July 2011

The chest contains two muscles: the pectoralis major and the pectoralis minor. These sweep from their origins at the breastbone to the shoulder joints, and are used to move your shoulders forward.

If you want to develop these muscles in order to have a large, impressive chest, you have to work them with an exercise routine on a regular basis - and I'm going to tell you how.

The Bench Press is most of the workout you will ever need for your chest. One of what I call the Big 5 mass builders, this simple exercise will build your chest and whole upper body with regular workouts and sensible eating. Be sure to balance it out with bent over rows to avoid over developing the anterior deltoids and pulling your shoulders too far forward.

Lying on a flat standard bench, make sure your feet are firmly grounded and that you have a good, firm position from which to lift.

Using a standard 45 lb Olympic barbell, try some lifts without adding weight plates at first, just to warm up and to get a feel for the movements involved. When you're ready, add weight - erring on the side of caution - and try a proper lift.

Press the bar without unracking it, to make sure you can handle the weight. Allow it to fall in a controlled manner to your chest, not your face. When you're ready, explosively press the weight up to the full extension of your arms. Don't lock your elbows, but make sure your arms are straight out and up. That's one rep.

Allow the weight to fall back down, and repeat. If you're using around 80% of your one lift maximum, go for a set of six. Go on to do three sets. And that's it.

You can vary the routine with different grips, wide or narrow, and by inclining or declining the bench to target different parts of the muscles. The bench press also involves most of the muscles in your upper body, which is why it's such a great mass builder. For more variety, use dumbbells instead of a barbell.

If for any reason the gym is not an option for you, there are body weight exercises that will do the job. The humble push up is one of them, especially when you make it an explosive strength builder by doing clapping push ups.

If you're not too confident about this, it's probably best to work on developing basic upper body strength before you try them. The idea is to take a normal push up position - prone, with hands pressed flat to the floor below your shoulders - then push up explosively and bring your hands together to clap before you fall back onto your palms. Risky? Just don't headbutt the floor.

To make sure you work your chest rather than your triceps, keep your hands well apart at the starting position.

As with the bench press, the secret of your success at building your chest with this exercise is to do it regularly, maintain a good diet and sleep routine, and to slowly but surely add more resistance whenever it starts to get too easy. With the weights, just add more plates every couple of weeks. With the push ups, consider a weighted backpack.

And that's it. Simple. To build a bigger, more impressive chest, do these routines twice a week and you'll soon see great results. Remember, the key is consistency.