Whether you have a hard time putting more size on your chest or you are not genetically gifted with a large, barrel chest like Arnold, these two tips are going to be a game changer for you. As someone who has struggled to grow their chest, I know the struggle of trying everything to make a difference, but I guarantee this will help.
First up, you want to make sure that you are allowing your chest to dominate the movement. Often, we allow the shoulders to take over the brunt of the work of a chest exercise which takes away from the development that we are looking for. To do this, you want to make sure that your chest is more prominent on each exercise that you do and my cue for you to apply to your very next set, is to raise your sternum.
We are often told to bring our shoulders back, but I don’t think that that is enough. If you are consciously aware of the position that your sternum is in, you will notice that the more that you raise it and try to make it more prominent – the more activation you will be getting from each rep.
The second adjustment that you need to make, is to press through the inside of your hand. You want to press through the index finger and thumb, having them “lead the way” on each chest exercise. This will actually put your arm and shoulder in better position to allow your chest to dominate the movement as opposed to your shoulders. By leading with the inside portion of your hand, your shoulders will naturally become second fiddle to your chest on your pressing exercises.
Leading with your index finger and thumb on every chest exercise will also allow you to get your sternum and chest in the most advantageous position to allow for more chest growth. So, if we can get our chest out and shoulders back, we are putting ourselves in the best spot to grow a bigger chest.
How do we apply this to our chest workouts?
Let’s start with the popular chest exercise the dumbbell bench press. Laying on the bench, try to raise your sternum as high in the air as you can towards the ceiling and allow your shoulders to retract. This will let your chest take over the exercise and help to minimize the contribution of the shoulders. From here, when you press the dumbbells up, lead with your thumb and index finger, almost tilting the dumbbells.
Nothing too different on a cable crossover. Square up, allowing the chest to stand in front of the shoulder to start the exercise. Think about raising that sternum so that you don’t hollow out when you bring your arm out and across your body. Then, like you did on the last chest exercise, lead with the inside of your grip to make sure your shoulders stay out of the movement as much as possible.
What about the pushup, you might ask. These two adjustments apply here too. Think about attacking the ground with your sternum, especially when you reach the bottom of the rep. You can even perform a hand-release pushup to reinforce this concept. When you press your body up off the groudn, you not only want to continue to stick your chest out towards the ground, but again press through the inside off your hands like you would on the other chest exercises.
So often, when it comes to someone struggling to build a big chest, they are making the same mistake over and over again. I would say it’s even more often than not happening to the lanky and skinny guys out there, just because of their body proportions. By allowing the shoulders to become so readily involved in every chest exercise, the chest is taking on less of the work than it needs to in order to grow. By applying these two techniques to your very next chest workout, you will allow yourself an opportunity to grow a bigger chest fast.
Give it a shot and feel the difference for yourself!
If you want a step by step program for how to get a bigger chest fast, be sure to head to athleanx.com and check out the programs available. Each one will help you to build up the size of your chest while training your whole body athletically and getting you to build ripped, lean muscle.
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