Cómo trabajar tus pectorales eficientemente

How to work your chest muscles efficiently

Working the pectorals efficiently requires knowledge of their anatomy and of the variables for each training phase.

Let’s start with the obvious: large pectorals are great and are the muscles that stand out most on men, whether at the beach or in the office.

A 2017 study had 160 women look at images of men; nearly all rated those with larger pectorals and arms as the most physically attractive (1).

Although other research has indicated that there is a middle ground of muscularity that makes a man sexy—neither scrawny nor a bodybuilder—this study found that the larger a man’s pectorals were, the more positively women responded to him.

Scientists theorize that the reason lies in evolution: stronger, more “capable-looking” men were more likely to protect and support women in primitive, pre-civilized times, and women are still programmed to appreciate that physique today.

We will not discuss trivialities, but strengthening the pectorals helps perform numerous athletic activities, from pushing and throwing to climbing and punching.

Pectorals: What is their anatomy?

The main chest muscle is the pectoralis major, or “pectoralis major,” and the primary function of the chest muscle is to bring the upper arm across the body.

chest

The pectoralis major has multiple “heads,” or sites where a tendon attaches to the skeleton. There is a sternocostal head, which connects the sternum and rib cage to the upper arm, and a clavicular head, which connects the clavicle to the upper arm.

Why is this important? The way a muscle attaches to the skeleton influences how it responds to various types of training.

For example;

  • Certain exercises, such as the flat and decline bench press, emphasize the larger sternocostal head of the pectorals.
  • And exercises that involve moving the arms upward and away from the chest, such as the incline and reverse-grip bench press, emphasize the smaller clavicular head.

We will discuss the best way to train both the upper and lower chest later, but we should also point out that there is a pectoralis minor, a small muscle that connects the upper part of the shoulder blade to the upper ribs.

chest

It is located beneath the pectoralis major, and its function is to pull the shoulder blade forward and toward the middle of the chest.

Many of the same exercises that effectively train the pectoralis major also involve the pectoralis minor. In this regard, it is not necessary to use specific exercises for the pectoralis minor, although the clavicular pectoral can sometimes be trained.

Pectorals: how should you train them?

For athletes, pectorals training begins and ends with the bench press, along with some push-ups, pull-ups, and dumbbell flyes.

That said, fantastic exercises, but to build a truly spectacular chest, you need to expand your repertoire of exercises and variations.

  • The pectoralis major, or chest muscle, is composed of an upper and lower portion, and most men need to perform exercises that emphasize the upper portion in particular.
  • The best exercises for the pectorals are pressing movements that allow you to target both the upper and lower chest, while also safely moving heavy loads and improving your overall strength.
  • The best way to develop them is to get as strong as possible with a handful of key exercises using different grips, angles, and techniques.

That said, there are key points of reference regarding training for this muscle group.

The chest is composed of two basic areas (the clavicular head and the sternal head) that require their own special attention. Also remember that isolation movements, although they are not the core of chest training, seem to be very useful ingredients for maximizing the development of the pectorals.

When designing any chest training week, make sure it includes some horizontal work, some incline work, and some isolation exercises.

Almost every training week should include at least a couple of sets of ALL those movements.

In fact, as you advance and progress, it could be a good idea to rotate these exercises, including using free weights, machines, and other accessories, reducing the load and pumping as well, while fueling yourself with key supplements.

Pectorals: when should you vary them?

Now, how do you know when it is time to change one exercise for another?… Well, the decision is based on answering just a few questions…

  • Do you have a mind-muscle connection with the exercise?
  • Are you still gaining strength in those repetitions?
  • Does the exercise cause connective-tissue-related discomfort or pain, and do these worsen each week or accumulate over several weeks?
  • Is there a physical need for the exercise to change?

In other words, is the exercise appropriate for the repetition range you are trying to use it for?

Example: barbell bench presses for sets of 25 reps simply fatigue the forearms, but when doing the machine press, you can perform 25 reps to pump up the pectorals as intended.

If you are still achieving that connection with the exercise, even if it does not cause excessive pain, there is no need to change it—so do not change it even if a long time passes!

But if an exercise no longer produces that connection for an entire month (especially during a muscle-gain or maintenance phase), or if it is hurting you in a harmful way or you have already plateaued, you should replace it somehow.

Ranges of motion

The chest is designed to stretch under load and receives a large part of its growth stimulus from such exercises.

If you are training your pectorals and do not work them properly, you will miss the opportunity to stimulate hypertrophy throughout the entire muscle group.

  • Always lower the bar as deeply as possible.
  • Always open as far as possible with dumbbells/cables.

On the other hand, lifting heavier weights than necessary while avoiding the full range of motion places MORE stress on the shoulder and elbow joints, increasing the likelihood of injury.

Loading, a critical factor

In general, like all muscles, the pectoral muscles benefit from weights in the range of 30%–85% 1RM, which for many people translates roughly into a weight that allows between 5 and 30 reps in a first set taken to failure.

We can divide this range into:

  • Heavy ranges (5–10),
  • Moderate ranges (10–20), and
  • Light work (20–30).

The first point regarding loading is that the chest, like most muscles, seems to benefit from some training in all three repetition ranges listed above.

