That’ll help keep ur shoulders healthy and keep ur posture nice and tight. Plus, you don’t wanna be lopsided guy.

Killdec's picture

Sounds like solid advice, I'm gonna give that a try next chest day as bench is usually my main.
I love cable cross overs (from various inclines) get a great pump from them.

DfromPhilly's picture

Dude give it a shot for 6 months. If you have healthy shoulders you’ll thank me. (And make sure to hit back AT LEAST as much as chest to keep ur shoulders healthy... preferably more). Chest twice a week like I laid out above, with weighted dips as your main mover. That’s your bread and butter. Everything else is just assistance and covering your bases to make sure it’s good and damaged.

I’d recommend splitting the workouts with back to make sure you’re treating them equally, but even if you don’t, just make sure you’re balanced throughout the week between the two. You know what fills out a shirt? A big back. You know what helps build a great bench? A strong back. You know what is super important for a good squat? A strong back. You know what’s pivotal for a big deadlift? A strong back. You know what builds biceps really well? Heavy back work. Healthy shoulders? You guessed it!... You see where I’m going with this. My only point is don’t neglect it while you focus on chest unless it’s already way bigger than ur chest.

As far as the crossovers go, they give a good pump but they are a finisher. Just remember that. They’ll help finish off a worn out chest to make sure it’s nice and cooked with plenty of blood in them but that’s all they are.

Enjoy and good luck! Don’t forget to eat and sleep or that will be all for nothing

GreatSpear's picture

I’ve heard some big names in fitness and bodybuilding talk about building a big chest, the quote that sticks out most in my mind is this one: “have you ever seen a guy who can bench 365 who had a small chest?” The guy in quotes was a professional bodybuilder and focused solely on looks, not strength, when he changed his workouts to focus on strength and get stronger in bench press his chest muscles grew in size too. By focusing on strength, not hypertrophy he actually achieved his goal of hypertrophy that was stalled out.

DfromPhilly's picture

That’s likely because of the assistance work he was doing for bench (although heavy bench certainly helped)

Flat barbell bench isn’t typically a great chest builder, it’s a great strength movement. The chest accessories you do to help bring your bench up are usually the builders. Usually.

That said, when I started training for strength, I stopped caring about size but got bigger anyway. I attribute that to heavy shit, sure, but mostly to the assistance work that came after it to bring up weak points/lagging muscles.

tonymontanaa's picture

different formation of push ups helps a lot, to make upper chest and lower chest work !

You should exhaust the chest muscles and continue protein diet until u realize the difference.

meliodas's picture

geometry dash basketball legends
The day passed quickly and I realized I couldn't forget

DfromPhilly's picture

Lol. Is it bad that I kind of miss him?

The only downside to him is that some people might actually take his advice.

EDIT: ok I lied there’s a lot of downside to him. But it was amusing to watch

DfromPhilly's picture

MONSTER!!! Lmao!

But yea ur right his advice was too fucked to keep around.

Bill1976's picture

No way!!! Lies

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albert1122's picture

This is a to a great degree rationally and physically difficult exercise, the primary exercise will make them cry if done ideal before the day's over you will have crushed each muscle fiber, objective is most extreme blood stream and super pumps, pick a weight where you are fizzling at 15 reps each set, don't cheat, regularly need to diminish weight as your sets increment, try it out I am truly loving this for chest...

Anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination

johnmarshall12's picture

I have the same problem. My chest is my weakest upper body part. So what I do is use varied routines, negative reps on bench and work my chest more often than other upper body parts!

PGA's picture

Do you actually feel your chest working when you train chest? A lot of people tend to be shoulder/tricep dominant, so when they “work chest” their shoulders/triceps are doing most of the work. If that’s the case, then you need to evaluate your technique (E.g grip width, elbow position, where you lower the bar to) and work on your muscle to mind connection.

bigbob's picture

wider grip dips work very well, when you can do them weighted with a deep stretch for around 10 reps your pecs will grow.

stevey7's picture

Through trial and error you will learn what works for you everyone is different and telling you what too do may not work for you,but I will say this too many people train the chest too heavy and defeat the purpose of feeling the muscle do the work,don't be afraid to lighten the load and feel that muscle burn and hit with a good amount of volume good luck brother

leanbulk819's picture

something that worked for me is at the end of my workout, whether it was high reps or low reps, burning out the rest of my energy by doing as many pushups as possible. always end with a nice pump

soniaspring's picture

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Makwa's picture

I think you might be a little lost

Neko9's picture

master proper flat bench press mechanics.
Nail the bar path.
Rest pause the reps going all the way down to your chest. You will stimulate more fast twitch fibers this way. Control the weight Throughout.

