Chest Day Break Down
The chest is one of the major areas that people want to build muscle when they come to the gym. Training your chest is fun, makes your look stronger, and has a ton of real-world benefits.
Among other things, having a strong chest improves your posture, stabilizes your shoulders, and makes moving things around a lot easier.
If you want to train your chest, here’s all you need to know about its different parts and how to work them:
Upper Chest
The upper part of your chest is called the clavicular head. It is a part of the chest that can be under-trained and neglected in a lot of workout programs.
A lot of times, the upper chest works in tandem with your shoulder muscles to lift things over your head. When it’s strong, those types of movements are easier (and your chest will look fuller, too).
One of the best movements to train your upper chest is an incline bench press. As the name suggests, you perform this movement by raising the back of a bench and pressing weight like you would on a normal bench press.
Incline flies are another great way to work the upper chest. Make sure you squeeze your chest muscles at the top of the movement to maximize your effort.
Middle Chest
The middle chest, also known as the sternocostal head, is what you probably picture when you think about chest muscles. Movements such as the bench press focus a lot on this area.
Having a strong middle chest has a lot of benefits. It makes your entire upper body stronger, helps with your posture, and makes daily movements easier.
The bench press is a great example of a middle chest exercise. It definitely targets the other two heads as well as your triceps and shoulders, but the main focus is building the chest.
If you’re looking for a bodyweight exercise to train your chest, standard pushups are a great choice. Done correctly, pushups are challenging and effective at building muscle.
Lower Chest
Lastly, the lower part of the chest is called the abdominal head. It runs across the bottom portion of your chest and attaches to your humerus – a bone located between your shoulder and elbow.
The abdominal head of the chest is relatively small, but it is important. It plays a large role in moving your upper arm. If you want to have an overall strong upper body, you should train your abdominal head.
It can be a little tricky to train, but there are a few exercises that focus on the lower chest. One of them is decline presses and flies. Bodyweight dips are also a great exercise.
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