Posts Tagged ‘chest’

The Top 5 Best Chest Exercises

Tuesday, July 26th, 2022
Lou Ferrigno used the best chest exercises


Bench presses and curls are two of the first exercises that are learned by new weight lifters. For men, the chest or “pecs” (short for pectorals) are second only to the biceps as the top show muscles in teenagers and young adults. This list of 5 of the best chest exercise will go a long way in building that initial base.

For women, the chest is even more important. Keeping well-built pecs can be useful in maintaining a solid, perky appearance of the breasts.

Serious fitness enthusiasts and athletes know that the pecs are involved in one of the main powerlifting exercises, the bench press. The bench press is one of three exercises, including squats and deadlifts, in a standard big 3 powerlifting competition. For this reason, it is always important for powerlifters to increase their chest strength.

Therefore it seems to me that everyone has a reason to train their chest, including men, women, athletes, bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen… everyone; and here are the top 5 best chest exercises you should use.

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How to Bench Press

Monday, August 26th, 2019

How to Bench Press

Update: I found a sweet How to Bench Press video by elite powerlifter Dave Tate today. The video appears about halfway through this post. If you want to bench press for max strength and “think” you have perfect form, you NEED to watch this video. Therefore I am republishing this article today for every Swole Bench Presser’s benefit.

Your Questions

I get plenty of questions in various comments throughout the website, but I also get comments and questions via the Project Swole Contact Form.

Generally, I address those questions through e-mail, but often I do not have the time to reply to each and every question personally.

From now on I want to take a more proactive approach to answer Your Health Questions by posting them separately in the blog. This way we can be sure that everyone benefits from the Q & A.

Kyle wrote:

“Hey Steve, OK me and a friend got into an argument about how to bench. I said you should touch your chest and he said you shouldn’t because it can injure your shoulder you should stop like 1 inch away from your chest? What is the right way to bench?”

Response:

So, you want to know how to bench press properly?

How to Bench Press

The bench press is the most popular exercise in the gym among men. It is the strongest upper body exercise for most people and has been a social gauge (and wrongly so, in my opinion) of male strength and fitness for more than a century. Fortunately, bench presses are the #1 best exercise for building upper body strength and size, and so should be included in nearly all strength training routines.

On the downside, benching is responsible for many weight lifting injuries, especially in the shoulder area. Hopefully, this post will educate you as to how you should be bench pressing to avoid injury.

How to Bench Press

A concept of a bench press is simple:

Start by laying down on a bench. Place your hands on the barbell with your palms facing away from you (this is a pronated grip). Unrack the barbell and hold it straight up over your upper chest. Bend at the elbows to lower the barbell until it touches your mid-chest. Press it back up over your upper chest. That’s a rep.

In reality, using proper form on the bench press can be difficult to master, as you will see when you read this post in its entirety.

Now, to answer your questions…

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Dexter Jackson’s Tips for Constructing a Chest Workout

Sunday, July 8th, 2018

Dexter Jackson chest training

Dexter Jackson, also known by his cool name “The Blade” is a legendary bodybuilder and is known for his perfect body symmetry and conditioning.

Dexter has won multiple titles namely Mr. Olympia, Arnold Classic, and New York Pro. He has also won 28 IFBB professional bodybuilding awards to set a unique world record.

With only about 10 weeks left for Olympia 2018, The Blade has hit the gym hard and has been extensively doing chest workout.

Dexter started with incline bench barbell press and worked up his way to flat bench presses. He also did one other variant of bench presses.

The next exercise was Incline-Bench DB Flyes and Hammer Strength Incline Machine following that. He did some core exercises to finish off the routine and took some supplements to help recovery from the workouts and repair his muscles. (more…)

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Which Fitness Injuries are Dangerous and How to Prevent Them?

Thursday, May 25th, 2017

There’s no pleasure without pain, that’s true, but when it comes to fitness, this proverb is the last thing anyone who has just dropped a bar while performing a bench press wants to hear. Both professional and amateur athletes are no strangers to all kinds of injuries, and anyone who has ever trained has had their fair share of joint dislocations, muscle tears, sprains, and strains.

However, all those issues take their toll not only on the body, but also on one’s mental health. Some injuries are inevitable, but others can be easily avoided by taking some measures of precaution. Warming up before every workout is one of the ways to play it safe at the gym.

Oddly enough, the mistake of skipping a warm-up session isn’t something that only fitness rookies do, and this bad practice can increase the risk of getting hurt by half. Let’s examine some common fitness injuries and those that you should beware of.

fitness injury superman (more…)

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How to Achieve Better Gains Using Push Ups

Friday, December 2nd, 2016

Push Ups at HomeWhy Should I Add Push Ups to My Workout?

When it comes to toning the upper body without limits, no exercise works better than push ups. Unlike lifting weights and performing plyometric workouts, they don’t require expensive fitness equipment, can be performed almost anywhere, and the best part, they’re easy! Relatively speaking, of course.

Benefits of Performing Push-ups Regularly

– Increases muscle density

As you age, your muscle density reduces and alters how your body converts fat into energy. Push ups work well to increase and maintain the muscles of your upper body. This exercise tones your shoulders, chest, triceps, abs, and to a smaller extent the back, biceps, and legs.

– Enhances muscles stability and balance

Doing push ups every day improve the reaction time of your muscle fibers. During push ups, the fibers consistently react to keep your body balanced. This reaction enables these fibers to react faster when stimulated increasing your speed and balance.  (more…)

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Top 6 Chest Training Mistakes

Tuesday, September 10th, 2013

Your chest is a large and complicated muscle. Considering its size you would think it would be easy to stimulate growth. Do some flat bench, another secondary movement, and your chest starts growing. Unfortunately the pecs are a much more muscle group area than that. In fact it is downright complex.

Training the pectoralis is a major puzzle to most bodybuilders, thinking a couple sets of bench press is all it takes, or going to the other extreme by dedicating a full day to 20 sets of different bench press variations. In this piece we would like to expose the answer to this puzzle by discussing the six most prevalent chest training errors and then providing tips to avoid them.

Read carefully; you will be surprised how many mistakes you are likely making.

Chest Training Mistakes

The Top 6 Chest Training Mistakes

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How to Get a Bigger Chest (Infographic)

Monday, June 17th, 2013

Here’s a pretty cool infographic about building a bigger chest. I really enjoy infographics and I’m hoping you do too.

How to Get a Bigger Chest

It’s a dream for every men to have a good looking chest and there are wide range of exercises that can performed in order to grow your chest. The infographic shares data about different exercises for bigger chest along with few workout tips.

For an additional list of best chest exercises, also check out my post about the top 5 best chest exercises.

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How to Bench Press More Weight Instantly?

Friday, March 26th, 2010
Swole Fitness Tips

I haven’t verified this tip yet, but Charles Staley once said that you can lift more weight if you look at your dominant hand when benching. Although you are not supposed to turn your head at all.

Really, I have no idea if this works, but if you give it a try please let us know what happens. It doesn’t sound like anything I would ever tell anyone to do, but maybe it has a place in max effort training?

I remain skeptical.

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