Lagging chest

I have been training for about a year and a half now. Ive seen great results even on my chest but my chest has always been weaker in size compared to the rest of me.

All 3 sets x 8 reps
Flat barbell bench press
incline dumbbell press
Decline barbell press
Either peck deck or cross cable

Is there a better routine that I should be training at for my chest?
Thanks in advice!

Adding weight ? training to failure ?

Ja I add weight if I reach 8 reps maybe 2.5kg or if its the 1st few sets a 5kg on each side

Adding weight to your 1 rep max and doing half reps and quarter reps ? train chest twice a week ect ect...

no didnt try half reps and quarter reps. Will also try twice a week chest as well.

Hi Pietie

I too stuggled with my chest and I am sill working on it . I asked every one and googled and you tube the hell out of the question how to build a bigger chest and eventuly came up with these resault's.

1. There is nothing wrong with your exercise's that you are doing just make sure your form is correct that u hitting the chest and not the shoulder's and tries. For example bench press make sure your elbow's are tuck in and not flaired out as this will bring the shoulder's into play big time and tri's.

2. I find keeping the tension on the muscle and not locking out worked well for me too.

3. I would also do my big compond exercise's first with normal reps and rest peroid's and then with the fly's and cables I would do rep's to failuire and include drop set's to burn the muscle out.

4.I train chest on monday by it's self and then I train it again on thursday's ,ill maybe do some dumbbell's incline and maybe some pec deck before I train shoulder's .

I have worked like this for the last 3 month's or so and have seen good resaults so I am very happy.

Oh anther thing I came across was a post where some one was saying on the day you train chest you should eat slightly more cal then you normal do and that would help to grow your chest , never tried it so cant give any feed back but give it a try if you want.

Good luck bud.

Hey bud I understand where you're coming from. Ill share a little secret- I started gymming back in highscool because I felt insecure about my "flat pidgeon breast".

The reality is we all have certain genetic traits which determine how our muscles grow and develop. Chest has definately been my major frustration throughout the years and ill share about my experiences so far and what helped me.

1: focus on form rather than weight. When I started lifting in highschool I was uneducated and had noone to "mentor" me. I went too heavy on benchpresses (incline/flat) and I basically used my lats and delts en triceps to do most of the lifting. Go light, feel the contraction of your chest muscles and focus and "feeling" your chest work. When you're comfortable go heavier but as soon as you feel your form suffer, revert to a lighter weight.

2: eat, eat, eat and sleep. Nutrition is what makes our muscles grow after a strenuous workout. Combine that with rest

3: start employing things like drop sets and supersets. I started seeing better results when I added these to my workouts (my delts were also lagging and have started to blow up after adding dropsets).

4: grow overall. I think this is what took me the longest to realise. You need to grow overall for your pecs to start coming through (though relevant to any other body part). I used to punish chest back in the day but the reality is, I had to fill up my entire frame too see major improvements in my chest. The reality is there's now quick way to bring your chest out, it takes years to build an armour plated chest (depending on genetics- some guys just have big pecs; I on the other hand have a small chest but huge calves and wide shoulders and lats). But I can promise you with dedication you'll see results.

Like I said I used to be very insecure about my flat chest but after a few years I'm filling out t-shirts like a boss. It takes time though, just keep at it.

Good info Witwolf.

Lose the barbells and flyes with the only exception maybe being close grip bench press. Stick to dumbbels.

Can also start doing things like pull overs, dips and bench dips. These all work the chest aswell.

Also try and hit the pecs from incline decline and flat.

pr0gr3s1v3 wrote: Lose the barbells and flyes with the only exception maybe being close grip bench press. Stick to dumbbels.

Can also start doing things like pull overs, dips and bench dips. These all work the chest aswell.

Also try and hit the pecs from incline decline and flat.

Dumbells are the way to go. I used to only use barbell when I first started training, then switched to dumbells and made a huge diff. Flat bench, incline, incline flys and cable cross overs work extremely well. Every other week I add in smith machine to the mix. You should only be done with your workout when you struggle to do a push-up

Incline dumbbells followed by smith machine flat made the difference for me.

For me moving to Smitch Machine Incline and Flat Bench gave me more results in 2 months than what the others gave me in a year. Also had no growth whatsoever before I used negative failure.