Doing chest exercises is something that many men and women are interested in. Almost all men like to show off a defined and muscular torso and almost all women want to enhance their chest and present an elegant posture. When it comes to doing chest exercises, women often make a basic mistake: avoid weights. Weights are one of our best allies to enhance this area.
Women have traditionally avoided this type of exercise fearing that lifting weights will overgrow their muscles. This is a fairly common mistake. The most important question lies in the kilos that are lifted during training. If the chest exercises that we discuss below are performed with very heavy weights, let’s say about twenty kilos, that moment of muscle development that some women fear will be reached.
On the other hand, using a moderate load, between two and five kilos in each hand, muscle growth will not take place, only the toning of the muscles involved in these exercises will occur: arms and chest. For this reason, whether you are a man or a woman, if you are interested in doing exercises for your chest, you can do what we suggest in our article, adapting them to your needs and desires. If you want more muscle mass, you should carry them with enough weight, while if all you are looking for is to tone your muscles, you should use little weight.
What you should not do is not use weight of any kind, since then the exercises will not fulfill their purpose. If the exercises are very hard at first, you can do them without any weight for several weeks, but as soon as you get more strength and resistance you should gradually add weight. If you want to know more about how to do chest exercises, pay close attention to the following proposal.
What do you need to do chest exercises?
- comfortable sportswear
- dumbbells
Instructions for chest exercises
- There are many chest-specific exercises. Here are some of the most common. You should try to perform sets of these exercises during your training sessions. The first few days, perform few repetitions and increase them as you improve in your practice.
- Lying on your back with your back completely straight, you must hold the weights or dumbbells on your chest with your arms bent, as you can see in the image, raise the weights little by little towards the ceiling until your arms are totally straight forming an angle of ninety degrees from your body position. Do the movements smoothly and slowly.
- Push-ups, planks, planks, push-ups, the names of this exercise are many and without a doubt all of them are equally hated, especially by women who tend to have more problems when performing them. However, the benefits of this exercise are innumerable as it helps your tone arms, chest and abs.
- With our legs open to the width of our shoulders we must perform a squat. We must be very careful that our knees do not get ahead of our feet. She grabs the weight of her with both hands and tries to lift it towards the ceiling. When you do, stretch your legs and your whole body. When the weight drops, return to the previous squat position. This exercise is excellent for toning the pecks as well as the legs and buttocks.
- The last chest exercise that we recommend is very similar to the previous one. However now when you lift the weight you should not try to raise it towards the ceiling, you should only lift it until your arms form a ninety degree angle. When you get to that position you should try to hold it for several seconds.
Tips for chest exercises
- Take it easy and do not pretend to see results immediately. Exercise and sport offer very good benefits but it takes a while to start being noticed.
- You can combine these exercises with abdominal exercises that will help you strengthen your entire upper body.
- Stay constantly motivated. The first few weeks it will be very difficult for you to perform these exercises since your muscles are not used to making these efforts. Surely during the first days of training you will suffer soreness and muscle pain. Think that these first moments of training are the hardest; as soon as you manage to overcome them everything will be much easier.
