How to Build a Strong Chest with Body Weight Exercises

Build up your chest muscles with body weight exercises like push-ups.

Body weight exercises are a great way to sculpt your body. These exercises use your own body weight as the resistance for building muscles. They help burn fat and build muscle. Some of the easiest muscles to develop are the chest muscles.

Things You'll Need

• 2 12-inch high platforms

Instructions

1. Do push-ups. The good ole push-up is a great exercise to develop the chest. It is often overlooked as a strength-building exercise. here are many different variations that you can do with the push-up. Lie on the floor on your stomach. Raise your body up on your toes and your arms. Bend your elbows to lower your body to the floor while keeping your back straight. Be sure you let your arms do the raising and lowering and not your back. Perform the push-up with a slow and steady pace. This will make it more challenging.

2. Try dive bombers. To perform the exercise start in a pike position with your hands and feet on the ground. Your hands should be out in front of your head.
   Perform the exercise by lowering your body toward the ground. You will virtually scrape your nose and chest on the ground as you go through your arms and you will finish in what is known as an upward dog position from yoga. Now you will back yourself out the same way that you came and return to the pike position. That is one repetition.
   You will not be able to do as many dive bombers as you can do push-ups. But continue to work with them until you can build your repetitions.

3. Perform one arm push-ups. These are very challenging exercises and are a pure strength exercise. Set yourself up like you are doing a push-up. Widen your leg stance to keep from tipping over. Place the arm you will be using for the push-ups more to the center of your chest. Place your other arm behind your back. Slowly bend your elbow to lower your body toward the floor. Straighten your elbow to raise back up.

4. Do depth drops. Depth drops are a plyometric exercise and require and explosive movement to perform them.
   You will need two sturdy platform that are about 12 inches high to perform these. Place the platforms a little farther apart than your shoulders. You can experiment with the positioning so you do not hit your arms as you perform the exercise.
   Put one hand on each of the platforms. Propel yourself in the air and catch yourself on the floor in sort of a half push-up position. Do an explosive push-up so you throw your upper body off of the floor and catch yourself up on the platform again. These are difficult. Start with a lower platform as necessary and increase the height as you become stronger.

References

• Bodybuilding: Exercises Focusing on Starting & Explosive Strength