The Importance of a Strong Chest

Having a strong chest not only looks great when you’re sat by the pool but also transfers favourably to sport and daily life; throwing, punching, tackling in rugby, pushing heavy objects or even mowing the lawn.

The chest is the strongest pushing muscle in the upper body. It works during a variety of movements, through a number of anatomical planes, so it’s important to work it through a variety of movements and ranges of motion to maximize strength and muscle gain but also to reduce the chances of injury. Supersets groups of exercises that are performed together - learn more about what is a superset workout.

Matching Exercises to Training Styles?

There has and probably always will be debates about the most effective training styles for different physical qualities. Bodybuilders typically use low load, high time under tension exercises, while athletes may use high load higher velocity work to get closer to failure and increase muscle size.

The reality is that both methods can work towards increasing proximity to failure and thus context in terms of the exercises being used may play a role in your decision making, with some exercises suiting a slower tempo and lower load and some suiting higher loads with higher velocities.

The Ultimate Chest Superset

1 - Barbell Bench Press

• Lay on the Weight Bench and assume an even grip on the barbell, outside shoulder width, so that your hands are approximately stacked above your elbows throughout the movement.

• Drive your shoulders back and down towards your bum.

• Un-rack the Barbell, keeping your shoulders pinned back and down as you do.

• From the top position, simply think about pulling the bar down to your mid chest (around your sternum), so that it follows a slight diagonal path from the top position.

• Drive the bar back up as fast as possible, back to the start position.

Key Tip - The bench press being bilateral and being well supported means it is well suited to 1 - high absolute loads on the bar and 2 - moving it as fast as possible on the concentric phase of the lift (the way back up). Therefore, it makes more sense to use the variables to get closer to failure.

2 - Dumbbell Chest Fly

• Lie flat on a weight bench with a light dumbbell in each hand, held above your chest with a slight kink in your elbow.

• From there, open your arms out like a book, maintaining the same slight kink in the elbow throughout, until your elbows are in line with your torso.

• Then simply ‘close the book’ by driving through your elbows, instead of through your hands, so that your elbow angle stays the same on the way up as well.

Key Tip - If you go too heavy, you won’t be able to maintain your elbow angle throughout the movement. With this exercise, increasing the time under tension (slowing the movement down) may be a better way to get closer to failure; save the big weights for exercises that suit it better…

Remember to share and tag us when you do!

Written by guest author Ewan Hammond.

For more content, follow us on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and on our official Mirafit Facebook page.

Tags: Equipment > Bars & Weight Plates ; Equipment > Benches ; Equipment > Dumbbells ; Exercise Type > Strength ; Misc > Workout