In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know about how to train the chest more effectively. With many lifters looking to maximize their chest training, various chest training programs and exercises are popping up across the internet, leaving many of us curious as to how many chest exercises we should be doing in a single workout.
In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know about how to train the chest more effectively.
With many lifters looking to maximize their chest training, various chest training programs and exercises are popping up across the internet, leaving many of us curious as to how many chest exercises we should be doing in a single workout.
We should perform 1-5 chest exercises per workout with the most optimal range being 2-4 different chest exercises in a single training session.
For most lifters, performing any more than 3-5 various movements can result in diminished returns, excessive “trash ” volume, and suboptimal quality volume.
What Chest Exercise Should You Do?
Chest exercises can be divided into many categories.
1. Pressing Movements
Movements like the bench press, incline press and potters that can be done using heavier loads to stress the muscles of the chest.
It is best to diversify your training program to at least train with compound movements with heavier loads at the same point in the training week.
By using this, you can overload the chest muscles and increase strength.
2. Isolation Exercises
Isolation movements are great ways to pre-exhaust and isolate a muscle group after or before more compound movements.
By such training method, you can increase muscular damage and stress placed on the muscle group.
3. Machines And Free Weights
Machines, dumbbells, body weights, and even lighter barbell movements are all viable options when training chest.
For non-strength based sections of the workout, it is recommended to train with these movements moderately.
While adding variety to a training programme, the key is to remember that too much variety can limit your ability to perform quality repetitions and work sets to maximize muscle fatigue.
Performing more exercise for the sake of variety will leave you doing too much volume, not enough quality work sets per given movements, and limit overall chest growth.
How Many Exercises Should You Do A Day
Exercising each day is not recommended by most.
While your body is at rest, your muscles repair the micro-tears in the muscles fibers and allows your muscles to cope better at the same level of strain in the future.
If you’re trying to tone up or become stronger, you will lift heavier and limit your workout to two sets of each exercise.
Choose your exercises smartly
To get the best benefits from your workout, you have to pick your exercise smartly.
These basic exercises must be added to your routine.
Things to remember before doing compound exercises
- Do proper warm-up before the workout. This will make you less prone to injuries.
- Take longer rest periods as your muscles need more time to recover after a compound exercise.
- In order to lift too heavy, make sure to not compromise with your form.
Why is having a strong chest so important?
Your chest makes up a good portion of your overall upper-body strength.
So, if you want a strong upper body, having a strong chest is the key.
A strong chest is needed to perform any kind of pushing movement both at the gym and in day-to-day life. By taking the time and effort to strengthen your chest, you can improve your pushing abilities in all scenarios.
Adding quality muscle mass to the chest is done by progressively overloading the chest muscles with a variety of intensities, repetition ranges and movement patterns.
Like anything, there must be a balance between performing enough variation and volume, and performing too much.
