Here’s a quick tip on how to develop a nice well-balanced chest.
If you think that building a big chest is all about doing as many different types of chest movements, think again. Working out your pecs isn’t just all about doing the flat bench press either. Yes it’s one of the most effective exercises to do in the gym, but what people tend to forget is that it’s compromised of two different muscles: the upper and lower pectoral muscles.
You need to strive for balance. Having an unproportioned chest is like working out your biceps without ever trying to develop your triceps; you’ll end up with weird looking arms. In this case though, you’ll have a chest that look more like boobs than anything else.
What you need to shoot for is a balanced chest that is NOT round but more square-shaped like the image above. Genetics do play a part in how your chest is going to ultimately look like, but you can control if they look like boobs or not.
So What Should I Do?
Most people make the mistake of making the flat bench press their main and first chest exercise, then proceed to do other variations of chest movements like the incline bench and flyes. There’s nothing wrong with this, but the problem is that by always performing the regular bench press first, you’ll develop the lower chest a lot more than the upper chest.
This won’t make a big difference to novice lifters who still have a lot of work to do, but for intermediate lifters who want a balanced and defined chest, try to switch things up by prioritizing your upper chest.
Perform compound movements that specifically target the upper chest first like the incline press (barbell or dumbbell) and incline flyes before you do other chest exercises like the flat or decline bench. Or better yet if your upper chest is significantly lagging, just get rid of the regular bench press altogether from your training program and focus on the incline presses. Do this for a couple months until your upper chest starts to catch up to your lower chest.
I’m ditching the flat bench press
I have a looooong way to go before I achieve the look in the picture but I am going to pay more attention to the upper chest. Thanks.
I wish my husband had a body like that… I’ll have to get him started on the inclined bench presses.