Latest news with #chestworkout
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
5 Science-Backed Reasons Your Chest Won't Grow
Aside from stubborn calves, there's one muscle group that seems to be hard to build for even the most dedicated lifters: the chest. You bench. You press. You even throw in cable flyes for good measure. And yet—nothing. No mass, no pop, no pec shelf to speak of. While you could blame your parents (yes, genetics play a small role), there's a good chance your chest is lagging for far less mysterious reasons. Recently, Mike Israetel, Ph.D., exercise scientist and co-founder of Renaissance Periodization, interviewed sports scientist Pak Androulakis-Korakakis, Ph.D., to break down the five common mistakes that explain why so many guys struggle to grow their pecs. Spoiler: They're not exactly groundbreaking, but they are probably what's holding you back from the ideal years, there's been a debate: Should you lift heavy or crank out more volume? While technically you can (and probably should) do both in the name of hypertrophy, Androulakis-Korakakis says bumping up your volume could be the real game-changer when it comes to building muscle. "If chest is one of these lagging body parts for you, hitting it with 20 or even 30 sets per week is a good educated bet," he says. When it comes to your session training volume, you don't want to do everything in one session, so when I say 20 to 30 sets, ideally split those in two to three sessions so you can get high-quality sets very close to failure." Compound exercises are a must in every man's routine. They hit multiple muscle groups, boost your pressing power, and build serious strength. But if you're trying to zero in on your chest—and only your chest—then isolation moves aren't optional, they're essential. "When it comes to bringing up your chest as a lagging body part, you want to keep roughly 50 to 60 percent of your exercises as isolation exercises," Androulakis-Korakakis adds. "Meaning things like double flies, cable flies, machine flies, exercise that pretty much isolates the chest, so you can make sure that your chest is getting as much stimulus as possible."It's tempting to go lighter, especially when you're chasing higher volume. But according to Androulakis-Korakakis, that's one of the biggest reasons your chest might not be growing. When it comes to building muscle, lifting to—or at least close to—failure is key. If you're not pushing yourself there regularly, you could be leaving gains on the table. According to Androulakis-Korakakis, bodyweight exercises are one of the most underrated types of exercises for building size. They offer an "amazing stretch, barely any warm-up required, super easy to progress, even if you're an advanced lifter, and in general, easy exercises that you can sprinkle on top of other sessions to get more volume," he says. Pausing during sets has long been debated—is it actually effective, or just a way to look like you're grinding harder? According to Androulakis-Korakakis, it's more than just show. Strategic pauses can boost time under tension, which has quite literally been shown to drive muscle growth. "Choose exercises that place a lot of tension in the stretch and do your best to pause stuff in the stretch," he says. "The pause is not going to take away from your gains, and it will likely allow you to be a bit more efficient with the weights that you use. It will make the exercise harder, and it will give you more space to progress." 5 Science-Backed Reasons Your Chest Won't Grow first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 3, 2025
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Want to Build Real Muscle in Less Time? Pull (and Push) Double Duty With a Chest and Back Workout.
WANT TO GET bigger and stronger without spending all your time in the gym? You'll need to learn how to train efficiently—and that means training with a plan. One of the simplest ways to do this is by training muscle groups together. For the upper body, that probably means you'll start by combining your chest and back workouts into one. Chest and back workouts are extra-efficient because they are opposing muscle groups. You'll push with your arms to hit the anteriorly-positioned pecs (in other words, the front side of your body) while you'll pull to work the posteriorly positioned (rear) back muscles like the lats, traps, and rhomboids. Supersets and other rep schemes that don't require long recovery periods can help cut your overall training time. Not sure where to start with a chest-and-back supersets workout? Here's a sample session designed by MH fitness director Ebenezer Samuel, C.S.C.S. that can get you started. Want more details about how this plan should work? Keep reading to learn more. Do the exercises in order, with exercises 1A and 1B as a superset. Perform both moves back-to-back, resting one minute after completing each set. Do the same for moves 2A and 2B. Do exercise 3 by itself, resting for 1 minute between sets. Finish with 2 sets of exercise 4. How to do it: Hold a loaded barbell with an overhand grip slightly wider than shoulder-width. Hinge at the hips and tighten your core, working to keep your shoulders slightly higher than your hips. Don't round your lower back. Squeeze your shoulder blades, then row the barbell to your chest. Return to the start. Sets and reps: 3 sets of 10 reps How to do it: Lie with your back on a bench, holding dumbbells directly over your shoulders, arms straight. Your core should be tight and your glutes should be squeezed. Bend at the elbows and shoulders, lowering the weights to within an inch of your chest, then press the dumbbells back up. Sets and reps: How to do it: Hang from a pullup bar with a shoulder-width, underhand grip. Keep your core tight. Squeeze your shoulder blades, then pull your chest toward the bar. Hold when you've pulled your chest to the bar, then slowly lower to the start. Sets and reps: How to do it: Lie with your back on an adjustable bench set to a 30-degree incline, holding light- to medium-weight dumbbells directly over your shoulders, core tight and glutes squeezed. Keeping your right arm straight, lower the left dumbbell to your chest then press it back up. Do that twice. Then keep the left arm straight as you lower the right dumbbell to your chest and press it back up twice. Lower both dumbbells to your chest and press them back up. Sets and reps: How to do it: Lie with your chest on an adjustable bench set to a 30-degree incline, holding light dumbbells. Let your arms hang naturally. Tighten your glutes, flex your abs, and squeeze your shoulder blades. Row the dumbbells upwards, aiming to drive your elbows higher than your torso. Squeeze your back at the top of each rep. Sets and reps: How to do it: Get in pushup