If you’re an advanced lifter, you know what works, and you use it in your workouts. But what if you’re not that advanced? Maybe you’re still learning and finding your way. 5% Nutrition is here to help. In this article, we’ll tackle chest growth and give you 5 Tips To A Bigger Chest! Are you ready? Let’s get started!

Tip # 1 - Stick With Compound Exercises

See that Pec Deck machine? Ignore it and keep walking. If you want to build a bigger chest, you’ll want to do compound exercises. These exercises give you the biggest bang for your buck and include barbell bench presses, incline barbell bench presses, and chest dips. These are the exercises that build size. They let you handle more weight. Plus, you’re not just working your chest, you’re working all the pushing and stabilizer muscles. Sure, you can do a few sets of dumbbell flyes, or even stop at that pec deck machine, but only after you’ve hit your chest hard with compound movements. (1)

Tip # 2 - Make Sure Your Execution Is Perfect

This is where you see a lot of mistakes, especially on the barbell bench press. Examples include guys letting the bar drop quickly, bouncing the bar off their chest, and using momentum to help drive the bar back up. Or, you might see guys use extreme arching to lessen the distance the bar has to travel. If you’re training for size, those habits will not help. Use good form and execute the exercise using only the target muscles. 

Tip # 3 - Rep Performance

If a bigger chest is a major goal, here’s one of the best ways to perform your reps. With the bench press as an example, use about 70% of your 1RM. After warming up, unrack the bar, and take 4-6 seconds to lower it. The bar must be fully under control. Then, explode the bar up, again under control, taking about 2 seconds. When you start to struggle on your reps, at the bottom stretch position, just before the bar hits the chest, hold for a 6-10 count. You should be able to do about 8 reps and you should fail on your last rep. You should hold the bottom stretch position on the last 1-2 reps. 

Tip # 4 - Mix It Up!

Rich was a big fan of mixing his workouts up. Later in his career, he probably never did the same workout twice. Of course, if you’re building size and strength, you should stick to a foundational program of compound exercises, reps in the 6-8 range, and the use of progressive overload. That said, if you’re more advanced, you can make progress by changing up your routine. For example, one week you might do a basic chest workout of bench presses, flat dumbbell flyes, and incline dumbbell flyes. 

Next time, head for the Chest Press machine, warm up and do drop sets. For this, you’re repping to failure, quickly pulling the pin and “dropping” weight, and then continuing. Except, you’re going to do this for 10 drops. Once you’re done, struggle over to an incline bench and knock out 5 sets of Incline Dumbbell Flyes, 8 reps per set. Do not rest between the drops and the flyes, and rest only 10 seconds between sets of flyes.

Tip # 5 - 5% Supplements For Growth

Some of the best 5% supplements for growth include the basics first and foremost: This begins with your favorite 5% pre-workout. Include Full As F*ck, Crea-TEN or Core Creatine, and All Day You May. Don’t forget Shake Time and Real Carbs From there, add natural muscle builders such as Bigger By The Day, TEST Testosterone Booster, and Turkesterone 1200. Also, don’t forget Drink Sleep Grow. Finally, tie it all together with Digestive Defender, which will help you get the most out of your nutrition and your supplements. 

Recap

In this article, we’ve given you some good tips you can take right to the gym and put into practice. All you have to do is make a stop at 5percentnutrition.com and stock up on the supplements you need to help you build a bigger chest!

References:

1. Dumont, T. (2005). Designing resistance training programs, third edition steven J. fleck, William J. Kraemer. Physiotherapy Canada, 57(3), 244–245. https://doi.org/10.3138/ptc.57.3.244