Wednesday, January 27, 2021
  • Home
  • Deals
  • Advertising
  • Contact Us
Bodybuilding, Fitness, CrossFit, Strongman and Powerlifting
  • Mr. OlympiaHOT
  • Workouts
    • All
    • Arms
    • Back
    • Cardio
    • Chest
    • Core
    • Legs
    • Workout Plans
    Lower Body Strength Routines

    7 Powerful Lower Body Strength Routines

    How to Avoid Hip Pain

    13 Ways to Avoid Hip Pain in The Gym

    Calisthenics Training

    Calisthenics Training: A Beginner’s Guide

  • Nutrition
    • All
    • Essential Nutrients
    • Nutrition Tips
    Ronnie Coleman

    What Did Ronnie Coleman Eat in His Prime?

    Healthiest Ways To Eat Eggs

    Eggcellent Nutrition Tips: Healthiest Ways To Eat Eggs

    Break Through Keto Plateau

    How To Break Through Keto Plateau and Achieve New Fat Loss

  • Training
  • Exercises
    • All
    • Arms
    • Back
    • Chest
    • Core
    • Legs and Glutes
    • Shoulders
    Bent-Over Two-Arm Dumbbell Row Guide and Videos

    Bent-Over Two-Arm Dumbbell Row Guide and Videos

    Kroc Rows Vs Pendlay Rows

    Kroc Rows Vs. Pendlay Rows – Which One Is Best?

    Dumbbell Lying Pronation

    Dumbbell Lying Pronation Exercise Guide and Videos

    Side Delt Exercises

    Best Side Delt Exercises for Broader, More Powerful Shoulders

    Dumbbell Lying Rear Lateral Raise

    Dumbbell Lying Rear Lateral Raise Exercise Guide and Videos

    Long Head Triceps Exercises

    The Best Long Head Triceps Exercises for Thicker, Stronger Arms

    Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension

    How To Do The Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension

    Box Jump Exercise Guide

    Box Jump Exercise Guide – Muscles Worked, How-to, Tips, and Variations

    Dumbbell Iron Cross Exercise

    Dumbbell Iron Cross Exercise Guide and Videos

  • Food FactsTrending
  • News
    • Deals
    • Videos
    • Bodybuilding
    • CrossFit
    • Powerlifting
    • Strongman
    • MMA
  • Reviews
    • All
    • Lifting Gear & Accessories
    • Supplements
    9 Strongest Pre-Workout Supplements

    11 Strongest Pre Workout Supplements in 2021

    Pre Workouts Without Creatine

    12 Best Pre-Workouts Without Creatine For 2021

    Powerlifting Singlet

    Powerlifting Singlets: All You Need To Know (Reviewed)

    Trending Tags

    • Ample
    • pre-workout
    • Meal Replacement
    • Pre-Kaged
No Result
View All Result
Fitness Volt: Bodybuilding, Fitness, CrossFit, Strongman and Powerlifting
  • Mr. OlympiaHOT
  • Workouts
    • All
    • Arms
    • Back
    • Cardio
    • Chest
    • Core
    • Legs
    • Workout Plans
    Lower Body Strength Routines

    7 Powerful Lower Body Strength Routines

    How to Avoid Hip Pain

    13 Ways to Avoid Hip Pain in The Gym

    Calisthenics Training

    Calisthenics Training: A Beginner’s Guide

  • Nutrition
    • All
    • Essential Nutrients
    • Nutrition Tips
    Ronnie Coleman

    What Did Ronnie Coleman Eat in His Prime?

    Healthiest Ways To Eat Eggs

    Eggcellent Nutrition Tips: Healthiest Ways To Eat Eggs

    Break Through Keto Plateau

    How To Break Through Keto Plateau and Achieve New Fat Loss

  • Training
  • Exercises
    • All
    • Arms
    • Back
    • Chest
    • Core
    • Legs and Glutes
    • Shoulders
    Bent-Over Two-Arm Dumbbell Row Guide and Videos

    Bent-Over Two-Arm Dumbbell Row Guide and Videos

    Kroc Rows Vs Pendlay Rows

    Kroc Rows Vs. Pendlay Rows – Which One Is Best?

