15 Jul Hey chisel chest! Five tips for men to build pectoral muscles

Free Weights Bench Press

One of the most noticeable attributes of a male’s physique is his chest.
Put simply, it’s a lot better to have a chest that sticks out farther than the belly does.
As men get older, this can be tougher and tougher to do as it’s more difficult to keep extra weight off and muscles can also tend to sag.
However, with a little knowledge and hard work in the gym, it’s quite possible to keep the chest looking good well into the golden years.
Here are five tips for men to keep their chests chiseled, or at least looking pretty good:
* Flat bench press – The most popular and arguably single best exercise to build chest muscles is the flat bench press, using free weights. Lay back on a flat bench and you can use a bar, or dumbbells. Bench press will also work the triceps and shoulders.
* Incline bench press – To work the top of the chest, change things up by putting your bench on an incline. You can bench with the bar, or use dumbbells.
* Decline bench press – To work the bottom of the chest, adjust your bench so that you lay back at a decline. Again, you can use a straight bar or dumbbells. I personally like using a home gym machine for these as the bar will stay on a consistent track. It works good to sometimes change things up by using dumbbells, too.
* Flyes – Another great exercise for the chest are flyes. Lay on the bench and bring the weights off to the side for flyes. You can also use pulleys for these on a home gym, functional trainer, or stand up for a variation known as cable crosses.
* Pushups – An oldie, but goodie are pushups. If I’m on vacation or don’t have time to get to the gym I like busting about four or five sets of 25-30 pushups. Even if I’m at the gym, sometimes it feels good just to get some pushups in there, too. To change up the angle, you can do pushups off the side of a bench.

At Home Fitness consultant Aaron Dorksen’s blog deals with a variety of fitness topics, ranging from workout tips, motivational ideas and feature stories on how exercise impacts people’s lives. E-mail him with comments, questions or ideas for future blogs at aaron@athomefitness.com