position. Do one pushup. As you push your torso upwards, jump your hands in the air, into position for a triceps pushup, hands slightly narrower than shoulder-width apart. Do one triceps pushup, then jump (or step) your hands back to regular pushup position and do two standard pushups. After the second one, move back into triceps pushups position and do two triceps pushups. Continue laddering up until you can do no more good-form reps. Sets and reps: The principle behind stacking two opposing muscle groups in one training session is simple: You'll be able to do more in less time. Opposing muscle groups—individually known as the agonist and antagonist muscles for each specific movement—mean that the two muscles perform the opposite functions. Think biceps and triceps with flexion and extension of the elbow, and (of course) chest and back, with pushing and pulling. Since you'll be performing two different movements with two different muscles, you'll be able to recover without fully taking a break. This is the perfect opportunity to use a superset structure; rather than doing one exercise, resting, then doing another, you'll perform one exercise targeted at the first muscle group, then immediately proceed to one targeting the other. Then you'll rest and repeat. The chest-and-back superset session is one of your best training options. It's grueling and challenging, but it will leave your entire upper body with a vicious pump, and insure that you're hitting all critical upper body muscles. And while it's challenging, it's also smartly crafted: For the health of your shoulders and your posture, you always want to blend pushing and pulling exercises into your training. Supersetting a chest exercise with a back exercise insures that you do that. Lead with the back exercise in each pair first; for physique balance, you should aim to pull more weight (and more frequently) than you push in all your training. A chest and back superset workout also lets you move challenging weights; you'll wind up doing major movements, such as bench presses and rows, and by lifting heavy weights, you'll spur your body towards muscle growth. This isn't the kind of workout you want to do all week, though, especially if you're training hard. If you try doing chest-and-back supersets, think of doing them twice a week, with at least two days of rest for upper-body training in between. Chest-and-back supersets work ideally with a weekly split that has you training on a three-day split that starts with legs on the first day, places upper body on the second day, and includes a third day of rest and recovery. 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Yahoo
25-06-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
The Army-Backed Move Guaranteed to Build Your Core and Chest
If you want to build a rock-solid core and strengthen your chest, there's no better person to learn from than a U.S. Army strength coach. Army Reserve Lt. Col. Jason Barber, PA-C, CSCS, TSAC-F, has spent over a decade at the World Class Athlete Program (WCAP), where he's helped to consistently qualify more than 10 athletes for every Olympic and Paralympic Games across eight different sports. According to Barber, if there's one exercise he swears by for core stability and upper-body strength, it's the stability ball dumbbell chest press. It forces you to engage your core through the full range of motion while also working your chest, shoulders, and triceps. While it's a go-to for novice lifters working on core control and balance, this move delivers benefits for athletes at any level. "When I started as a young strength coach, one of the biggest things that I always glommed onto was building the foundation," Barber says. "And that core development is truly the foundation. Making our bodies more unstable means that we have to incorporate more accessory muscles and more core stability in order to move the weight that we're trying to move." Hold a dumbbell in one hand and lie back on a stability ball as if you were going to perform a bench press, using your core to keep your butt from sinking down, to start. Press the weight straight overhead while maintaining your balance. Do not allow your body to rotate to one side. Reverse the motion to return to the starting position. That's one rep. Complete all your reps on that side and then switch sides and repeat. "I like adding things like that into programs," Barber adds. "I think it's good for everyone to think about that and think holistically about how they train, not just biceps and triceps and chest. So, I'm a huge advocate for those types of modalities." The stability ball chest press and traditional dumbbell bench press have a similar setup and may look alike, but they activate the body in very different ways. The flat bench used in a standard dumbbell chest press provides a stable base, allowing you to focus purely on pressing power, which means you can typically move more weight. The stability ball version, on the other hand, forces your entire body to work. Your core, glutes, and even legs stay engaged throughout the movement to keep you balanced on the unstable surface, turning a simple chest press into a full-body challenge. 'All of the muscles that are in my back and my hips and my legs, my core, my abdomen, and then even using some more, like, accessory shoulder muscles to accommodate the dumbbell, are being used," Barber adds. "That's a whole-body lift, almost. Whereas before, if we're in the traditional bench, we're pretty locked in, and it's really just a chest exercise.' Although most people who've been lifting for a while assume their bench press weight will translate directly to the stability ball, they're wrong. Because the ball is free-moving, it requires a different movement pattern and a whole lot more control. Below, Barber breaks down the two most common mistakes he sees people make when performing this exercise. "Guys usually pick up too much weight," he says. "It's always good to be conservative first, so that's a big common mistake that I'll see, is too much weight, which puts you in danger." Lying down on a stability ball takes some getting used to. Add dumbbells, and it gets even trickier. One of the most common mistakes Barber sees is lifters arching their bodies over the ball instead of keeping a flat, supported back. This usually means you're either too far off the ball or not engaging the right muscles. To fix it, position your shoulders on the ball—not your glutes or mid-back—to create a stable base and maintain proper alignment throughout the movement. Squeeze your glutes and core to support yourself, and aim to keep the top of your core flat and even with your knees. The Army-Backed Move Guaranteed to Build Your Core and Chest first appeared on Men's Journal on Jun 24, 2025
