Monday, 15 July 2013

Chest/ Back

When working out, it is essential to work on 2 or more muscle groups per workout, so you don't strain a particular muscle.  Often times, antagonistic muscles, or some in the same areas are the best to work out on the same day.

For myself,  I have

  • Tricep / Bicep / Shoulder
  • Chest / Back
  • Shoulders / Traps (More Trap focus but a good combination)
  • Quads, Calves & Hamstrings
These are essentially the ones I switch off between in the mornings, when I actually go to the gym. 
I myself tend to do 3-4 different exercises, and 3-4 sets of each, just depending on the mood. 

For chest and back, I tend to do 4 of these exercises and typically 4 sets of each. Also, I do chest and back in pairs and  will do 1 Chest, 1 Back , then break. This is to ensure I am getting an equal number of each in and nice evenly toned muscles.

(The following are links to a website which will show you step by step how to do it)

Chest: Barbell Chest Press

Butterfly (With a machine)

Decline Dumbell Chest Press

Regular Dumbell Chest Press

Dumbell Flies 
* Essentially, this is just butterflies using dumbells and lying down. 

Machine Chest Press

The most basic exercise for chest is actually the push up. Yes it is boring and repetitive. But , you could easily switch it up.  Try it with your feet on a bench, against a wall or simply just changing the width and positions of your hands. This is especially good for those without any equipment or gym membership

Back: Close- Grip Front Lat Pulldown (Machine Based)

Elevated Cable Rows (Machine Based)

Wide-Grip Front Lat Pulldown

Wide-Grip Pulldown Behind the Neck

**These exercises all work your LATS (latissimus doris)



One Arm Dumbbell Row

Seated Cable Row

**These exercises all work your Mid Back 


The most basic exercise to work your back is essentially chin ups or pull ups.  This is basically without equipment or even a gym membership. Like push ups, you can make many variations of these as well, but in the end, they will mainly work your LATS



No comments:

Post a Comment