The chest is one body part which, when you’ve got some mass on it through compound movements, will benefit from some volume training to stimulate all the types of muscle fibres, working the whole chest. This means lots of sets and lots of reps with a range of different exercises.
Some modern gyms are fortunate enough to be equipped with loads of great machines, each designed to hit the chest at different angles, and this means knocking out 20-odd sets is easy. However, most gyms we use aren’t huge and don’t have loads of apparatus; just free weights and a few of the more fundamental machines.
With this in mind, here is a good basic volume routine for chest made up of six exercises:
- 5 mins low intensity cardio to warm up
- Stretch the pecs, tris, lats and delts
- Dumbbell press (flat) – 4 sets of 12-15 reps
- Seated machine press – 3 sets of 12 reps + 1 x 25 reps
- Lying dumbbell flyes – 4 sets of 12-15 reps
- Seated machine flyes (or pec-dec) – 4 sets of 15 reps
- Dumbbell pull-overs – 4 sets of 10-12 reps
- Cable cross-overs – 7 sets of 15 reps with just 30 secs rest in between each set. Vary the sets with two movements: slightly bent over downward movement and upright outward in front movement
- 10 mins low intensity cardio to warm down
- Stretching
The whole workout of 27 sets should be done quickly with minimal rest, and, can be performed within one hour including the cardio and stretching.
Make sure you are getting plenty of rest between workouts and, of course, a suitable diet, as this workout is very intense and tiring. However, as it’s done quickly, there is a cardiovascular element to it, so it will help improve fitness levels.
Why not try it for 6 weeks?
