Dumbbell chest press

The dumbbell chest press closely mimics the bench press. This exercise works your chest muscles, along with your shoulders and triceps. You may want to modify or avoid this exercise if you have shoulder, elbow, or lower back problems.

Getting set
Lie on the bench with a dumbbell in each hand and your feet flat on the floor (or up on the bench if it’s more comfortable). Push the dumbbells up so your arms are directly over your shoulders and your palms face forward. Pull your abdominals in, but don’t jam your back into the bench; don’t let it arch way up, either. Tilt your chin toward your chest. See photo A. Lower the dumbbells down and a little to the side until your elbows are slightly below your shoulders. Push the weights back up, taking care not to lock your elbows or allow your shoulder blades to rise off the bench. See photo B.

Do’s and don’ts

• DO allow your lower back to keep its natural arch so you have a slight gap between your lower back and the bench.
• DON’T contort your body in an effort to lift the weight; lift only as much weight as you can handle while maintaining good form.

Other options
Partial dumbbell press (easier): Lower the weights only about three quarters the distance of the basic version of this exercise. Try this version if you have elbow, shoulder, or rotator cuff problems.

Incline chest press: Perform this exercise on an incline bench, and you use less weight than when you perform a flat-bench press. You’ll challenge the upper fibers of the pecs more.

Decline chest press: Do this exercise on a decline bench, with your head lower than your feet. The hardest part of this version is picking up and releasing the weights. Grab the weights while you’re sitting up, hold them against your chest, and ease yourself into the decline position. When you’re done with the exercise, gently ease the dumbbells off to either side to the floor. (Don’t just drop them.) Better yet, ask someone to hand the weights to you at the start of the exercise and take them away when you’re done.

Bench press

The bench press, crowned the king of all chest exercises by bodybuilders, primarily works your chest muscles, with plenty of emphasis on your shoulders and triceps, too.
You may want to try a modified version of this exercise — or avoid it altogether — if you have lower back, shoulder, or elbow problems.

Getting set
Lie on the bench with your feet flat on the floor or up on the bench if the bench is too tall. Grip the bar so your arms are evenly spaced a few inches wider than shoulder-width apart. Your upper arms should be slightly above parallel to the floor. Tuck your chin toward your chest and pull your abdominals in tight, but don’t force your back into the pad, or overarch it. Lift the bar off the rack and push it directly up over your shoulders, straightening your arms without locking your elbows. See photo A.

The exercise
Lower the bar until your elbows are slightly below your shoulders. The bar may or may not touch your chest — this depends on how long your arms are and how big your chest is. Press the bar back up. See photo B.

Do’s and don’ts

• DO remember to breathe. Exhale as you press the bar up, and inhale as you lower it.
• DON’T cheat. In other words, if you have to wiggle around or arch your back in order to hoist the bar, you’re not doing much for your chest, but you’re asking for lower back injuries.
• DON’T press the bar up too high; keep your elbows relaxed and your shoulder blades on the backrest throughout the exercise.

Other options
Towel chest press (easier): Roll up a large bath towel and place it across your chest. Lower the bar until it touches the towel and then press back up. This variation is good if you have shoulder problems because it reduces the range of motion and lessens the stress on the shoulder joint.

Incline bench press: Incline the bench a few inches and then do the exercise as described above. This version emphasizes the upper fibers of your pecs and shoulders.

Decline bench press: Do this exercise on a decline bench, with your head lower than your feet. This requires a special decline version of the bench press station. Some bench press stations can set flat, incline, or decline, whereas others are fixed permanently in the decline position

Modified push-up

The modified push-up strengthens your chest muscles, with additional emphasis on your shoulders and triceps.
Be extra careful if you have lower back, shoulder, elbow, or wrist problems.

Getting set
Lie on your stomach, and bend your knees. Bend your elbows and place your palms on the floor a bit to the side and in front of your shoulders. Straighten your arms and lift your body so that you’re balanced on your palms and the part of your thighs just above your knees. Tuck your chin a few inches toward your chest so that your forehead faces the floor. Tighten your abdominals. See photo A. Don’t cross your ankles like in photos C and D. Use your inner thigh muscles to keep your legs parallel.

