In Part 3 in our series of articles about chest training, you’ll learn guidelines for sets and repetitions and which exercises to pick for your workout routine!

Sets and Reps
How many sets and repetitions do you need for chest training? Of course, it varies based on your specific workout goals, but here are some guides.
If weight loss & sculpt is your focus, then you will want to do two or three sets of each exercise, and keep your repetitions in the 10 to 12 range for best toning results. You could take your repetitions up to 15, but no more than that, because the idea is to tone and strengthen, not go for endurance.

If muscle size is your focus, then you are going to want to do multiple sets, such as four, five, six, seven, maybe even eight sets of the same exercise. This type of conditioning is for advanced exercisers whose goal is size! The repetition range for this type of cycle is going to be between six and 10. Of course, you would use cycles to keep the muscle growth responding and reduce the chance of overuse injuries.

An example of Cycles for Size would be
Cycle 1: six sets of six reps for four weeks
Cycle 2: six sets of eight reps for 2-4 weeks

Your goal would be to increase the weight lifted, in order to get stronger for the same amount of repetitions. These repetition ranges, are going to promote better muscle growth. These types of cycles can also be a consideration for people whose goal is to lose weight. Multiple sets can be effective for weight loss, with the repetition range of 10 to 12. No matter what your goal is, you always want to have quality in your workouts!

Which exercises?
All right, so what would you do for your chest workout? You would pick a pressing movement and a flye movement. Using the set and repetition guides outlined above, you would get to your workout! And that would pretty much be it. You don’t need to do a whole lot more. Quality over quantity, every workout!

If muscle size is your priority, then you will most likely want to do more chest presses, than the flyes. Remember, you had better be doing more sets of your back training than your chest training because your back is the larger muscle group of the two. This is very important to know if you want to have healthy shoulders and be able to train chest comfortably and consistently. We’ll discuss this in Part 4: Muscles and exercises that help support injury free chest training.

You can combine back and chest training in the same workout routine, since they are antagonistic muscle groups. Antagonistic muscle groups are opposing muscle groups and often work together to keep the body balanced and aligned. For back and chest training, these muscle groups are on opposite sides of your body and one is the pushing while the other one is the pulling. Working back and chest in the same workout, especially as supersets, are great for keeping your shoulders in the proper alignment. Each time you do the back movement after the chest movement or vice versa, you are pulling your shoulders back into the right position. This is just one way of muscle combining and there is an infinite number of ways to do your workouts!

Another example, would be a push only workout routine. In this type of workout routine, you would work all the pushing muscles, such as the chest, shoulders, and triceps in one workout. In this type of workout, you are not going to need to do much for your shoulders, because chest work does tend to be pretty heavy on the shoulders.

Part 2 in our series of articles about chest training, focuses on common mistakes made when training!

Common Mistake #1: Less is more!

One of the biggest mistakes that I see when it comes to chest training, is people doing too much! You really don’t need to do a chest exercise hitting every angle in one workout! I often see people doing a flat bench press, then an incline bench press and then the decline bench press. It’s not necessary! I know there are some trainers out there who will say, “You have your upper pecs, your middle and your lower pecs to work,” and this may be true to some degree, but in actuality you are using all of these muscles in each movement!

Various exercise angles effect the shoulders more than the chest. Your incline chest movements are going to involve more of your shoulders. Your decline will involve less of the shoulders. Your flat exercises are going to stress a little less of shoulders. That’s really going to be the main difference between the three angle positions.

People who do a large volume of chest movements (and an unbalanced, unplanned workout routine), will end up with shoulder problems. The shoulders can’t handle the same load as the chest. By doing too many heavy chest exercises, you are actually going to make the shoulders weaker and increase the chance of injury. Eventually, your rotator cuff muscles will become either weak, overstressed or unbalanced or all three and you could end up with a shoulder injury that affects more than just your workouts.

Common Mistake #2: To do or not to do!
Another thing I see people doing, that I, personally, don’t feel is beneficial (for the average exerciser) is the cable crossovers. Cables are good for a variety as a flye movement, but it should not be the mainstay of your workout! Cable crossovers are more of an isolation exercise. Another reason that cable crossovers are overrated for the chest is that most people do not even come close to using the proper form to work the chest! Every attempt should be made to keep the shoulders out of the movement, in order to work the chest. Most often, crossovers are done with rounded shoulders and convulsions! You must focus on getting the chest to initiate the movement of the arms across the chest in cable crossovers. Keeping the shoulders back, down and out of the movement.

Of course, you can use crossovers in your workout routine rotation. Schedule the exercise so that you might do it once every four or five weeks. Do not make it a mainstay of your workout! Your dumbbell exercises should be the majority, since they allow your muscles to go through a full range of motion. Ultimately, this combination of strength and flexibility will keep the muscles healthy with less risk of injury. Dumbbells also enable you to isolate the chest and minimize the use of the shoulders. Additionally, you will use more of your stabilizer muscles such as the rotator cuff system and abdominals, making for a more efficient workout.

Common Mistake #3: Where’s the feet?
Chest exercises with your feet in the air can do more harm than good!

