How To Build A Respectable Chest : The Big Pecs Routine

Building a decent chest is on every guy’s list of gym goals. A well developed set of pecs can make you look much bigger and more imposing than you really are. It’s really the great bodybuilding illusion.

If you’re smart, you will want to learn how to grow your chest before you worry about every other muscle group. Arms are easy to grow, you almost don’t even have to do anything at all but chest requires effort.

Why Your Chest Is Not Growing

The reason why you have a small chest is pretty simple, you don’t lift heavy enough, you have poor form and you eat like a teenage girl instead of a man. Well not so simple but you get the damn idea.

So it can be that you only need to fix one thing or many things, whatever it is, you will find the info you need to change your current fortunes or misfortunes I should say, in the next few paragraphs.

What You Should Be Doing

As you might have guessed from the last paragraph, you need to lift heavy, eat big and fix your shitty form. But you’ve heard this before so just simply telling you is not going to help. I need to explain each in more detail.

Lift Heavy

You won’t get very big if you don’t put your muscles under enough tension to induce growth. You don’t lift for comfort, you lift to get big enough where you look like you at least lift. Do you even lift fool? Or as big as you want to get. Some dudes seem to want to look like animals, if that’s your thing, it’s all good. This info can be applied for whatever size you want to reach.

What is heavy? It means a weight where getting 6-8 good reps is a real struggle for survival. The intensity needs to be high. No girly sets allowed.

Training at this intensity is only for putting on size, once you reach your desired size, you can dial back on the intensity to maintain your hard earned gain. Contrary to what most muscle-heads would like you to believe, putting your body under constant extreme tension is not good for you. It can wreck the shit out of your nervous system and mess you in all kind of ways from fatigue to depression etc.

Have a goal and know when to chill the fuck out and relax.

Muscle Doesn’t Grow From Thin Air

To get big, you need to eat big. If you want Arnold like pecs, you need to eat like a man on a mission. I don’t mean eating garbage and becoming a fat fuck. I mean eating the right foods, in the right amounts to build muscle mass. High Protein, Complex Carbs, Good fats my man.

Don’t Build Man Boobs

You want to build powerful pecs, not bitch-tits. So you need to use good form to evenly grow your pecs. I personally avoid decline chest exercises because they tend to make your lower pecs hang.

You need to work hard on the incline exercises to fill out your upper chest and the front raising exercises for the front delts. A full upper chest is the most important part of your overall chest look, it’s the difference between having nice masculine pecs and manboobs.

Respect The Reps

Slow and controlled reps win the race to the big boys club. Rushing through your reps will rob you of good efforts. Time under tension is not overrated. Pay attention to it. Contract the core and chest muscles through the whole movement.

Having a spotter is extremely beneficial when you’re building your chest. It allows you to lift heavier weights than you would normally attempt on your own knowing that someone got your back. Those last few reps are the most important and without a spotter you have to rack up the bar before failure which takes away from the exercise.

Set Up Your Sets For Success

Arrange your sets in a way that will allow you to be strong on all exercises. Usually, doing flat before incline and flies is the way to go. If you do incline first, your shoulders will be too tired to go hard on the flat but not the other way around.

Leave flies and raises for last. Rule of thumb is to start with exercises where you can lift the most weights, where you are strongest first and proceed.  That’s it bro. Later.