5 Tips to a Good Muscle Building Chest Workout

Aside from the bicep muscles, the chest muscles are often considered the most attractive. Not surprisingly, most male weight lifters tend to focus on their chest area more so than other muscle groups. In fact, amongst male weight lifters, the most commonly asked question is, “how much do you bench press?” The bigger the number, the stronger the bodybuilder is assumed to be.

Because so many weight lifters tend to focus so much attention on developing their chest muscle, there is a common tendency to over train the pectorals. Over training can be as bad, or even much worse, than not training at all. If you perform too many sets or attempt to lift more weight than you are actually strong enough to handle you may cause serious and perhaps irreversible damage to your chest.

About 3 years ago, when I was totally new to weightlifting, I was guilty of over training. Fortunately my over training did not result in serious injury but instead resulted in little muscular development and a growing disinterest in working out. Thankfully I was working out with a partner who was able to see me thru to the other side.

I spent some time doing some research, reading muscle mags, browsing websites, blogs, and forums. Here is what I found:

1. At least half of your workout should involve the free weight bench. Free weight bench press is a compound exercise that offers maximum muscle gain with minimal wasted effort.

2. Never perform more than 6 sets of bench press unless you are doing very low intensity weights. If you perform more than 6 sets of bench press at a time you risk reversing your muscle gains and being so sore that you may not be able to workout for more than a week.

3. Don’t limit yourself to just flat bench press. Instead, incorporate incline and decline bench press into your overall routine as well.

4. Rotate your exercise schedule so that you begin and end with a different exercise. In other words, you need to mix up your exercise routines so that you are not doing exactly the same routine every time you go to the gym.

5. Pause for a good 60 seconds between sets. I have found that 6 or 7 deep breaths usually amounts to about 60 seconds. If you rest too little or too long you may adversely effect your muscular development.

chest workouts, workout, workout routines, programs