NGaKo's picture

When I started I also had a problem to grow my chest.

What was really important for me is the muscle-mind connection because I was using my shoulders to much back then.

Another thing that helped was the volume and the way you use it.

I got best results when I started heavy.

For example:

I start bench press 6 sets 2 warm up sets 15 reps then 3 working sets 3 to 6 reps and one last set with 10 reps.

After this I go for DB incline bench 5 sets 2 warm up sets 10 reps each and then 3 working sets 8-4 reps.

Then I'm trying to get blood in my chest so I go for Cable Flys 4 sets with 3 different angles 5 for each angle and this 3 times so total of 45 reps each set.

Then I go for hammer strength incline press machine.
4 sets each with 5 full reps, 5 half reps, 5full reps, 5 half reps so total of 20 reps each set.

The last exercise I use to finish and kill my chest is machine flys.
I go for fast 7 here that means 7 sets with 15 to 20 seconds break between sets.
Weight gets adjusted to get 12 reps each set.

That's what works for me really good and I use this workout in periods of 8 to 12 weeks 3 to 4 times a year between I switch the exercises so I don't get used to it.

kdebless's picture

What you need to Do, and this helped me is hold the eccentric part of the movement every time your benching or especially when doing flys.Also finish chest with dips and again hold and stretch at the bottom until your chest feels like a bitch...Go for it

Keepmovingforward's picture

Everyone is different and you might have to try a lot of different things before you find what works best for you. One thing that I found helpful was Dorian Yates workouts. He gets shit done. Here’s a link to his chest/bicep workout. Dude is a beast and he trains his son who is also a beast so he must know what he’s doing. Hope it helps.

https://youtu.be/0rLpLlBliQw

leanbulk819's picture

my advice is to always do chest with a spotter, for me i go a lot harder when im with someone else....the workouts are so much better

Ozninjaguy's picture

I consider that I have a reasonably well developed chest (trying not to sound boastful here) - I have trained for many years and my basic chest routine is: incline press, flat bench press, decline press, close grip flat bench press, pullovers, dips and finish with either dumbbell or cable flies. I have always started with inclines because the upper chest is difficult to develop. You have to go heavy. Just what has worked for me.

Dballin412's picture

Well strength vs size are 2 different goals. If your looking for aesthetics w moderately high strength then certain methods are more productive. Looking for strength gains is totally different and may not be as aesteticly pleasing such as power lifters.

That being said I been following a chest workout by one of the best chests in the IFBB industry, AJ Ellison. AJ is all about high volume when it comes to having a massive and aesthetic chest. His workout is as stated

notes
*warm up properly
* stretch between sets
*always goto failure
* practice mind to muscle connection
* 60 second rest period

Workout 1. Flat bench -10 sets of 15 reps
Workout 2. Cable flys - 5 sets of 15 reps
Workout 3. Incline DB press 5 sets of 15 reps

This is an extremely mentally and physically challenging workout. The first workout will have you crying if done right by the end of the day you will have destroyed every muscle fiber. Goal is maximum blood flow and super pumps. Pick a weight where you are failing at 15 reps every set! Don't cheat! Typically have to decrease weight as your sets increase. Give it a try I'm really liking this for chest!

Sam I Am's picture

I recently had a sore shoulder. A friend suggested I do reverse grip bench presses. I did for six weeks and am surprised to say they really hit my upper pecs and no shoulder pain at all. Shoulders fine now and Ive added bench back in and dropped the incline presses. I feel the reverse grip in my upper chest more than incline presses. Shoulder is happier to.

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GreatSpear's picture

Dang, wish I read this earlier today! It was bench day and would have loved to have tried this. I’ll save it for 3 days from now. Hitting upper chest has been hard for me, so I’m excited to give this a shot. Thanks!

Keepmovingforward's picture

I noticed I get a much tighter squeeze when doing reverse grip, definitely works well for me.