The exercise
Bend your elbows and lower your entire body at once. Instead of trying to touch your chest to the floor, lower only until your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Push back up. See photo B.

Do’s and don’ts

• DO keep your abdominal muscles pulled in tight throughout the exercise so that your back doesn’t arch like a swaybacked horse; otherwise, you’re begging for a lower back injury.
• DO bring your arms to a full extension.
• DON’T lock your elbows at the top of the arm extension.
• DON’T do the dreaded head bob. That’s when you dip your head toward the floor without moving any other part of your body. Talk about a giant pain in the neck!

Other options
Wall push-up (easier): Stand a few feet away from a wall and place your palms flat on the wall slightly wider than your shoulders. Bend your elbows and lean into the wall. Then press yourself away from the wall by straightening your arms.
Incline push-up: This version is easier than the modified push-up but harder than the wall push-up. Follow the same setup as the basic version of this exercise, but place your hands on top of a step bench that has two or three sets of risers underneath.

Military push-up (harder): Lie facedown with your legs straight out behind you. Bend your elbows and place your palms on the floor a bit to the side and in front of your shoulders. Straighten your arms and lift your body so you’re balanced on your palms and the underside of your toes. Tuck your chin a few inches toward your chest so your forehead faces the floor. Tighten your abdominals. Bend your elbows and lower your entire body at once. Instead of trying to touch your chest to the floor, lower only until your upper arms are parallel to the floor. Push back up.

Negative push-up (easier): This version is harder than the modified push-up but easier than the military push-up. Only perform the lowering phase of the military push-up. Slow the movement down and try to lower yourself in five counts. Lower your knees to the ground and follow the modified version when you push yourself up.

Avoiding Mistakes When Pumping Your Pecs

One morning Liz was working at a gym when a member came up and casually mentioned that another member needed help on the bench press. Liz strolled over to find this man trapped underneath a bar that apparently had been too heavy for his chest muscles to handle. “Caesar,” she asked, “how long have you been there?”
“About 20 minutes,” he replied.
Why hadn’t he yelled for help? He was too embarrassed. The moral of the story: Safety is more important than lifting heavy weights. In addition to lifting the proper amount of weight, take the following precautions when working your chest:

• Don’t lock your elbows. In other words, don’t straighten your arms to the point that your elbows snap. This arm extension puts too much pressure on the elbow joints and leads to tendonitis or inflammation of the elbow joint itself. When you straighten your arms, keep your elbows slightly relaxed.
• Don’t arch your back. In an effort to hoist more poundage, some people arch their backs so severely that there’s enough room between their back and the bench for a Range Rover to drive through. Sooner or later, this position causes a back injury. Plus, you’re doing nothing to strengthen your chest muscles. Instead, you’re overstraining your lower back.
  
• Don’t flatten your back. In a sincere effort not to cheat, many people do the exact opposite of overarching their backs — they force their lower backs into the bench. This posture is equally bad for your back. When you lie down, make sure that a slight gap exists between your lower back and the bench, reflecting the natural arch of your lower back.
• Don’t lift your shoulder blades off the bench or backrest. If you do this, your shoulders bear too much weight — without any support from the bench. This error is subtle but one that may be costly for your shoulder joint.
• Don’t stretch too far. When you lie on your back and perform the bench press, you may be tempted to lower the bar all the way to your chest. Similarly, when you perform a push-up, you may want to lower your body all the way to the floor. Don’t. Instead, follow the instructions we provide for these and similar chest exercises.

Which chest exercises should you do first?

Experts argue this point, but let personal preference be your guide. Here are our recommendations:

• Perform free-weight exercises when you’re fresh. These exercises require more concentration, strength, and control.
  
• Execute flat-bench exercises before incline or decline exercises. Experiment with the order of exercises for a couple of weeks until you come up with a sequence that works for you.
  
