In fact, there are really two basic types of movements used when working the chest: presses and flyes. Other movements are available, but again, these two movements are the basic ones. The various barbell and dumbbell presses done at a variety of inclined and declined angles will be your best exercises for building power, strength, and overall muscle mass.
You’ll have to select the right exercises to get the most out of your chest workouts. Some exercises will isolate stress on a particular part of your chest. Flat bench presses will stress the entire chest muscle complex, especially the mid-section. Incline bench presses will work the upper portion of your chest and help it to look more full. Decline bench presses will shift the focus to the lower and outer pecs. You can work your inner pecs using the narrow grip bench press or peck deck flyes.
The most important thing to remember is that you will have to incorporate a variety of angles and movements for optimal chest development. Remember to use a variety of angles when doing incline bench presses and flyes. Cable flyes are especially useful since the cables can be adjust to work your pecs at the right angle to help you focus on that part of your chest that might be lacking.
As you might already know, pushing your chest muscles to the point of full exhaustion will force your body to build larger muscles. The easiest way to continue pushing past your failure point is to use a spotter. When you get to the point where you can’t possibly press out another rep on your own, your spotter can help you by giving you exactly the amount of help you need to squeeze out a few more.
You may choose to strip off some weight on the barbell bench press (never do this without a spotter) and continue pressing, or if you’re doing dumbbell presses, maybe you might have some lighter weight dumbbells setup and ready to go.
Whatever method you choose to work your muscles past the point of failure, it’s important to be sure that you are actually getting your chest muscles to failure. I’ll explain what this means… Your chest muscles are much larger than your triceps and may be able to press more weight. Sometimes your smaller triceps might reach exhaustion before your larger pectoral muscles, meaning that your chest isn’t getting its full workout.
So, let’s say for example that you’re doing the bench press with heavy weights and you start to hit the wall. Your triceps are exhausted and you can’t do another rep, but maybe your chest muscles haven’t been fully worked yet. A good way to get around this problem is to pre-exhaust your chest muscles.
Using pre-exhaustion, you do a quick set of a chest isolation exercise like dumbbell flyes before you start doing presses. As soon as you’re done with the flyes, begin doing your presses. This will help to make sure that you are fully exhausting your chest muscles during your press before your triceps give out.
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