We are going to work your pecs today with a chest training routine that we feel is as close to the best overall routine for mass, shape and condition.

After all we are in pursuit of the total package, right????

In order to achieve this we must incorporate a variety of exercises to hit the pecs from upper to lower and from inner to outer. Now, we want to let you know that if you follow this workout then your pecs will be well on their way to becoming full, round and separated.

And we know that’s what you all want!

Since we are training chest, it is a good idea to have a basic understanding of the chest muscles and their function. The chest (pectorals) or pecs is a thick, fan-shaped muscle, situated at the upper front of the chest wall.

The Pectorals have three actions. It flexes the humerus, as in throwing a ball side-arm, and in lifting a child. It also adducts the humerus as when flapping arms. It also rotates the humerus medially, as occurs when arm-wrestling….

CLICK HERE to see the rest of our pecs workout plan!!!

Exercises for working the chest…

Chest Press
The first exercise is the bench press. We have all done it, and we are going to continue to do so. It is the grand daddy of chest building movements and so that is what we are going to start with. No single exercise will give your upper body more overall development than flat bench-pressing movements. It will give you mass, strength and dense muscles.

How The Exercise Is Performed:
Lie back on the bench and reach up to grab the bar with a medium width grip, then pull the bar off the rack. With your arms locked out and up overhead begin your movement by lowering the bar in between the upper and middle of the chest.

Control the weight on the way down taking approximately 2 seconds to get to the bottom of the movement and then explode up in a controlled fashion.

Sets & Reps:
Perform 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps with 1 minute of rest in between sets.

Reason:
3 sets allow us to really target the largest region of the pecs without overtraining. By using 8 to 12 reps we are doing just enough reps to increase condition and muscularity.
Use the heaviest weight possible that allows you to perform 8 to 12 reps for each set.

Incline Bench Press
This is the movement that makes your chest pop out. It hits the upper chest which is the biggest portion of the chest. It also hits the middle and inside to outside portions of the pecs. This is an overall great mass and strength builder. No thick chest will ever be built without the incorporation of this movement. Most lifters are typically not able to lift as much weight on the incline bench as opposed to the flat bench.

How The Exercise Is Performed:
Lie back on the bench and reach up to grab the bar with a medium width grip, then pull the bar off the rack. With your arms locked out and up overhead begin your movement by lowering the bar in between the upper and middle of the chest.

Control the weight on the way down taking approximately 2 seconds to get to the bottom of the movement and then explode up in a controlled fashion.

Sets & Reps:
Perform 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps with a 1 minute rest in between sets.

Reason:
3 sets allow us to really target the largest region of the pecs. By using 8 to 12 reps we are doing just enough reps to increase condition and muscularity.

Use the heaviest weight possible that allows you to perform 8 to 12reps for each set.

Dumbbell Fly
The Dumbbell fly is a tremendous overall mass and shaping movement. This movement pulls the arms across the body, which as mentioned earlier is the basic function of the chest muscles. By giving you a great stretch at the bottom of the movement it really gives your pecs a lot of room to fill in with blood and grow.

How The Exercise Is Performed:
Lie down on a flat bench with dumbbells in each hand and palms facing each other over your body. Lower the weights out and down to the side in an arching fashion feeling the chest really stretched out as much as possible.

Hold this stretch for a slight second and pull your arm back in a controlled fashion with palms facing each other to the starting position.

Sets & Reps:
Perform 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps with a 1 minute rest in between sets.

Straight Arm Dumbbell Pullover
The straight arm dumbbell pullover is another really good stretching movement. It expands the rib cage and develops the pecs.

How The Exercise Is Performed:
Lie across the bench with your shoulders across the surface and your feet flat on the ground. Take a hold of the dumbbell with both hands with your palms underneath the inside plate of the dumbbell. Extend your arm out over your chest in a locked out position.

With your arms straight, lower the weight in a controlled fashion behind your head and towards the ground. Feel your rib cage and pecs really stretched out and then pull over the dumbbell back to the starting position.

Sets & Reps:
Perform 3 sets of each exercise for 8 to 12 reps. For an added workout try making it a superset. Begin with dumbbell fly’s and immediately without rest perform a set of pullovers. You will do this three times with only 1-minute rest in between sets.

Reason:
We are performing two classic mass and shaping stretching movements at the end of our routine when blood is loaded in the muscles from Incline and Flat Bench Pressing. This is a great way to stimulate growth.

When we are pumped our muscles are temporarily bigger and by stretching the muscles when pumped you create longer, thicker muscles and give the area a lot of room to fill in and grow by breaking up the tissue that covers the muscle so more muscle can fill in. Supersets toward the end help us burn a little more calories and increase definition.

