Standing tall and proud is a mark of confidence and importance. Let’s face it, you never see anybody who is confident walking around slouched shouldered with their eyes on the ground, do you?
But standing tall with your shoulders back is one thing if you’re built, but if you’ve got a chest as flat as an ironing board, it’s less impressive, without question.
In this article I’m going to give you the best tips I have for building big chest muscles. Hopefully once you see the logic in my approach you’ll understand why so many people have such a hard time hitting the chest.
Traditionally, to build the chest the bench press would be used. The bench press is a very good chest exercise, but the problem is the way most execute it, the triceps and the deltoids are the muscles which are mostly involved, which is why most bodybuilders never build a good chest using the bench press.
For building a great chest, let’s look at power lifters and how they lift. Why power lifters? Because they have awesome chests! And how do they develop their chests? Technique, that’s how. Power lifters bench press far lower than a bodybuilder; and usually take the bar down to below the pectoral keeping their upper arms much closer to the body, whereas the bodybuilder usually takes it to the nipple or higher and have the upper arms almost as far away from the body as they’ll go.
When you bench with your arms closer to you, and do so from a lower spot, you are putting more emphasis on the chest muscles, rather than the deltoids and triceps which is what most bodybuilders tend to do.
Another awesome variation of this is the incline bench press – using dumbbells, which helps to develop the top of the chest muscles which tie into the deltoids – an area which is usually hard to hit. This is executed by setting the bench between 45 degrees or 60 degrees, and again, keep the upper arms closer to the body. Instead of pressing with the hands level as you would with a straight bar, turn the palms slightly inward. Go from as deep as you can, and touch the dumbbells at the top.
You must really focus on the chest. When you perform a rep, really use the chest muscles to squeeze the dumbbells together. Once you’ve mastered this concept, your chest will explode in size.