• Change the sequence from time to time. Changing it up challenges your muscles differently. If you always do the chest fly before the dumbbell chest press, for example, you may never realize your true dumbbell press potential because your chest muscles are always tired by the time you get to that exercise.
• Perform 8 to 15 reps.

Determining your one-rep max — that is, the maximum amount of weight you can lift once — is somewhat of an ancient gym tradition with the bench press. Don’t try this until you’ve been lifting weights for a month or two, and don’t attempt to max out more often than once a week. In fact, some experts believe that maxing out once a month brings better results. When you do attempt a maximum weight, make sure that you have a spotter. If you’re going for your one-rep max, do a few warm-up sets, gradually increasing the weight.

Getting a Chest Workout

You can change the feel and focus of many chest exercises by adjusting the angle of the bench you use. Performing chest exercises on a flat bench emphasizes those fibers in the center of your chest. When you adjust the bench a few degrees to an incline position, you shift the focus of the exercise to the fibers in your upper chest and shoulder muscles. Doing the opposite — adjusting the bench to a decline position — concentrates the work on the lower fibers of the chest. By the way, decline exercises are probably the least important category of chest exercises because they work a relatively small portion of the pecs. We won’t be showing you how to operate one popular chest machine: the Pec Deck. You sit with your arms spread apart, each arm bent and placed on a pad. You push the pads toward each other, as if you’re clapping in slow motion. We think the Pec Deck should be renamed the Pec Wreck, or more accurately, the Shoulder Wreck. These machines place an enormous amount of pressure on the shoulder joint and rotator cuff and frequently lead to injury. What’s more, they don’t actually do much for your pec muscles. A safer and more effective alternative to the Pec Deck is the dumbbell chest fly.
Because your chest muscles are among the largest in your upper body, we suggest that you perform more sets of exercises with these muscles than with the smaller muscle groups of your arms. In general, we recommend:

• Performing 3 to 12 sets of chest exercises per workout. True beginners should start with one set. By the way, when we say 12 sets, we don’t mean a dozen sets of the same exercise; you may want to do 3 or 4 (or more) different exercises. And, if you’re like most people who sit during the day, you need to do more sets of back exercises than chest exercises to address any muscle imbalances and prevent slouching and a collapsed chest.
• Beginning each exercise with an easy warm-up set. Even powerlifters who bench-press 500 pounds often warm up with a 45-pound bar.

Enjoying Strong Pecs

This may be the first time you’ve given your chest muscles any thought, but you’ve been depending on them your whole life to push things around. Now that you’ll be performing chest exercises, you can be pushier than ever. Here’s how you profit from training your pecs:

• Real-life benefits: You have more oomph when you push a lawn mower or a full shopping cart with two kids hanging off the end — or when you wrap your arms around Mr. Ted at Thanksgiving after he’s eaten an entire pumpkin pie.
• Injury prevention: Your chest muscles attach to your shoulder joint. So with strong pecs, you’re less likely to injure your shoulders while rearranging your furniture or pushing your car out of a mudhole.
  
• The feel good factor: Chest exercises may make a woman’s breasts appear perkier, although keep in mind that these exercises won’t transform any woman from an AA cup to a DDD cup or vice versa.

As for men:
Pec training makes your chest fuller. However, both sexes need to maintain realistic expectations about chest exercises.

Understanding Chest Muscle

The technical name for chest muscles is the pectorals, but you can shorten the term to pecs. You have two pec muscles:

• Pectoralis major: The pec major is a skeletal muscle that draws the arm inward and rotates it. This muscle enables you to give hugs. Whenever you pledge allegiance, your hand is covering the meat of the pectoralis major.
• Pectoralis minor: The pec minor moves the scapula forward and down and also raises the ribs. This muscle resides underneath the pec major. Figure shows the location of your pectorals. With the help of other muscles, such as your shoulder muscles and triceps, your pecs are in charge of a variety of pushing and hugging movements.