Lean Muscle Chest Workout

Consistently hit the weight room and follow a higher volume weight-training program if you’re interested in building lean muscle in your chest. The major muscle in your chest is your pectoralis major and it pulls your upper arms in together toward the center of your body. Put together a battery of three to four chest exercises and perform them at a training volume and intensity that promotes an increase in muscle size.

  1. Exercises

    • Exercises that effectively target the chest include chest press, pushups, pullover and chest flyes. Besides the pushup, which is a bodyweight exercise, you can use dumbbells to perform each exercise. Chest press is performed by lying on your back on a flat bench and holding dumbbells or a barbell at your chest, then pushing the weights up over your chest until your arms are fully extended. Pushups are done with your hands positioned on the floor a bit wider than your shoulders.

    Volume

    • Build lean muscle with a workout designed to increase tissue size. According to Joseph A. Chromiak, Ph.D. of the National Strength and Conditioning Association, those just starting out should do two to three sets of five to 12 repetitions. This would mean you’d do a total of eight to 12 sets of chest exercises in your workout. You can increase sets as you progress and are feeling comfortable. Give your chest muscles 60 to 120 seconds of rest in between each set.

    Weights

    • For each exercise, choose a weight that makes your chest muscles tire within the assigned number of repetitions. You want to use a weight that allows you to do at least eight repetitions, but not more than 12 repetitions. You’ll probably be using a higher weight during chest press than you will for pullover or chest flyes. When you’re doing pushups, the load your chest has to handle is your own bodyweight. Therefore, you may need to do fewer or more than eight to 12 repetitions to exhaust your chest.

    Schedule

    • Muscle increases in size when it’s overloaded and damaged and then given enough time to heal. When your muscle recovers, it also increases in size. Usually, this healing process takes 48 to 72 hours. Therefore, do your workout two to three days per week with one to two days off in between. The higher volume your workout, the more rest your muscles will need, so as you increase the number of sets you’re doing, you’ll need more rest.