    Dumbbell Lying Pronation

    Dumbbell Lying Pronation Exercise Guide and Videos

    Side Delt Exercises

    Best Side Delt Exercises for Broader, More Powerful Shoulders

    Dumbbell Lying Rear Lateral Raise

    Dumbbell Lying Rear Lateral Raise Exercise Guide and Videos

    Long Head Triceps Exercises

    The Best Long Head Triceps Exercises for Thicker, Stronger Arms

    Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension

    How To Do The Dumbbell Lying Triceps Extension

    Box Jump Exercise Guide

    Box Jump Exercise Guide – Muscles Worked, How-to, Tips, and Variations

    Dumbbell Iron Cross Exercise

    Dumbbell Iron Cross Exercise Guide and Videos

  • Food FactsTrending
  • News
    • Deals
    • Videos
    • Bodybuilding
    • CrossFit
    • Powerlifting
    • Strongman
    • MMA
  • Reviews
    • All
    • Lifting Gear & Accessories
    • Supplements
    9 Strongest Pre-Workout Supplements

    11 Strongest Pre Workout Supplements in 2021

    Pre Workouts Without Creatine

    12 Best Pre-Workouts Without Creatine For 2021

    Powerlifting Singlet

    Powerlifting Singlets: All You Need To Know (Reviewed)

    Trending Tags

    • Ample
    • pre-workout
    • Meal Replacement
    • Pre-Kaged
No Result
View All Result
Bodybuilding, Fitness, CrossFit, Strongman and Powerlifting
No Result
View All Result
Home Workouts Chest

Chest Training: The 5 Chest Workout Mistakes & How To Correct Them

F.V. TeambyF.V. Team
February 12, 2018
Chest Workout Mistakes
  • 11.4Kshares
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Messenger

Your chest is a paradox. Comprising only one major muscle pair, it would seem to be an easy area to train. Press and flye end of story. But this story is a mystery with unpredictable twists. The pecs are deceptively complex–working them is fraught with pitfalls you’ll likely blunder into the workout after workout, year after year.

Growing a chest is hard work. It’s made especially harder if you’re doing it incorrectly.

Today we expose those pitfalls, highlighting the five most common chest-training errors and detailing strategies to avoid them. Take notes; you may be shocked at the number of pec peccadilloes you’ve been committing.

#1 Under training upper chest

Often occurring in concert with an overreliance on bench presses is an under-reliance on exercises that target the upper-pec region. This is the area from your clavicles to approximately halfway down your chest. It gives your torso a higher appearance and visually ties your pecs in with your delts and traps (think Franco Columbu). Pecs are naturally thinner at the top than the bottom, so everyone can prioritize their upper pecs via incline work without fearing that this region will overpower their lower pecs.

Solutions

  • Do incline presses with a barbell or dumbbells first in your routine.
  • In each chest workout, include at least as many sets of upper chest work (incline presses and flyes) as you do lower chest work (flat and decline presses and flyes, and dips).
  • To focus cable crossovers on your upper chest, perform them with the cables set near the floor so that you are pulling the handles up and together on each rep.
  • Practice posing your upper pecs with hands-on-hips most-musculars or simply tensing. This will build a greater mind-muscle connection, so you can feel this area contracting on targeted chest exercises.

#2 Overreliance on machines

While too many bodybuilders do too many sets of benches, there is another group that goes to the other extreme–they rarely grab barbells or dumbbells on chest day. Most modern gyms have a plethora of press and flye machines but resist the urge to form the bulk of your routine around mechanical movements. Despite modern advantages, the best chests of Arnold’s era still compare favorably with the pecs in recent Olympia pose-downs. Why? Then, pecs were worked almost exclusively with free weights.

Solutions

  • Do mostly free-weight and body-weight basics.
  • Do no more than half of your chest exercises with machines.
  • If you do mechanical presses, try to choose a unilateral Hammer Strength, FreeMotion or similar machine that approximates the freedom of free weights.
  • If you’re not strong enough to get eight bodyweight reps while dipping, use a dip assist machine to lighten your load. (This doesn’t count as a machine exercise.)

