5 Training Experts Weigh In On The Best Methods For Building A Massive Chest

Last Updated on January 7, 2021

Close your eyes and picture this: You place your palms together in front of you, pressing them forcefully into each other. The contraction spreads up your forearms, through your biceps, triceps and shoulders, and explodes across your pectorals, rippling from outer to inner edge.

Your chest rises, clenching into a searing knot of muscle, popping your shirt buttons off, one by one. How would it feel to have pecs that big, brawny and powerful? Three words: Pretty damn good. As you probably realize, that kind of size isn’t built without a lot of effort. And even clockwork consistency in the gym won’t totally do the trick, as you can’t keep throwing the same battery of exercises, sets and reps at your body workout after workout and expect to achieve the superhuman results you seek.

To succeed, you need an array of solid training options at your disposal. So, to help, we’ve collected five hardcore techniques you can use to shake up your workouts from experts whose business it is to help people get huge and strong. Use these at your own risk sewing kit not included.

Tip 1 Instability Tactics

“One trick that works well to build the chest is called Stabilization Equivalent Training,” says Rodney Corn, MA, PES, CSCS, director of education for the National Academy of Sports Medicine. “For example, you follow a stable chest exercise like the dumbbell flye on a flat bench with an unstable equivalent move a dumbbell flye on an exercise ball with one leg bracing you.” Most guys steer clear of exercise-ball moves because they have to drop to a much lighter weight than they’re used to handling. But by doing so, you grow much stronger in the long run performing both stable and unstable moves. “Stability training places a greater demand on your body to internally stabilize itself,” Corn explains. “By training the brain how to work the pecs while stabilizing the body, you increase the potential of your pecs to produce more force.”

By doing the ball exercise immediately after the traditional version (with little to no rest between sets), the lighter weight now becomes more of a challenge for the chest because those muscle fibers are prefatigued.

Do This:

Do a set of flyes on a flat bench with dumbbells that allow you to get no more than 8-10 reps. After little to no rest, grab a pair of lighter weights and do 10-15 flyes on an exercise ball. Rest two minutes and repeat the superset twice more.

Tip 2 Partial Reps

“Doing partial reps at the end of a set will take your chest to a place it’s likely never been before total fatigue,” says Guillermo Escalante, MBA, ATC, CSCS, president of Sports Pros, a sports medicine, fitness and rehabilitation center in Claremont, California.