This is Part 1 in a series of articles about how to get the best weight loss and sculpt results from your Chest training routines. You’ll learn why you need chest training to boost your metabolism and accelerate weight loss, how to use chest training exercises for faster results and what mistakes to avoid during workouts!

Topics include:

Part 1 The best exercises for training the chest.
Part 2 Common mistakes in chest exercises and training routines
Part 3 Chest workout routine, how many sets and reps.
Part 4 Muscles and exercises that help support injury free chest training.

Let’s get started with Part 1: The best exercises for training the chest.

The chest muscles may not be the largest group in the body, but when training for weight loss and sculpt there are some important chest exercises you should include in your routine. Chest training is probably more of a priority for men than it is for women. Women tend to think that by training the chest they are going to lose their bust, but that is definitely not true! When you train your chest muscles, you actually strengthen the muscles underneath the breast tissue.

Let’s face it, breast tissue is just FAT!! Whether you are a guy or girl, it’s all the same. Women usually have more body fat than men, and most commonly, will have extra fat storage in the breast area. Training the pectoral muscles underneath is not going to reduce breast cup size. If anything, it is going to help support and make breasts less droopy!

Chest training is definitely going to make a favorable impact on your body composition! The chest is a large muscle group and as such, will burn more calories while you train it. Remember, the lean muscle formed from weight training will burn more calories than cardio while you are at rest! When you are training for weight loss, tone and/or fitness you’ll want to train the chest properly for best results!

Chest Exercises & Angles

There are two major movements or exercises for the chest. The first one is pressing movements. Those are done when you are on your lying on your back or incline/decline bench. If you are sitting straight up, then you are going to be doing a shoulder movement. The shoulders are activated when you are training chest, so you definitely want to be aware of your bench angle whenever you are doing chest presses that are not flat.

The other main chest movement or exercise is the flye. The flye movement can also be done on a flat bench or on an incline/decline bench using dumbbells. Flyes can be done with cables, machines, or tubing. Although there are various ways to work the chest muscles, you basically have two main exercises – presses and flyes. As such, your routine for chest would definitely include at least one exercise of pressing and one exercise of the flye movement.

If weight loss is your focus, then you will want to do two sets of each exercise, maybe three, and keep your repetitions in the 10 to 12 range. You could take your repetitions up to 15, but no more than that, because the idea is to tone and strengthen, not go for endurance. We’ll get more specific on workout routines in Part 3.

You can vary the exercises easily with a by changing the angle of the bench. For example, one week you can do the flat version of each exercise and the next week you can do the incline or the decline version of the flye or press. Variety can be in the method of the exercise too. For example, you could use dumbbells for the flye or press and a machine for the other exercise. There is an infinite number of ways to mix it up!

Dips are another great chest exercise, however, they can be difficult to do for people with injuries or issues with the neck and shoulders. Dips are similar to a pressing motion. Dips work the chest when you take a very wide grip. Dips also work a lot of the shoulders, so be sure to adjust your shoulder workouts to avoid over training! Which would mean you would back off a little bit on your shoulder workouts if you are doing dips. You’ll want to give your shoulders a chance to recover, because ultimately, they are used in everything that you do in your workouts and you certainly don’t want to overload them to the point where they can get injured.

No equipment?
Now, what do you do if you don’t have any equipment at all? Well, push ups are the best exercise for the chest, when done correctly. You can vary your width of your hands to target more chest, shoulders, or more triceps. The wider your hands, the more of your chest you are going to work. As you bring the hands closer together and more underneath you, you are going to be using more of your shoulders. A close grip, in which your hands have probably the thumbs touching or they are very close together, will emphasize the triceps. Keeping your elbows tucked in underneath you, will force the triceps to work harder. In summary, there are three types of push-ups. Push-ups that isolate the chest, push-ups focusing on the triceps, push ups that are a little more in between the first two kinds, giving more work to the shoulders.

Change it up!Want to vary your push-ups even further? Change the angle of a push up! How? Well, you would elevate your feet. You could put your feet on top of your bed, a box or some stairs to change the angle. Alternately, you could place your hands on something that is higher than your feet. A step bench, some stairs, a sturdy table or your bed will make it more of an incline type chest press/push-up. This exercise might be easier for beginners because they will use some of their shoulders and have better leverage as well.

Stability ball
The stability ball is a fun way to mix up your training as well. You won’t be as strong, so you will have to use a little bit of a lighter weight. For variety, you can do your chest presses and your chest flyes on the ball. You want to make sure your head and neck are fully supported on the ball. Your shoulders may be on or off the ball. You can do a lot of different things for stabilization to help with strengthening on some of the smaller muscle groups like the rotator cuff muscles and the abdominals. Another stabilization challenge with the stability ball, would be doing all one side and then on the other side or even alternating the sides. Not only is this fun, but it also forces your abdominals and obliques to work harder!

Program planning
When you sit down to write out your workout plan for the next three to four weeks, you can take advantage of these exercise suggestions! This will prevent mental boredom and physical plateaus.

Next topic:

Part 2: Common Mistakes in chest exercises and training routines.