#3 Overreliance on barbell bench presses

“How much can you bench?” The question is asked so often of anyone with a modicum of muscle that it’s long been the ultimate gym cliche. Still, the fact that the bench press is the go-to strength barometer has had a decimating effect on chests. Bodybuilders bench too much too often for too many sets of too few reps. Used correctly, the bench press is an excellent exercise. Overused, it can potentially overdevelop the lower-pec region in relation to the upper region, giving you “droopy boobs” (think Art Atwood). Furthermore, consistently benching for maximum sets of low reps will boost your chances of injuries, ranging from shoulder, elbow and wrist strains to pec tears.

Solutions

  • Think of barbell bench presses as just another chest exercise, one that can be done at any time during your routine, including last.
  • Do sets of eight to 12 reps, only occasionally pyramiding to as low as six reps.
  • If you’re curious about how much you can bench for a single rep, use an online calculator and your best 10-rep set to compute your one-rep max.
  • If you always do barbell benches first, start with incline presses–with barbells one workout and dumbbells the next. Alternately, cycle eight-week periods during which you do no free-weight benches with eight weeks during which you do benches with barbells one workout and dumbbells the next.

#4 Failure to contract

The downside of free weights is that they make it difficult to attain a maximum contraction in the pecs. When you do dumbbell flyes, there is less resistance on the chest at the top of the movement (when the dumbbells come together) than near the bottom. Likewise, during presses or dips, the triceps do much of the work near lockout.

Solutions

  • Do one flye exercise each workout with either a machine or training bands. If you do cable crossovers, cross one hand over the other (hence the name) at contractions. Similarly, if you use an upright flye or pecdeck machine, or do flyes with bands, perform repetitions unilaterally in order to bring your hand past the center plane of your body to lengthen contractions.
  • Lockout on presses. Although your triceps will do much of the work at the end, you can still maximally flex your chest at contractions.

#5 Working the weight, not the muscles

Working the weight is using speed and momentum to pound out reps with little or no regard for the targeted area and it’s a precise distillation of the way many bodybuilders press, flye and dip.

Solutions

  • Feel where you want to focus each set before it begins. For example, tense your upper chest before a set of incline presses to keep your attention on that area.
  • Always utilize strict form. This is not only safer, but also better for targeting your pecs, because the sloppier your execution on a chest exercise is, the more that secondary muscles take over.
  • Carefully control the negative halves of reps. During presses, take approximately two seconds to lower the weight and one to two seconds to raise it.

Lessons Learned

  • Treat bench presses as just another chest exercise with reps in the eight to 12 range.
  • Prioritize your upper chest.
  • Do primarily free-weight presses and flyes.
  • Concentrate on the contraction of each rep.
  • Keep the focus on your pecs, not on the weight.

Author: Greg Merritt
References:
http://www.muscleandfitness.com/
http://www.flexonline.com/

For the latest news and updates please follow us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
  • 11.4Kshares
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Reddit
  • Flipboard
  • LinkedIn
  • WhatsApp
  • Telegram
  • Messenger

Join our list

Subscribe to our mailing list and get interesting stuff and updates to your email inbox.

Thank you for subscribing.

Something went wrong.

We respect your privacy and take protecting it seriously

Categories: Chest Featured Workouts
Tags: ChestChest Workout
Previous Post

Arnold vs Lou: How Arnold Used Psychological Warfare In The Golden Era of Bodybuilding

Next Post

WATCH: The 6 Minutes Calf Workout

F.V. Team

F.V. Team

Fitness Volt Team, Your #1 source for workouts, news, analysis, opinion, and entertainment in bodybuilding & fitness sports.

Related Posts

How To Do Decline Push Ups
Chest

Decline Push-Up Exercise: Muscles Worked, How-To and Variations

Dexter Jackson Chris Bumstead
Bodybuilding

Dexter Jackson And Chris Bumstead Crush Olympia Prep With Heavy Chest Training

Calum Von Moger
Bodybuilding

Calum Von Moger Reveals His Secrets To Getting A Massive Chest

Ronnie Coleman Chest Workout
Bodybuilding

Watch “The King” Ronnie Coleman Pumping Up His Pecs

Arash Rahbar Workout
Workouts

Arash Rahbar Shares Chest and Biceps Workout

Busta Rhymes Kai Greene
Bodybuilding

Watch Rapper Busta Rhymes Train Chest and Back With Kai Greene

Crossfit Boyfriend
Workout Plans

Advanced 13-Minute Bodyweight Workout (No Equipment Needed)

At Home Chest Exercises
Chest

The Best Chest Exercises You Can Do At Home

Dumbbell Chest Workout
Chest

Dumbbell Chest Workout Routine For More Size In 4 Weeks

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Larry Wheels Deadlift PR

Larry Wheels Hits All-Time Personal Record With Earth Shattering 855lb Deadlift Triple, Gets Injured

Ronnie Coleman

What Did Ronnie Coleman Eat in His Prime?

