Per Bernal
Pecs make the bodybuilder. They form a breastplate, armor cast in flesh, vigilant guards before the engines of life itself. So there’s that. But they’ve also become so emblematic of “jacked” that today’s kids are as likely to hit a most-muscular as a double biceps when asked to “make a muscle.” We’ve assembled an alphabetical guide to growing your fleshy breastplate—26 top tips from current chest masters. From A (for angles) to Z (for zone) and all the letters in between, this expert advice will help you grow more chest flesh to flex.
A = ANGLES
“The chest, more than any other body part, has distinct regions that need to be worked with different exercises and hit from different angles. There’s the upper chest, lower chest, inner chest, and outer chest. Each of those should get some work in every chest workout. I’m doing six exercises [incline dumbbell press, Smith machine incline press, incline ye, at machine press, decline machine press,
pec deck ye or cable crossover] to make sure I hit every angle.” —Cody Montgomery
B = BENCH PRESS
“I always do some kind of at press. I use either dumbbells or a barbell, and I switch it up. The dumbbells make me work harder to balance and steady them, and I can also find the perfect groove because I can position my arms in ways I can’t with a barbell. On the other hand, a barbell allows me to put on more weight and just press because there’s less focus on balancing. They both have advantages, but lately I’ve been doing more dumbbell bench presses.” —Lionel Beyeke
Per Bernal
C = CABLE CROSSOVER
“Cable crossovers are almost always in my routine somewhere, especially pre-contest. Sometimes I superset them with something else, like Hammer machine presses, and sometimes I do them alone at the end of the workout. They’re all about the contractions. I don’t even care how much weight I use. You can make any weight feel heavy on these if you squeeze your pecs hard enough.” —Dexter Jackson
Pavel Ythjall
D = DIP
“The advantage of draping chains over your shoulders during dips is they pull you forward, so you work your chest more and your triceps less than when you have a weight dangling between your legs. Also, I don’t really want a weight between my legs if you know what I mean. And when I use two or three chains, I can shed one easily to do dropsets.” —Branch Warren
E = EXPERIMENTATION
“It’s easy to get into a rut with chest training. Variety is crucial, whether you’re switching exercises or switching the order of exercises. [Trainer] Charles Glass is always switching things up for me. Every workout is like a surprise attack for my muscles. It’s only through experimentation that you learn which exercises work best for you, but you also need to keep experimenting— what worked best for you last time might not work best next time.” —Shawn Rhoden
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F = FLYE
“When you bring them together, don’t let the dumbbells touch. Leave a gap of an inch to maintain the contraction. It’s too easy to bounce the weights o each other if you let them touch. You don’t need heavy dumbbells for yes.” —Nathan De Asha
Pavel Ythjall
G = GIANT SET
“I’ll do a giant set workout for chest with up to 10 different exercises. I did that recently, and a week later my chest was still sore. If I do eight or more exercises, I need to go through that cycle only twice, but I know I’ve hit the muscle from every angle and with a variety of stimuli—barbell presses, dumbbell yes, machine and cable yes, and dumbbell pullovers.” —Ben Pakulski
H = HEAVY
“Heavy is a relative term. It really doesn’t matter what the weight is. If you can bench-press it only four times, then it’s heavy even if it’s only 135. Chest seems to be the body part guys most like to hit with low reps, because everyone wants to get a big bench or big incline. But chest responds best to moderate reps of eight to 12 like other body parts, and sometimes you should aim even higher for 15 reps or more. Heavy reps have a role, but don’t let them dominate.” —Jonathan De La Rosa
I = INCLINE PRESS
“I don’t always start my chest workout with incline presses. I probably do it every other workout. The crucial thing is making sure you always do them at some point in the workout. They’re too important for filling in your upper chest to ever skip. I don’t really lose a lot of strength throughout my workout, but if you start losing steam pretty fast on chest day and your upper chest is a weak point, you should definitely do your inclines first in every chest workout.” —Johnnie Jackson
J = JUXTAPOSE
“Some exercises are more effective because of what comes just before or after. You can juxtapose flyes and presses, for example. If you do the flyes first, you can’t go as heavy on the presses, but the presses will work your pecs more. Going the other way around, you can go heavier on the presses and then do the isolation work. There’s no right or wrong way, but each will have a different effect.” —Sergio Oliva Jr.