NOTE: For flat bench press and incline bench press exercises, you will definitely want to alternate between using barbells and dumbells in order to target all the stabilizing muscles in your pecs. For example, week 1 use barbells, week 2 use dumbbells, and so on!

If you wanna learn how to get nice baseball-shaped biceps, then please use the muscle hunk in this video to motivate yourself during your next workout.

Notice the proper form and technique he uses for every repetition….

Military presses, bicep curls, cable extensions…. oh my!

For all you aspiring muscle freaks out in internet-land, don’t forget to target those lats with some exercises like high pulley rows as demonstrated in this video (above).

A big back can actually make your chest look bigger, and is a great way to help develop that v-shape torso that you’ve always admired.

Now hit the weights, y’all!!!!

It’s been quite a few weeks since we’ve featured an exercise video clip, and we apologize to those of you readers who actually come here to learn a few things about building the perfect big muscle body of your dreams.

Anyway, watch fitness muscle model and personal training guru Micah LaCerte in the video above as he explains how Tabata intervals can be used to shock your biceps into massive muscle growth.

He sure knows his stuff!

Close your eyes and picture this….

You place your palms together in front of you, pressing them forcefully into each other. The contraction spreads up your forearms, through your biceps, triceps and shoulders, and explodes across your pectorals, rippling from outer to inner edge. Your chest rises, clenching into a searing knot of muscle, popping your shirt buttons off, one by one. How would it feel to have pecs that big, brawny and powerful? Three words: pretty damn good.

As you probably realise, that kind of size isn’t built without a lot of effort. And even clockwork consistency in the gym won’t totally do the trick, as you can’t keep throwing the same battery of exercises, sets and reps at your body workout after workout and expect to achieve the superhuman results you seek.

To succeed, you need an array of solid training options at your disposal. So, to help, we’ve collected five hardcore techniques you can use to shake up your workouts from experts whose business it is to help people get huge and strong. Use these at your own risk — sewing kit not included.

TIP 1: INSTABILITY TACTICS
“One trick that works well to build the chest is called Stabilisation Equivalent Training,” says Rodney Corn, director of education for the American National Academy of Sports Medicine. “For example, you follow a stable chest exercise like the dumbbell flye on a flat bench with an unstable equivalent move — a dumbbell flye on an exercise ball with one leg bracing you.”

Most guys steer clear of exercise-ball moves because they have to drop to a much lighter weight than they’re used to handling. But by doing so, you grow much stronger in the long run performing both stable and unstable moves. “Stability training places a greater demand on your body to internally stabilise itself,” Corn explains. “By training the brain how to work the pecs while stabilising the body, you increase the potential of your pecs to produce more force.” By doing the ball exercise immediately after the traditional version (with little to no rest between sets), the lighter weight now becomes more of a challenge for the chest because those muscle fibres are prefatigued.

DO THIS: Do a set of flyes on a flat bench with dumbbells that allow you to get no more than 8–10 reps. After little to no rest, grab a pair of lighter weights and do 10–15 flyes on an exercise ball. Rest two minutes and repeat the superset twice more.

TIP 2: PARTIAL REPS
“Doing partial reps at the end of a set will take your chest to a place it’s likely never been before — total fatigue,” says Guillermo Escalante, president of Sports Pros, a sports medicine, fitness and rehabilitation centre in California.

A partial rep is a rep that stops short of the typical range of motion for that exercise. If you gauge your fatigue by the inability to complete a full repetition, you aren’t taking the muscle to its true limit. If you continue with partial reps until you can no longer budge the weight, you know without doubt that you taxed the muscle to its upper limits.

“For chest training, partial reps are perfect on press exercises like the bench press or machine press,” Escalante notes. “The reason is that the triceps play a monumental role in the top half of the exercise. Often you surrender on the bench press when your smaller triceps muscles fatigue, not the chest.” By doing reps in the lower three-quarters of your full bench press range of motion, you minimise the role of the triceps and maximise the use of the pectoral muscles — ultimately leading to bigger pecs. Be careful when using this technique; it’s very taxing. Use it on only the last set of an exercise.

DO THIS: With a spotter close by, do three sets of incline barbell presses. When you can no longer do complete reps on the third set, continue repping in the lower one-half to three-quarters of the range of motion until you can no longer push the weight to the halfway point.

TIP 3: ECCENTRIC TRAINING
To get a bigger chest, you’ll need to develop stronger pecs. David Sandler, professor of exercise science at Florida International University, says one way to increase your strength on an exercise immediately is to overload the eccentric portion of the lift, in which you lower the weight. “The heavier the weight that you’re lowering, the stronger you’ll be on the lifting phase of the exercise,” he adds. This is due to the potential energy that builds in a muscle as you stretch it. When you release the stretch as you begin to lift the weight, that energy is transferred to the contracting muscle fibres.

