Fitness Junkies: chest workout

Do you know that Chest is one of the most frequently muscle by most people but they also face difficulty while developing there chest.

I guess you know a plenty of chest exercises but there are useless when you don’t have any idea about which exercise hit which muscle for symmetrical chest.

In this article, we’re going to talk about science-based best chest workout to have muscle mass and symmetry.

Before starting that, you should know the anatomy of your chest because when you know it you can also include your favourite chest exercises from your bucket list.

Chest has mainly two parts: Clavicular head of pecs major(‘UPPER CHEST’) and the Sternal head of pecs major, which has again two parts: Middle Chest and the Lower Chest because of the muscle fiber direction.

Whenever you do any chest exercise you hit all chest muscle but what about specific muscle that you want to target?

Anatomy of Upper Chest: Since upper chest fibers run in upward direction, the best chest exercise for that is when arms move upward.

Chest Section	Muscle Fiber	Function
Upper Chest	Clavicular pectoralis and Superior fibers of sternal head the pecs major	Horizontal Abduction, Internal rotation, Shoulder Flexion

Anatomy of Middle Chest: As Middle chest fibers run horizontally, best activated chest exercise is arms move directly horizontally

Chest Section	Muscle Fiber	Function
Middle Chest	Middle portion of the pecs major	Horizontal Adduction Internal rotation

Anatomy of Lower Chest: Since lower chest fiber runs downward, best activated chest exercise involves the arms moving downward.

Chest Section	Muscle Fiber	Function
Upper Chest	Clavicular pectoralis and Superior fibers of sternal head the pecs major	Horizontal Adduction, Internal rotation, Shoulder Flexion

Now! You understand the Anatomy of your chest. Let’s see how we can build well-rounded chest with science based chest workout.

You should know that while working out any exercise mind-muscle connection is very important and chest is not the exception so, make proper mind-muscle connection to feel burn inside your chest.

This will also help you to grow better as when you have proper mind-muscle connection all the nutrients that you took in your pre-workout went to your wains and grow your muscles

According one research, mind-muscle connection helped to boost chest activation by 22% during bench press in trained athletes than no mind-muscle connection athletes.

Some helpful tips for heavy chest exercise is depress your traps and squeeze your shoulder blades in to the bench before starting any chest-press movement.

Now! You totally understand what is important while chest workout to grow symmetrical chest.
Read Related Article: The Best Shoulder Exercise You Should Do!

Let’s see the exercises for science-based chest workout

EXERCISE 1: Incline Dumbbell Press(Emphasises upper chest): Through the added shoulder flexion of this movement, incline dumbbell press more emphasises on clavicular head of the pecs.

However, there are other several muscles working such as Anterior deltoid, Triceps long head, Triceps medial head and Serratus anterior.

The main reason to start chest workout with this exercise is the give more priority to upper chest, which is often neglected by the most people.

The Best Science-Based Chest Workout for Mass & Symmetry

There are some great thing about this exercise that you might know or not is that it allows greater ROM(Range of motion) for pecs which means more hypertrophy. This thing is supported by many scientific research

Second most important thing is it is very effective at activating the upper chest. You can see this in one contreras EMG study and analyse chest activity with fifteen different chest exercises.

And the conclusion is that the incline dumbbell press is the most effective chest exercise for upper chest.

Lastly but most important for the people with muscle imbalance is that it prevents any muscle imbalance if you don’t have already.

Many of you don’t know which angle is best for incline bench press but it totally depends on your body anatomy. One EMG study shows that optimal bench angle is somewhere between 30 to 56 degree.

If you want to find which angle is best then try both angle alternatively to hit your upper chest most effectively.

EXERCISE 2: Barbell/Dumbbell Bench Press(Emphasises Middle chest)

This exercises is the golden exercise because it not develop your chest but also gives you a thickness in chest.

It is not possible for me to not include this exercise in science-based chest workout because of it’s overwhelming studies supporting its effectiveness in chest building.

It had also been conclude from several studies that it is the most activating chest exercise and you can also lift the most weight with this

One study also find the positive correlation between one rep max on bench press and size of the chest. This indicate that a strong bench help us to have a big chest in many cases.

You can also perform dumbbell press, if you trained other supporting muscles of the chest. There is one controversy between barbell and dumbbell bench press but both exercise have a similar activation for chest according to one research.

There are other benefits of dumbbell bench press compare to barbell bench press so try them both alternatively and see which one works best for you!

Read Science Based Workout:
Best Science-based PUSH-PULL-LEG Workout Program

EXERCISE 3: Chest DIPS(Emphasises Lower chest):

There are few other names for this exercise also like parallel bar dips.

One study found that this exercise is the most effective exercise at hitting lower chest compare to other lower chest exercises.

However, if you don’t have much flexibility or any other shoulder injuries in the past then you can also try straight bar dips which I personally prefer because I don’t want to put my shoulder at RISK!!.

Another reason to choose straight bar dips is that I feel a lot more in my lower chest probably due to the shoulder extension. It is also another main function of your lower chest.

You can do this on smith machine or any other barbell that set-up on the rack.

To be honest!, it is tough exercise for many people compare to chest dips but I guarantee that if you do this exercise properly and add some extra weight then you will see huge improvement in your lower chest.

EXERCISE 4: Banded Push-Ups(Emphasises Mid/Upper chest):

This is the best finishing exercise for your chest workout and it also helps you to strengthen your upper body.

You can do this by put band around your back and hold each end of the bend with your hands and perform regular push-ups with the added resistance. There are different type of resistance bands are available online. Try any one of them according to your strength.

One study compares the banded push-ups with the bench press in a two different groups for five weeks. The researchers found that banded push-ups have nearly equal activation to the bench press.

Once you mastered this exercise you can use different type of resistance bands to improve your strength.

EXERCISE 5: High to Low Cable Crow-overs (Emphasises Mid/Lower chest): how to do low cable crossover had been shown in few studies like schanke is found that this exercise had similar effectiveness as the bench press at activating the chest.

So, this exercise will be definitely great finisher that you can perform till failure. In this exercise you can do something that is not possible in other chest exercises is that you can cross the cables horizontally to allow greater abduction which better activates the chest.

Read Science Based Workout:

The Best Science-Based Plan To Get Six Pack Abs (3 Easy Steps)

Here is the sample best science-based chest workout that you can do in your gym but one thing is very important while doing any science-based workout is the order of the exercise.

So, if you’re going to follow this workout make sure you follow the sequence of the workout.

Follow are the some workout sample based on your lagging area of the chest.

FOR UPPER CHEST

FOR MIDDLE CHEST

FOR LOWER CHEST

Scientific Research Studies:

Final Words
There are many other chest exercises that you can do to train you chest muscles but these are the best based on science.

which is your favourite chest exercises and is it your chest workout is science based? Let me know in the comment section below!

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Fitness Junkies: chest workout

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Let’s see the exercises for science-based chest workout

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