9 Excellent Pectoral Exercises

Just how vital are the pectoral exercises that you select for your upper body workouts?  If your goal is to build a more eye catching chest, then the pec exercises that you choose are important to the process.  If you piece together your pectoral workout with exercises that don’t fit certain criteria, then you’ll ultimately have a hard time building up your pecs. In this article, I’m going to uncover the specific criteria that your chest exercises need to meet in order for you to stimulate some serious pectoral growth, as well as list a few of my favorite chest building exercises.

Lets get on to one of the first things that I like to teach people about building their chest muscles up.  In order to stimulate chest muscle growth, you absolutely need to perform muscle building exercises that meet a few conditions. First, the upper body exercises that you choose, need to allow you to actually target your chest muscles. If you choose chest exercises that place most of the emphasis on your shoulders, then your shoulders will be doing most of the work and in turn achieving the benefits of doing that work (you’ll stimulate muscle growth in your shoulders instead of chest growth). So you want to focus on movements that specifically target your chest muscles.  It’s ok if the upper body exercises also incorporate your shoulders or triceps, but the primary muscle group in the movement should definitely be your chest muscles.

The next piece of criteria that the pectoral exercises that you choose for your pec workouts need to meet is that each of the exercise that you select need to allow you to move a fairly heavy amount of weight.  Lifting incrementally heavier weights over a full range of motion is precisely how you stimulate muscle growth, so it only makes sense that if you’re wanting to add size to your chest muscles, then you need to be training with heavy weights. As heavy as you can!

The third piece of criteria is something that most gym rats completely overlook.  You’ve got to actually enjoy performing the pectoral exercises that you choose!  If you hate the exercises that you put into your chest workouts, you’re not going to be able to hit your chest as hard as you’d be able to if you really enjoyed performing the pectoral exercise in the first place, so make sure to stick with  a few of the chest exercises that you actually like. Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to perform a few chest exercises that you’re less than thrilled about, but try not to construct your pec workouts around these pectoral exercises, instead find a few that you really enjoy and slip them into the workout.

Below are a few of my favorite pectoral exercises. After looking over this list of exercises, I can honestly say that over 95% of all of my upper body workouts are composed of these highly effective pectoral exercises. Sometime I’ll experiment with a new chest exercises, but not very often.

A Few of My Favorite Pectoral Exercises

DB Bench Press
Dumbbell Flyes
Decline Bench Press
Bench Press
Incline Press
DB Incline Press
Push Up
Chest Dips
DB Decline Bench Press

If you’re one of the millions of guys out there who wants to build a bigger, more muscular chest, then make sure that your pectoral workouts are composed of the most effective pectoral exercises!  The majority of your chest  workouts should be designed around the short list of pec exercises listed above.  If you follow no other advice than to simply make sure that your pec  workouts are composed of exercises that fit the criteria listed in this article, you will definitely begin to build a bigger chest quickly.

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About the Author:
Nick Andrade is a personal trainer who specializes in teaching people how to gain muscle mass quickly and naturally without resorting to unhealthy fad diets or unsafe tactics. If you enjoyed the pectoral exercises covered in this article, check out the rest of the great body building information at gain-muscle-workout-less.com and learn how to gain muscle mass naturally! information while you learn how to gain muscle mass for free!
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The Benefits of Flexibility Training

Flexibility training encompasses stretching that enhances a joint’s ability to move through an entire range of motion. It can also help balance out muscles that may be overworked during exercise. The benefits of stretching and flexibility training are vast and we are going to discuss them in more detail.

Decreased Risk of Injury:
Your flexibility directly relates to your physical performance – allowing you to have a greater range of motion while using less energy. This also helps decrease your risk of injury by decreasing the resistance in surrounding tissue.  This not only will positively affect your day-to-day life, but can help you push further and harder in your other workouts to help push yourself to the limits.

Reduced DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness):
After working out, taking the time to thoroughly stretch will help elongate all muscles which naturally shorten after exercise. As you continue to become more flexible, you will find that muscle soreness decreases. Be sure to include static stretching, where you hold individual stretches for a period of between 15 – 30 seconds in the full range of motion. For this to happen, attempt to stretch not only after workouts but after brief bursts of cardiovascular activity as well.

Gain Strength and Endurance:
Recent studies have shown that regular stretching can help improve strength and muscular endurance by up to 30%. Those who followed no set exercise routine but performed 40 minutes of static stretching three times per week found they were making remarkable gains.

Improved Posture:
Practicing flexibility training also promotes realignment of soft tissue structures and strengthens muscles lining the spinal column to help improve posture.  This alone can improve your daily activities by keeping tension to a minimum.

Increased Circulation:
Flexibility training helps increase circulation and muscle temperature, allowing more nutrients and blood to pump into the muscles. This will help remove metabolic waste more quickly and promote muscle growth.  This also will promote an increased amount of elasticity of the muscles. Another benefit of stretching is that it increases joint synovial fluid, which helps lubricate the joint and promotes a greater range of motion.

Reduced Risk of Lower Back Pain:
Regular stretching and flexibility training promotes muscle relaxation and can lower your risk of chronic lower back pain.

As is shown with all the above benefits, flexibility training is an often underestimated routine.

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About the Author:
Mark has been writing on various topics over the last couple of years. His latest website is http://powerwheelstoys.org which provides people with information on the latest Power Wheels ATV on the market.
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