Sunday, December 14, 2008

Weight Lifting Exercises For Your Chest - Bench or Crossovers?

By Westy

So What's the best exercise to build up your chest muscles fast? I'm glad you asked! Go to your local gym and you'll see blokes working out the Bench Press almost to exclusion of every other exercise for their upper body. There's good reason for this. The bench press is one of the best weight lifting exercises for your upper body and especially for your chest. It's not the only one however.

The other exercises that you can do for your chest are:

Flyes With A Flat Bench

Flat Bench Flyes

The Incline Bench Press

Cable Crossovers

Dips

The two exercises that should be focused on first are the bench press and dips. This is because they are very all encompassing exercises. For those who are looking for a great workout and gain an increase in their size and muscle, these are the exercises that will do that for them.

What's the best way to perform the bench press?

1. Lie back on the bench and keep the bar above your line of sight.

2. You should make sure that you have a spotter if you are going to be lifting heavy weight.

3. Breath in as you are lowering the weight toward you.

4. As you push the bar up, breath out.

5. Continue the exercise until the muscles fail.

This exercise is great for working out the total chest and shoulder area. You'll feel it in your triceps (especially if you use a narrow grip) and in your lats too. Take care to do a good workout using lower weights to warm up the area before lifting. You'll be able to tell the difference in your workout if you "prime" the muscles using a warmup that builds to the desired weight like this.

Say your max weight is about 220lbs (totally random figure used for example only!) You'd start with a warmup of about 90lbs and do 15 reps, then 140lbs for 8 reps, then 170lbs for 4 reps, then 200lbs for 1 rep. This ensures you're not only warm, but ready to handle the weight without wearing out the area. You're "primed" for doing the real work where you work the muscle to total failure. This is where you'll achieve maximum muscle growth potential. Go 100%! - 15995

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