Because the moderate range (10–20 reps) often offers the best trade-off between stimulus, fatigue, injury risk, slow-/fast-twitch fiber specificity, and mind–muscle connection, one could argue that a first-time program design should place most of the weekly chest sets in this range, perhaps up to around 50% of them.

The other 50% could perhaps be divided evenly between the heavy ranges (5–10 reps) and light ranges (20–30 reps), since load-range diversity has been shown to be a potential benefit in its own right.

Loads Differ by Exercise

The 10–20-rep range is productive for the chest, but many athletes feel better because they get their best results from somewhere between the 5–10-rep and 10–20-rep ranges, perhaps sets of 8–12 reps or even slightly lower.

This is especially true for flat and incline barbell bench presses, while flyes are more efficient in the 10–20-rep range.

Dumbbell movements and chest dips are slightly less stable than barbell or machine movements and are best performed in the 10–20-rep ranges rather than the 5–10-rep ranges, both for safety and because of the higher levels of fast-twitch fiber recruitment.

Finally, both barbell and dumbbell chest movements may be limited by forearm strength and comfort. We mention this because the most efficient exercises in the 20–30-rep range could be better performed on chest machines and with push-up variations.

How to Split Up Workouts

When developing a weekly training plan, it is probably a good idea to train the heavy ranges before the lighter ranges. Because both types of training for chest cause fatigue, they interfere with each other to some extent.

However, the muscle and connective-tissue damage caused by more intense training is likely to be more substantial and carry a greater risk of injury if some damage already exists from the previous workout.

In this scenario,

  • If you do sets of 5–10 reps on Monday and (almost always) sustain some form of microtear, the 10–20-rep sets on Wednesday involve a lower absolute force magnitude and are unlikely to cause the microtear to expand into a noticeable injury.
  • On the other hand, if you suffered previous damage while working with sets of 10–20 reps, you are somewhat more likely to work even heavier in that condition on Wednesday in the 5–10-rep range, which could result in injury.

Therefore, a potential heavy-moderate-light sequence during the week may be advisable, with 1 or 2 additional rest days after the light session and before the next intense session to ensure that you have recovered from most of the damage and can begin another productive week.

Volume for pectorals

Depending on your individual responses to each of the main repetition ranges, you can adjust the amount of volume you perform in any of them.

For example, if you notice that you get a better stimulus (pumps, soreness, mind-muscle connection, etc.) and less fatigue (joint stress, systemic fatigue, joint pain, etc.) in some ranges than others, you can perform more sets in those ranges and slightly fewer in others.

In most cases, you should include at least some work in the less productive ranges.

If you already have experience, you can experiment and observe that neither the 5–10-rep range nor the 20–30-rep range works very well for training pectorals.

In this context, you should alternate a few sets of both across most weeks and perform the vast majority of your exercise sets in the 10–20-rep range.

Now, sharing some extra knowledge, let’s turn to a video on how to build an impressive chest, which is ultimately ideal supplementary information to what we’ve been discussing.

Rest periods

When determining how long to rest between two training sets, the goal is to rest long enough for the next set to be at least close to maximally productive.

How can you ensure this? Well, by answering 4 basic questions about your recovery status:

  • Have you recovered the target muscle locally enough to perform at least 5 repetitions in the next set?
  • Have you recovered your nervous system sufficiently to eliminate it as a limiting factor when targeting muscle performance?
  • Has your cardiorespiratory system recovered sufficiently to eliminate it as a limiting factor for muscle performance?
  • Have the synergistic muscles recovered sufficiently in the exercise you are performing to eliminate them as a limiting factor for muscle performance?

It may take only 1–2 minutes to recover very well (say, 90%) across all those factors, but because the adjustment used to set recovery is asymptotic in nature, it may take another 3 minutes to reach 95% recovery and another 10 minutes to reach 99% recovery.

Given that you have only a limited amount of time to spend in the gym, 10 “90%-recovered sets” in 45 minutes of training is a much more anabolic stimulus than just 3 “99%-recovered sets” in the same amount of time.

Therefore, our recommendation is to make sure you can clearly answer all four basic questions, but not to always assume that your recovery will be very good, let alone nearly perfect.

Frequency for chest

Training frequency is a hot topic, but to be clear, in this research, “training frequency” is not simply how often you work out; rather, it is generally defined as the number of times a muscle group is trained in a given week.

The classic “split” used by bodybuilders focuses on each muscle only once per week, but others believe that the more frequently you train a muscle in a given week, the greater the hypertrophic response.

A recent meta-analysis and systematic review attempted to clarify some of the confusion and provide tangible advice on how often a muscle group should be trained per week to maximize muscle growth potential (2).

The meta-analysis found no differences in muscle growth when training muscles once a week or several times a week, assuming that the training volume is equal.

But that’s a major caveat!… it means that frequency may not be the most important variable to consider when structuring a chest workout… instead, the total volume of exercises you perform may be the defining factor.

If you’re following a program you like but are struggling to fit it into your schedule, you may be able to divide the training volume chest over several days..

It’s highly individual and has a lot to do with your training experience, as well as how your nutrition and lifestyle are structured to help you recover and grow.

References

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