Getting bigger pecs or a well developed chest takes hard work and time. A big chest like Ronnie Coleman or Lou Ferringo doesn’t grow over night. It took many sets and reps of chest exercises like flat bench presses and plenty of dumbbell flyes. Building pec muscle really isn’t difficult unless you’re a hard gainer. With the right training and moderately heavy weight, you can have a Silverback chest and max chest gains. There are a few exercises you can do to reach your goal.
But, getting bigger pecs doesn’t just require lifting. As usual, your diet and what you eat is very important to making chest gains. Your pecs also need rest before hitting them again. I personally like to hit chest twice a week. The first workout day I go with moderately heavy weight with the average set being between 8-10 reps. On the second day, I lift lighter with more volume and reps. I also switch up chest exercises on those days. Day one is mostly flat bench with some cable and the day two is dumbbells with cables.
Bench press is the most effective chest building exercise – in my opinion. It builds body mass quickly and also hits your shoulders, back (lats) and triceps. If you’re trying to build overall mass, it’s easily one of the best compound and core movements as is squats and deadlifts. You can also get a bigger chest by working on your triceps. Tri’s are greatly involved when bench pressing.
Best Chest Exercises to get bigger pecs: Chest Gains
It’s best to use a variety of chest exercises with heavy weight and low reps and light weight with many sets. Don’t forget also that strict form is better than throwing weight around. As mentioned above, I think flat bench is the best for mass building for the chest. The barbell is superior to dumbbells because you can move more weight. Dumbbells are great for building stabilizers and isolation. I’m also a huge fan of incline press, but only at a slight angle.
Too high of an incline and you start to work the delts more than your pecs. I usually position the incline somewhere around a 30-45 degree angle. The next best movements are flyes and cable crossovers. In my experience, dumbbell flyes are underrated. They provide a great stretch for your chest muscles and allows a great squeeze at the top. Squeezing and contracting the muscles are very important for size and shape. So is changes in your grip or hand positioning. Move from wide grip to a narrow grip to hit different parts of the chest. Be careful though, too wide of a grip can cause shoulder pain.
When you’re working out your chest, always focus on your pec muscles during the lift. Lower the bar or dumbbells across your chest and push with an explosive movement. I personally don’t lock my arms when doing many reps cause I like to feel the constant tension on my chest. Constant tension is what builds muscle. If you really want to get a bigger chest, try doing some pause reps and slow negatives. When you lower the bar or dumbbells, let the weight rest on your chest or close to your chest for a few seconds before pushing.
The most effective and complete chest routine will include exercises to work the clavicular head and the sternal head of the chest. The clavicular is basically your upper chest. A well developed upper chest will give you that Silverback look. A well shaped sternal head is as equally important for a nice looking chest. The best advice I can give you to get bigger pecs is to do as many heavy compound movements as possible. Lifting heavy compound movements increases the growth hormone in our body. This will create an anabolic response and also help your CNS adapt to stress.
Flat bench, incline bench and decline bench with heavy weights. Do a plethora of rep ranges. Try high reps, low reps and 1rm to see what works for you. Some lifters respond to heavy weight with low-moderate reps in the 4-6 range and some lifters can’t get their chest to grow unless they’re pounding out 12-14 reps. Find a chest building routine that works for you and stick with it until you see no more progress. Once you’re muscles have adapted and is no longer responding, switch to a different chest workout routine. Make chest gains…