A man with a superb and a well-kept chest often stands out from the crowd.You can’t build a massive chest with shoddy technique and bad form. Below are the seven most common chest-training errors.Avoiding these common training blunders will guarantee “pec-tacular” gains.
Over training
There are many people training their chest with high volume frequency or intensity than any other body part. Most chest workout routines like this one recommend working out 3 times a week and taking 4 days off.More is not better; BETTER is better. You shouldn't be training any muscle group more than twice a week at most. The muscle grows and repairs when it's at rest, not when it's pumping out reps.You should not only concentrate with your chest but rather, you should have a balanced program that focuses on your whole body unless you had neglected your chest muscles for some reasons. While doing cardiovascular exercises, you should consider the volume of your chest work out and the volume of the work you for the opposite function in the back.
Overreliance on barbell bench presses
Bodybuilders bench too much too often for too many sets of too few reps. Used correctly, the bench press is an excellent exercise. Overused, it can potentially overdevelop the lower-pec region in relation to the upper region, giving you “droopy boobs”.Furthermore, consistently benching for maximum sets of low reps will boost your chances of injuries, ranging from shoulder, elbow and wrist strains to pec tears.
Solution: If you always do barbell benches first, start with incline presses–with barbells one workout and dumbbells the next. Alternately, cycle eight-week periods during which you do not free-weight benches with eight weeks during which you do benches with barbells one workout and dumbbells the next.
This is a very common one that beginners and many experienced lifters doing all the time. It is when a lifter allows their shoulders to move forward/up in the direction of a chest press. This takes a lot of the tension off the chest and puts it into anterior deltoids. If you always complain about your shoulders getting a better workout than your chest, this one is for you.
Solution: Keep your scapula retracted and pined to the bench throughout the entire range of the lift. As you begin your lift, imagine your chest moving up into the motion as you push. Right away you should feel your chest doing way more work. This may take some getting used to in the beginning, but after a few workouts, you'll see and feel the difference.
Using machines too much
Another extremity we can see in gyms quite often is the “I only train chest with machines” crowd. Actually, a lot of these people train everything with machines, not just chest. Little do they realize, your best bet to move towards an impressive level of chest development is with free weights.
Going too low
Everybody talks about getting the bar all the way down to the chest as best practice on the bench press. This is fine for some physiques, but for most of us, it will hamper growth and potentially cause injury. Going too low on chest exercises can cause too much of a stretch in the outer chest and shoulder area. This takes more tension off the chest muscles and will weaken them. You want to have a strong and effective bench in order to thicken up the chest.
Solution: As you lower the weight, focus on how much of the load you can feel in the chest. If there comes a point where the feeling goes from a deep muscular sensation to a hard, ropey, fibrous pain. That's the point you've gone too low. Instead, start to push the weight back up, just before that point. You'll notice bigger pumps after each set.
Lifting Your Butt off The Bench
Raising your hips off the bench in an attempt to lift more weight invites injury while turning the move into more of a decline press (during which you’re stronger and the range of motion is shorter). While that may be advantageous for guys who bench for record weights, as a bodybuilder you could simply do declines instead if you want to focus on your lower pecs. To keep the stress on the middle pecs, keep your hips glued to the bench. You can still drive through your feet, but keep your hips and glutes down.
Not Resting Enough
A lot of chest exercises require a lot of energy output. It is extremely crucial that you get enough sleep each day. If you do not get enough sleep, the fast twitch muscle fibers in the chest will not be able recover from hard workouts. Muscle mass is actually built when sleeping, not when training. Training merely breaks the muscle tissue down so it can grow bigger and stronger.
