The arms aren’t the only part of the body that requires a good weight lifting routine in order to get into sculpted shape. The chest is an area that also requires a quality weight lifting plan, whether you are male or female. The goals may be different, as most men want defined chest muscles that result in a larger, broader, and muscular chests that they can show off while women want toning to make their bodies look good, and in some cases, to help keep the “lift” in that part of the body.
The chest is one of those areas that no matter whether it is male or female involved, the chest area requires a lot of different exercises and hard work to tone or to gain muscle. While there are many different machines and lifts that help to build muscles in the chest, many bodybuilders are fans of the basics. For those men who want to gain large amounts of muscle to show off their chest, a lot of sweat, blood, and hours upon hours of work and weight lifting are required to get the pecs that you want. In this case there are no short cuts, and because of the sheer size of the pectoral muscles, it is going to take that much more work to get the type of muscular chest you want.
If you’re female and looking to tone, don’t worry, the same types of exercises apply to you, as well. The fear of many women of becoming a ripped unfeminine bodybuilder isn’t realistic: you would have to eat thousands of calories and have an unusually high amount of testosterone in the body to even begin to worry about that.
When exercising the chest muscles, it’s important to know that the chest is made of two main heads, the “pectoralis major” and the “pectoralis minor.” There are two main types of motions used in weight lifting that allow you to work out these two muscles and develop a great looking pair of pectoral muscles. These motions are the press, and the fly. While both are needed in conjunction, the press is definitely the more important of the two types of exercises.
The more weight that you can lift through the full range of motion, the more muscle fibers that get involved. No matter what machines or exercises you look at using in order to work out your chest, nothing replaces the effectiveness for heavy presses (either barbell or dumbbell both work), as well as wide grip dips. These exercises allow you to really work out the muscle fibers in your chest and get into shape.
These exercises are considered “core lifts” and should be the absolute cornerstone of any weight lifting workouts designed with bulking up (or toning up) the chest. The occasional set of fly based motions have there place, but the press is definitely where most of your concentration should be.
Follow this advice, and your chest workouts are sure to be more effective and you will see and enjoy the results fast.
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