Explosive Lower Chest Growth!

A lot of you have been asking me about how to build a bigger lower chest. So in this article I’m not going to only answer your question, I’m also going to give you the best solution for having a lagging chest in general.

Most people automatically think the solution is to go right to an exercise that specifically targets the lower chest, or at least places more emphasis on it. But, what happens when you just perform a movement like a decline bench, or cable high-to-low fly? Yes, you might place a bit more emphasis on the lower chest, but will it result in more GROWTH for that round, big and thick look that you’re going for? That is what we are going to determine in this article.

The Problem With ‘Targeting’ The Lower Chest

I am about to explain a concept about chest growth that when you hear it, your mind is going to be BLOWN! The real issue at hand when it comes to chest growth (and even I have been a victim of this), is that we KNOW there are exercises out there that can help “target” the lower chest more. And because we know this, we tend to gravitate to those exercises to try to build more muscle. But what if I were to tell you that KNOWING there are chest exercises that target the lower chest more is actually the reason WHY your overall chest growth is lagging? Pretty crazy right?!

Take a look at the chest. It is a BIG AREA and is considered one of the bigger muscle groups in your upper body. So when you train with an exercise like a decline bench press which changes the entire range of motion of a traditional bench press, which is the reason why it can be more “lower chest” dominant, what is it that you are actually doing?  What you are actually doing is instead of utilizing the traditional version of the movement which is the flat dumbbell bench press (which activates the ENTIRE chest for MAXIMUM muscle damage and regrowth), you are now decreasing overall chest activation with a TINY bit more emphasis on the lower part of the chest.

In fact, the majority of you will probably get more of a pump in your triceps from a decline bench press than you would in your chest. Just because an exercise places more “emphasis” on the lower chest, doesn’t mean the lower chest activation is OVER 9000 on that exercise. The “extra activation” is quite minuscule at best in terms of growth when compared to the standard bench press.

Think about it like this as well…the lower chest doesn’t necessarily get bigger because the LOWER part of the chest is bigger. What actually creates a bigger lower chest is the overall size of the ENTIRE CHEST. This means that the bigger your chest is in general, the bigger your lower chest will look.

What Is The Solution?

Instead of jumping around to 4 or 5 different exercises, stick with 10 – 15 sets of 6 – 8 repetitions of a flat dumbbell bench press, resting only 60 – 90 seconds max between sets, and perform this routine for your chest workout 2 to 3 times MAX per week. Make sure you rest at least 1-2 days between workouts for recovery as well. If you’re not letting your body recover, it will never grow.

Then, even after doing that if you still feel that you need to target the chest more, even with all that volume, you can add 3 – 5 sets of a decline dumbbell press OR a high-to-low cable fly to further activate the lower chest area when it is already PRE-EXHAUSTED from the 10 – 15 sets of the flat dumbbell bench press that you did. Most people tend to think they should do decline FIRST if their chest is lagging, but this is wrong. It’s actually better to train the lagging area once it is pre-exhausted, because you will be able to recruit more late muscle fibers in that area. This is because a tired chest will have to work harder to complete more sets this way for muscle growth.

Conclusion

Remember, you’re much better off utilizing more volume of fewer exercises that break down the most muscle for regrowth, rather than adding in more useless exercises and less sets per exercise, like we discussed in my video 3 Sets Per Exercise Is Killing Your Gains, which you can take a look at by clicking that blue link if you haven’t seen it already!