“Chest is best” is a familiar phrase that often lays deep within the psyche of most trainers (male anyway).

There’s no getting away from it chest days are a joy to behold and for reasons whether good or bad are very rarely missed!

It’s this dedication to training chest that ironically presents us with problems down the line. Few dedicated trainers would argue that their chest lacks conditioning, but when was the last time you made a significant breakthrough in terms of strength and development?

Perhaps it could be because your chest is so well conditioned that the muscles are adapt to handling whatever you throw at them week in, week out. This shouldn’t be a surprise, more an ongoing concern as it’s our body’s/muscles fantastic ability to adjust and rapidly transform to such workloads that attracted us into physical development in the first place.

If you feel as though your chest progress has hit a bit of a plateau then this tip is for you! By definition “to hit a plateau” you must have first been making gains, in fact over the course of several years you may have come a very long way indeed and be wondering why you are now stuck in the proverbial rut.

When this happens it’s essential you once again go over the basic equation that helps us create “Effective Muscle Overload” – analysis of this always provides the answer(s).

Adequate Resistance + Proper Technique + High Intensity = Effective Muscle Overload.

In truth the first two parts are usually (but not always) addressed perfectly well within the first couple years of training, which in terms of breaking through plateau’s just leaves our old friend “intensity” as the issue we really need to address.

Potentially even more so if we’re relatively well conditioned to training the chest every week without fail. So what do we do?

Well not for the first time I recommend super-setting. What’s the most natural chest movement that can be completed anywhere in the gym, with absolutely no hassle to set-up and no intensity/time lost?

Well, that’ll be press-ups! Press yourself to a better chest!

This works, for every non pressing movement in your chest routine, simply drop to the floor immediately after completion to execute a set of press-ups to failure. You’ll probably end up doing between 4-8 sets of this but there’s 3 important points here to consider with this tip:

1) Mix things up a bit, with the help of a bench you can also do these on an incline and a decline, keep your body guessing thus forcing it to adapt!

The end result of each chest routine will genuinely assure you as to the level of tissue you’ve broken down, especially if you’ve taken a pre-workout like Pre Dynamic!

It doesn’t matter if you drop to only a few press-ups right at the end of your session. This is testament to the fact you’ve left everything in the gym, who thinks it’s wise to finish our routines as strong as we started? Doesn’t this prove we’ve actually not stressed the fibres at all? No, better to do everything we can in order to maximise safe muscle stimuli.

2) Use this tip no more than every other chest workout and continue to use pre-exhaustion (see relevant article) and a healthy mix of rep ranges.

This will all combine force your chest to adapt and given adequate rest and nutrition – grow! 3) Very important, as a result of the excess muscle tissue breakdown you absolutely owe it to yourself to maximise your post-workout nutrition (please see relevant article) which over time makes a massive difference.

Get this wrong and you could easily end up in an over-trained state which is the last thing we want. Definitely something to consider if you’re stuck in a rut and becoming frustrated.

Disclaimer: All exercises on this site are intended for healthy individuals without any present medical conditions. If you are currently experiencing any bone, joint, or musculoskeletal pain, we advise you to consult a licensed health care professional prior to commencing any of the exercises suggested within this site. The author, editor, and publisher specifically disclaim all responsibility and liability for any injury arising from the use and application of the information provided within this site.