8 Week Chest Workout for Better Results

If you are on the quest to building a bigger chest, chances are you’ve been putting in a lot of work but not getting enough progress.

This eight-week program is going to tear those chesticles down with familiar moves. Maintaining proper form is going to be needed, so small tweaks can mean big changes in your progress.

In order for you to get the most out of this workout, there’s going to be a few nutritional things we need to cover. The saying “muscles are made in the kitchen” is true, and I’m going to show you why.

Along with nutrition, we will cover the most common training mistakes and how to fix them. Paying close attention to workout volume and intensity is going to be a must for proper chest development.

Weeks one and two are going to be focused on overall chest development. Weeks three and four, five and six, and then seven and eight will focus on the middle, lower, and upper pecs, respectively.

Nutrition

It doesn’t matter how hard you work in the gym, if you aren’t eating right, the gains won’t come. You need to start logging your food so you know exactly what’s going in your mouth.

Being able to pinpoint exactly how many calories you are eating will help you figure out if you need to eat more or less. It takes the guesswork out of reaching your goals.

Go over to our TDEE calculator and input your stats. You can now use this as a starting point for your calories needed. If you need to lose fat, eat fewer calories than your TDEE. If you need to gain muscle, eat more calories than your TDEE.

Where you get your calories counts, too.

I’m not saying you have to completely change your diet, but you will need to start getting more nutritious foods into your diet. A good rule of thumb is to strive to cook all of your meals using fresh ingredients.

The 80/20 rule works well here. That is, 80% of your calories should come from nutritious sources, while the other 20% can come from whatever you’d like. This means if you have a 2,000 calorie diet, 400 calories can come from whatever you’d like.

It works well as long as you log your food and refrain from lying to yourself about how many calories you’ve eaten.

You’re going to need to learn how to cook. It’s not that hard, but you need to take the time and learn.

While you’re at it, here are the top carb, protein, and fat sources I would recommend you try out.

Top Carb Sources

Old-fashioned or steel cut oatmeal
Yams
Brown rice
Sweet potatoes
White Potatoes
100% whole wheat pasta
100% whole wheat bread
Beans
Lentils
Quinoa
Couscous
Butternut squash

Top Protein Sources

Eggs
Whey protein
Chicken breast
Salmon
Turkey breast
Canned tuna
Nuts
Flank steak
Codfish
Greek yogurt
Bacon
Beef

Top Fat Sources

Avocado
Almonds
Olive oil
Flaxseed
Walnuts
Salmon
Peanuts
Clarified butter
Cashews
Dark chocolate

Intensity Techniques to Build Your Chest

Throughout this workout, there will be some exercises that you can perform your choice of intensity technique — these exercises will be labeled with a * (asterisk).

These intensity boosters work best when you perform proper form and have great technique. Choose one intensity booster per starred workout.

Choose one of these intensity techniques and utilize it on your last working set.

Forced Reps

Have your partner help you with the last few reps at the end of your set. This is going to push you past muscular failure, so your partner should only help lift with the force necessary to keep from getting stuck.

They shouldn’t be doing the reps for you.

Partial Reps

Perform reps over a partial range of motion. You could use this technique at the top or bottom of the movement.

Drop Sets

After you complete your working set, quickly strip off some weight from the bar or select lighter dumbbells. Perform reps until failure, and strip off more weight to do more reps.

Rest-Pause

Take a short rest period during your set to squeeze out more reps. Find a weight you can do for two to three reps, rest for 20 seconds, and try for another two to three reps.

Repeat for as long as you can handle.

Negatives

Training the negative means you are resisting the downward motion of a heavy weight. On the bench press, you would slowly drop the weight down to your chest and have your partner assist you on the positive portion of the rep.