When it comes to any fitness routine, it is all about maximizing your time and the effort you put forth. No one wants to waste time at the gym doing exercises that they are going to see little to not benefit in doing, so knowing what to do before you get to the gym is extremely important.
To get the most out of your chest workout, you are going to want to focus mostly on compound exercises which are going to hit multiple muscle groups with a mix of some isolation at the end to nicely round out your routine.
The 6 Best Exercises You Need to Be Doing to Get a Chiseled Chest
1-Dumbbell Bench Press
This is going to be your warm up exercise in a sense, in that the flat bench press is going to help engage all of the muscles in the arms, shoulders and chest. This is going to help get you stretched out and ready for the exercises ahead, so make sure to do this one first.
You also want to be starting with relatively light weight here, and generally be working your way up. Start your first set light at about 50%, then work your way up to where you are lifting 100% capacity by your third or fourth set. Do this exercise for a total of 4-5 sets, 10 repetitions in each.
2-Incline Bench Press
You want to start your routine with exercises that are going to promote the most growth here, which is going to be the incline bench press.
Contrary to popular belief this is arguably the best chest exercise because doing the exercise on an incline helps to deactivate the front deltoids, thus putting more of that stress on the chest. This is different than your flat bench where your shoulders are helping to do some of the lifting.
The key here is all about the angle of the bench, as the higher you go, the more you are going to activate your deltoids. Ideally you want to be putting the bench at a 20-30 degree angle here, definitely not more than 45 degrees to give the chest the most work here.
3-Standing Cable Fly
This exercise is going to focus on your lower pec, and can either be performed in a standing position, or on a bench. If you are unfamiliar with this exercise you are probably better off doing them standing up, as doing them on a bench can be slightly awkward.
To do this exercise, you are going to head over to the cables and position them at the maximum height. Position yourself so that your feet are slightly in front of the machine, to where your arms are pulled slightly backwards when you are reaching for the cables.
You want to pull them in a downwards motion towards the middle of your torso, to where your hands are touching at the completion of the rep. Do this exercise for 4 set of 12 repetitions each.
4-Machine Dips
At this point in the exercise you are probably starting to lose some steam, so you want to switch over to some less intense exercises. Machine dips are an excellent way to get in some good negative work on your arms, without having to worry about the weights crashing on your head due to fatigue.
You are going to do these dips in the same manner that you normally would, except here you really want to be focusing on the downward motion since we are working on negatives here. Make sure to lower your bodyweight as slowly as possible here to give your chest a nice extra burn.
5-Standard Fly
Next you want to head over to the fly machine, which can really help to open you up at the end of your exercise. Your focus here is going to be more so improving your flexibility and range of motion rather than moving as much weight as you can.
At this point in your routine your muscles should be really nice and loose, allowing you to really open up your chest.
6-Pushups
If you still have some energy left at the end of your routine and are looking to do more, pushups are your best bet. Pushups enable us to push our bodies to their upper limits, squeezing out what little energy we have left-with minimal risk.
You can also throw in some variation other than the traditional pushup if you really want to focus on one area of the chest, such as diamond pushups or wide grip pushups.