GizmoDuck's picture

For Sure.. I love the reverse grip flat for upper chest so much more

professer X's picture

Focus on upper chest...rarely to you see an over developed upperchest in proportion to middle and lower.....it seems in my experience the upper chest , when developed sets apart an okay chest to a great one.......but not all exercises work for everyone. To get my upper chest to fill in i had to experiment to find rhe movements where i felt that part of the chest doing the work. You cant just bang out reps. ...have to feel it and squeeze

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rawmustard's picture

This is an old post but why not.....my chest has always been a strong point. My buddies say I have the same shape as the great oak did in his day. Maybe their blind? Early on I learned that pushups, all sorts of variations really blew that sucker up and I mean quick. Hundreds, thousands, I did them all the time.
Another thing that may help you is I do this also, I’ll start at say an incline but even if it’s flat or decline. I do 5 sets start weight for example, 60lb dumbbells. 15 reps then I cut the weight in half and double the reps going right into it 30lbs for 30 reps. And as I go up the weight increases and the reps drop but whatever I drop to I double that number of reps on my superset. Really gets all those fibers stretching filling the chest up with blood. Give it a shot, you can do this technique with anything but I’d recommend doing it in the beginining then moving on to your other lifts.

fitnessfreak69's picture

Building your upper chest with doing incline exercises helps a lot to build a big chest, from there of course its always good to hit flat bench/dumbbells and decline along with flys. sets of 12-15 heavy reps seems to be best for building muscle. I like to finish at the end with weighed pushups and chest dips. I start with a 45 on my back. the 45 &25 then 2 plates, then 2 & 25... then I will go 2 &25 and drop set to regular pushups and at the end you shouldn't be able to do a push up or if you can.. you at least should have a good finish and an awesome pump.. Also go very stong along with a lot of size with this method.

Gracy's picture

You just have to expand and relax your chest exercises to get benefitted

Eagles 2013's picture

I know this is an old post, but to anyone who may pick it up looking for advice on how to build your chest, or if you are struggling to do so I would recommend the first thing you do is to find someone with a strong and well developed chest and have them evaluate and critique your form. Form is everything with chest. Very minor adjustments can be the difference between not activating your chest and only working the front portion of your delts/triceps and isolating your pecs. If your properly activating your pecs you can work your ass off for years without seeing results

Gracy's picture

I have followed the below steps to expand my chest. Currently my measurements are 40 inch on expand and 34 on relax. I just wanted to increase further to 45 inches.

Steps to be followed:

1) Stand straight with hands beside your body.

2) Bring your hands in front parallel to the shoulders and join the palms.

3) With deep breathing spread hands side-wise and expand chest.

4) Again while breathing out bring your hands to its previous position and be normal.

MassGainz's picture

I always hit pronated bench presses, once I started working in supinated my upper cheat started to see great results. In terms of a strong chest, you got to hit that upper chest.

stevey7's picture

There has been a few posts on this subject and from my experience what helped me was to lower the weight and slow down my rep speed and controlling the negative which increases time under tension,I was an ego lifter for years and got no where I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong until I see this bodybuilder at one gym I was at with some serious chest who trained super slow with a weight that would impress no one so it says it all,good luck bro.

Soldier74's picture

Have you had any progress lately??

Manshit's picture

my favorite is to super set multiple angles.Like decline bench followed by incline flys and then flat bench.follow all that with peck dec.Then next workout flip it pre exaust with the peck dec and then super set.

Soldier74's picture

Mind to muscle connection is key for any muscle growth. Heavy weight low volume for strength. Lighter weight high volume for hypertrophy(size). Get the pump, feel the burn, lower the weight slowly squeeze at the top of the movement. And proper diet, of course. Muscles need fed to grow. Rest.

Griffo13's picture

Inclines with dumbbells are obviously a must. Experiment with the angel and see which one you feel hits your upper chest most. Fly movements where your elbow is moving higher then your clavicle hit it the hardest imo

helloBrooklyn's picture

Looks like all the basic press and fly movements have been covered.

Dips, both bodyweight and weighted, done feet in front with a gunslinger grip and a slight lean forward, will put some mass on that chest.

I like to drape heavy chains around my neck Branch Warren style Smile

Pale's picture

Guillotine presses and flat bench fly's.