DO THIS: Do three sets of decline bench presses with a weight that limits you to 6–8 reps. On each rep of the third set, have a spotter push on the bar as you resist it down to your chest. Then your spotter lets go and you push the weight up with your new-found strength.

TIP 4: MAX OUT FIRST
Another trick for gaining immediate strength and long-term muscle mass is to first max out on an exercise, then go for reps, states Tim Scheett, an exercise science professor at the University of Southern Mississippi. With this max-out technique, you’ll use a weight with which you can get only about 2–3 reps and do one rep with it, then follow with a lighter set for more reps.

“Doing one rep on the bench press with an extremely heavy weight primes your nervous system to recruit the maximal amount of muscle fibres in your chest,” Scheett explains. “When you do a following set with lighter weight, the nervous system still recruits the same amount of muscle fibres as for the heavy weight — in essence making the weight much easier so you can get several more reps.” (The reason you don’t want to use a true max weight is so you don’t overfatigue yourself on the first set.)

DO THIS: Choose a weight with which you can bench press for only about two reps and do one set of one rep. Rest about three minutes and do a set with a weight that allows you to normally get 6–8 reps. You should be able to get 2–3 extra reps out of this second set. Repeat the process two more times.

TIP 5: EXPLOSIVE REPS
“I like to combine standard exercises like the bench press with power moves that are explosive and ballistic,” remarks Neil Purves, manager of Personal Training for Executive Fitness Leaders (Ottawa). Explosive moves, performed very fast with light weight, activate more fast-twitch muscle fibres, which have the highest potential for growth. “They also allow you to push the weight without having to slow it down, helping you to gain more power and strength,” he adds.

For example, when you do a bench press, you push the weight off your chest as fast as possible, but you have to slow it down at the top due to the length limit of your arms. This steals your power and strength because you spend part of the lift actually pulling, not pushing. With a ballistic bench press, you explode the weight off your chest and let it go: it’s all push and no pull.

DO THIS: Set up a Smith machine with a weight that lets you get only about 6–8 reps. Do one set of normal bench presses with that weight. Immediately strip off about 50%–70% and do 3–5 ballistic bench press reps.
START: For the plyometric portion, push the bar off your chest as fast as possible, letting it go at the top.
FINISH: As you catch it on its descent, immediately move into the next rep by bringing the bar to your chest and exploding back up. (Resist the motion of the bar on the descent only enough to stop it from crashing into your chest.) Rest two minutes; repeat the superset twice more.

Now get off the couch and make those muscle-man tits grow grow grow!!!

While the video below suggests doing two sets of 12 reps each, this can be modified depending on your bodybuilding needs.

Just make sure you’re eating right and doing everything you should be doing nutritionally so that you can maximize your muscle gains.
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Exercise Tips: Inhale as you lower the weight, and exhale as you raise it up.

Bend at the elbow, and try to isolate the movement so the rest of your arm does not move as you lower the weight.

Keep your feet flat on the floor the entire time.

This full body workout can very easily be done at home using only dumbells… so STOP MAKING EXCUSES!

The exercises demonstrated by sports medicine guru and certified personal trainer Gustavus Wyche in this free workout video include the following: dumbbell squats, lunges, deadlifts, dumbbell pushups, standing dumbbell rows, bent over rows, front dumbbell raises, lateral raises, overhead military press, rear deltoid flys, alternating bicep curls, overhead triceps extension.

Plus, each demonstration includes step-by-step tips and instructions as he walks you through the entire 10-minute workout…. SHIRTLESS!!!!

While you may not gain super muscle mass with this relatively basic workout, it’s DEFINITELY a great place to start and will earn you some awesome results, especially for those of you who hate waiting in line at the gym to use your favorite weight training machines…

It is an awesome functional, athletic movement for you athletes.

The fact that you can not go fast with this movement allows more focus, squeeze, and isolation on the biceps.

For more personal training info from Darin Steen, CLICK HERE!

Workout Tips: Don’t forget to push your upper arm & elbow down through the floor (aim for your big toe) while you squeeze your bicep.

As you squeeze and contract your bicep, imagine that you are squeezing water out of a sponge… that is what it should feel like.

Remember, you will work the target muscle better by looking at it and going slow (a 3-1-3 tempo).

Squeeze and contract the tricep as you exhale, and be sure to inhale on the negative as you prepare for the next contraction.

This exercise can be performed on a weight bench or even with the help of a chair or firm coffee table (for those who workout with dumbbells at home).

Bring your elbows as far back as you can.

Exhale as you contract and squeeze your shoulder blades, inhale as your arms move down to the starting position. Repeat!