How to Build Chest Muscles for Skinny Guys
Skinny guys often have a difficult time building muscle. You may have been deemed "scrawny" by others or even used the words when describing yourself. One of the quickest ways for you to shed your skinny-boy image is to bulk up your chest to add shape to your upper body.
Instructions
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Pick the best exercises. Compound exercises that use more than one joint within the range of motion will call on more muscle fibers when working out your chest. Utilizing more fibers in your chest with compound building exercises will intensify workouts and make muscles stronger in a shorter amount of time. Push-ups and bench press are some of the most popular compound exercises that will help any skinny guy build his chest. Other good exercises are dips, flies and dumbbell press.
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Challenge yourself during weight-training workouts. When you are using weight training to build your chest, first gauge what your maximum weight-lifting capacity is with each exercise. Your maximum weight should be the highest amount you can lift doing an exercise between five and eight repetitions before "muscle failure," which means you are not able to lift the weight anymore without a rest. Using at least 70 to 80 percent of this amount during normal workouts is critical to challenging your muscles each session. This will force the muscle fibers in your chest and supporting muscles to contract during exercise.
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Work to muscle failure. Tearing down your muscles should only take a short amount of time and one of the best ways to rip up those pectoral muscles quickly is to work to muscle failure. Technique and approach to exercising the chest can be as important as the exercise itself. Doing pyramid exercises in which you start out with your maximum possible number of reps, take a short break and then gradually decrease the number of reps until you reach zero is a great way to achieve muscle failure. This will promote the tiny tears in your chest muscle that can add girth when repaired by the body.
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Switch up the grip. Varying between close, wide, and normal grips when doing push-ups or bench press will help to work out that corresponding part of your chest from shoulder to shoulder. The closer your hands are, the more it works the center of your chest when switching hand positions. Utilize incline and decline settings for bench press to incorporate your upper and lower chest. The same effect can be gained while doing push-ups by placing supports, such as a step box, under your feet or under your hands during the exercise.
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Give your chest a rest. Muscle building in the chest has more to do with rest and recovery after the exercise than the exercise itself. Perform chest exercise frequently while allowing time between each session for the muscle to fully heal. Protein consumption is an essential building block to muscle repair and can be found in healthy doses in foods such as lean meats, eggs, beans and even nuts. Make sure you are getting between six and eight hours of uninterrupted sleep daily.
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Tips & Warnings
Take a multivitamin daily to ensure you receive the full amount of vitamins your body needs to build your chest. You can also check your local health and fitness store for safe supplements such as creatine and protein that will allow you to build your chest faster.
Use correct form and perform your exercises slowly to help avoid injury. This will also benefit you by strengthening muscle in supporting muscle groups, such as the rotator cuff, that are more delicate.
