My chest workouts are designed to help you improve your pecs as you cut calories to reduce body fat. You’ll follow the same chest workout for 4 weeks during Phase One, using the same exercises, sets, and reps. Chest day comes on the second day of each week. After 4 weeks we’ll shift things up in my Phase 2 chest workouts.
Keep in mind that you can still target growth and improving your weaknesses while you’re dieting. In fact, that’s even more crucial: As you lose fat, both your strengths and weaknesses are going to become more obvious. Before you get started, it’s good for you to think about your strengths and weaknesses with your chest. I’m really trying to focus on building my upper chest.
The primary purpose of the chest is to press things away from your body and to bring objects together in front of your upper body. That’s why we emphasize pressing and flye movements during Operation Aesthetic.
Here’s more about how your chest muscles work. Take a look at the anatomy chart and the muscle descriptions to help you focus on your weaknesses as you’re dieting. Remember those weakness are going to get more obvious as you strip off body fat.
PECTORALIS MAJOR
These muscles are fan-shaped, and they make up the bulk of your chest. The pectoralis major muscles stretch from ribs up to your clavicles and then out to your upper arms. They grow well with compound moves such as barbell and dumbbell presses from any angle. Isolation moves, where you only use one joint, such as dumbbell or machine flyes help increase definition and mass in your pectoralis major muscles.
PECTORALIS MINOR
These smaller muscles are triangle shaped, and they are beneath your pectoralis major muscles. These are thin muscles and they’re much less visible. Take a look at the anatomy chart to see how these muscles attach. Using compound and isolation moves—both pressing and flye exercises—will help you increase mass in the pectoralis minor muscles at the same time that you’re working those of the “majors.”