Kali Muscle

Kali Muscle and Big Boy Gets In Altercation After Getting Kicked Out Of Gold’s Venice (VIDEO)

Laura Bass

Former Bodybuilder Laura Bass Dies at 49

Ben Chow Luke Sandoe

Ben Chow, Fouad Abiad Respond To New Details of Luke Sandoe’s Death

The Rock

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson Reveals Current Workout Routine

Lower Body Strength Routines

7 Powerful Lower Body Strength Routines

9 Strongest Pre-Workout Supplements

11 Strongest Pre Workout Supplements in 2021

Team Mayhem Freedom

CrossFit Team Mayhem Freedom Roster Announced: Rich Froning, Andrea Nisler, Taylor Williamson, and Chase Hill Onboard

Recent Reviews

9 Strongest Pre-Workout Supplements

11 Strongest Pre Workout Supplements in 2021

Pre Workouts Without Creatine

12 Best Pre-Workouts Without Creatine For 2021

Powerlifting Singlet

Powerlifting Singlets: All You Need To Know (Reviewed)

Fitness Volt

At FitnessVolt.com our mission is to educate and inform you about the latest in professional bodybuilding, fitness, and sports-related content. We believe you should have the best information at your fingertips to help you reach your fitness goals and to stay up to date on everything happening in the bodybuilding, fitness and strength sports industry... Read more.

Email: sm(at)fitnessvolt.com

Disclosure: FitnessVolt.com has an affiliate relationship with different brands and is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. However, our reviews are based on well research backed analysis.
FitnessVolt.com - 1700 Lincoln St. Denver, CO. 

Follow Us

Trending Topics

  • Mr. Olympia 2020
  • Bodybuilding
  • Strongman
  • Powerlifting
  • CrossFit
  • At Home Workouts
  • Bodyweight Exercises
  • Best Pre-workouts
  • Boost Testosterone
  • German Volume Training
  • Protein-Packed Foods
  • Jefferson Deadlift
  • What Is Hypertrophy

Calculators

    • IF Calculator
    • TDEE Calculator
    • Calorie Calculator
    • Keto Calculator
    • RMR Calculator
    • Macronutrient Calculator
    • Creatine Calculator
    • Wilks Calculator
    • EER Calculator
    • FFMI Calculator
    • IBW Calculator
    • LBM Calculator
    • Fat Intake Calculator

 

  • Food Nutrition Analysis
  • Carb Cycling Calculator
  • Weight Gain Calculator
  • Calories Burned Calculator
  • Strength Standards
  • One Rep Max Calculator
  • Body Fat Calculator
  • EER Calculator
  • Weight Loss Percentage
  • Treadmill Calorie Calculator
  • Body Surface Area Calculator
  • Running Pace Calculator
  • Bench Press Calculator
  • Protein Calculator
  • Water Intake Calculator
  • About
  • Write For Us
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Syndication
  • Scholarship
  • Sitemap
  • DMCA
  • Copyrights
  • Terms
  • Privacy

© Copyright 2010 - 2021 Fitnes Volt IBC. All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Mr. Olympia
  • Bodybuilding
  • Powerlifting
  • Strongman
  • CrossFit
  • Workouts
  • Exercise Guides
    • Arms
    • Back
    • Chest
    • Core
    • Legs and Glutes
    • Shoulders
  • Training
  • Nutrition
  • Reviews
  • More
    • Diet
    • News
    • Motivation
    • Videos
    • Food Facts
    • Deals
    • Fitness Calculator

© Copyright 2010 - 2021 Fitnes Volt IBC. All Rights Reserved.

10836