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K = KNOWLEDGE
“It seems like with all the new machines, a lot of basic knowledge has been lost about chest training. If you look at the guys from the ’70s— Arnold [Schwarzenegger], Franco [Columbu], Lou [Ferrigno]—they had chests every bit as big as guys today, and they did almost nothing but free-weight basics. Sometimes the most important lessons to learn are to see what worked best 50 years ago, because it still works best today.” —Jose Raymond
L = LOWER PECS
“As I get older, ignoring my lower pecs can lead to a little loose skin there. So I’ll alternate between a barbell and a dumbbell decline [press] from week to week, and I’ll also do pullovers, which help keep that area extra tight. Most people use pullovers as a lat move, but I’m using them more for chest, and I find the machines restrict your ability to squeeze at the end of the move [compared with] the dumbbell. I’ll also do some body-weight dips to stimulate the outer part of the pecs and get that squeeze at the bottom.” —Victor Martinez
Per Bernal
M = MACHINE PRESS
“There’s a safety factor when doing a machine press or ye. I feel like I can safely go heavier because the machine is going to keep you in a groove, and you don’t have to worry about a spotter catching the weight. Still, I don’t do really low reps. I like to stick with four sets of 12 for chest. Because chest is a weaker area for me, what I do is I work it more often. I try to hit it twice a week and other body parts only once.” —Roelly Winklaar
N = NEGATIVE
“Time under tension is a good thing. When I do machine presses, I like to focus more on the negative. You want to stay in control of the weight; don’t let the weight control you. Concentrate on both halves of the rep—the positive and the negative.” —Phil Heath
O = OVER-TRAINING
“Any kind of press for chest works the triceps and front delts along with the pecs. So you need to beware of overtraining. If you do a lot of pressing, you may need to do less shoulder and triceps work. And you should arrange your split so there’s at least two days between your chest workout and your triceps or shoulder workouts.” —Guy Cisternino
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Per Bernal
P = PEC DECK FLYE
When I do these, I keep my arms parallel to the floor, even though the pads are vertical. The pads are between my biceps and my forearms in the crooks of my elbows. This feels more natural to me. I’ll do lots of reps to failure with the whole stack. I don’t want to count the reps. If I count them I might get stuck on that number the next set or the next workout. I can’t limit myself.” —Maxx Charles
Q = QUALITY
“Early on, some of my body parts blew up, like my legs. Others didn’t, like my chest. Part of that was because I was pressing with my shoulders and triceps. Chest took a backseat, not because I wasn’t training it but because I was training it wrong. I never really had someone say, ‘Slow yourself down, and concentrate on the squeeze.’ So I started focusing on the quality of my reps and not the quantity of the weight. I lightened the weights and started pressing just to get that mind-muscle connection. It’s something you really have to concentrate on. You need to feel the muscles working.” —Flex Lewis
Per Bernal
R = RANGE OF MOTION
“I use dumbbells a lot on chest day—presses, yes, and pullovers. They provide a longer range of motion, and they allow me to find the right groove to stress my shoulders less and work my pecs more. Sometimes I’ll do a whole chest workout using nothing but dumbbells.” —William Bonac
S = SUPERSET
“I like to superset a free-weight exercise with its machine counterpart. So I’ll do barbell bench presses, then as soon as I’m done with my set, I’ll do a set of machine bench presses. It’s a safe way of extending the set. Or I might do dumbbell yes superset with pec deck yes or cable crossovers. The free weights always come first, so with the machine exercise that follows, I can focus more on the squeeze and getting every last fiber stimulated.” —Juan Morel
T = TEMPO
"Presses and dumbbell yes are performed slow and under careful control. With pec deck yes or cable crossovers, I like to switch up the tempo and go faster. I do these last, so going faster lets me crank out a few more reps and really get a great pump.” —Brandon Curry
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Per Bernal
U = UPPER PECS
“To focus more on upper pecs, I start my workout with incline dumbbell yes and then do incline presses, either with a machine or free weights. The yes pre-exhaust my upper pecs with an isolation exercise before the compound exercise. Also, by hitting upper pecs first, I’m able to work that area when my energy and focus are greatest.” —Mamdouh Elssbiay
V = VOLUME
“I don’t need much volume to work chest. As long as I push every working set to failure and focus on getting more repsthan I got last time, my chest is going to grow with just six to eight sets. Any more than that is overkill. The key is what you get out of your sets. If you’re not pushing them to failure and beyond, then you’re going to need more volume, but you’re not going to grow as fast by just doing twice as much half-assed work.” —David Henry
W = WORK-LOAD
“I warm up on every single movement. So you might see me doing 455-pound incline presses, and then next thing you know I’m doing dumbbell bench presses with the 50s. Well, the at press is a different movement than the incline, so I got warm on the inclines, but I’m not yet warm on the at press. The stress is different with each as far as how it works the tendons, joints, and muscles. I don’t count warmups as part of my workload, and I can get through them pretty quickly and move up to my working sets. But I always do them for every chest exercise.” —Josh Lenartowicz
X = X-FRAME
“Most people don’t think of the chest when building an X-frame, but you need really good pec lines to set o the X. It’s important to work every part of the pecs, upper, lower, outer, and inner. If any area is lacking, prioritize it. The upper chest, especially, will draw your eyes up to the shoulders and enhance the X.” —Cedric McMillan
Y = YIELD
“There’s a place for compound and isolation exercises in every chest routine, but if I had to choose just one chest exercise, it would probably be the incline press. That’s the one that’s going to have the greatest yield. It targets more of the upper chest, and it also works the front delts and triceps.” —Clarence DeVis
Per Bernall
Z = ZONE
“I like to stay in the moderate zone for chest of 10 to 12 reps per set. I will go lower or higher, but most of the time I’m aiming for 10. That gives me enough reps to work the muscles and not the weight, but not so many reps that I’m not also focused on pushing the intensity and trying to get stronger.” —Ahmad Ashkanani
FLEX
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