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Chest
Chest
Function-The chest is mainly responsible for bringing the upper arms across the body. Best Hit with compound Movements in a variety of rep ranges. Most other chest exercises are derived from this core movement pattern.
Best exercises
Flat Barbell Bench Press
Incline Dumbbell Bench Press
Any machine Chest press
Chest Fly
Flat Barbell Bench Press
Compound Movement that works mostly the chest with some shoulders and triceps involvement. Creates the most mechanical tension and has good room to progress (you can get stronger over a long time)
Ideal Rep Range: 6-12
Incline Dumbbell Press
Similar to Bench press but using dumbbell's and using a bench on a slight incline. The incline position is usually a more comfortable position for people's shoulders, and using dumbbells gives you a bit more freedom of movement than a barbell. Also slightly safer as if you fail a rep you can just drop the dumbbell's whereas a barbell you would get stuck under it.
Ideal Rep Range: 8-12
Machine Chest Press
Good for beginners as they are completely safe, no risk of dropping a weight on yourself. Generally easier to learn and perform as It requires less work from stabiliser muscles.
Ideal Rep Range: 8-12
Chest Fly
An Isolation movement for the chest. The arms stay more extended and is an arcing motion going more out and in than up and down. The benefit of this exercise comes from the stretch at the bottom. This can be done with dumbbells, cables or a pec fly machine. I recommend cables or a pec fly machine
Ideal Rep Range: 10-15
SHoulders
SHoulders
Function-The shoulder joint is a ball and socket joint with a large range of motion. Shoulders can be slightly more difficult to train because of they have many functions. The deltoid muscle has 3 parts commonly referred to as the front delt, side delt and rear delt.
Front Delt: Raises the arm in front of the body. It is heavily involved in Pressing and Pushing exercises like the Bench press and Overhead Shoulder press
Side Delt: Raises the arm to the side and is involved in pressing weight overhead.
Rear Delt: does the opposite of front delt, moving the arm behind the torso. This is recruited in many pulling movements.
Best exercises
Seated Overhead Press (Barbell or Dumbell)
Standing Overhead Press
Lateral raise
Shoulder press machine
Seated Overhead Press
Compound movement that works mainly the front and side delt and also triceps to a minor degree. Use a Barbell or dumbbells, whatever you prefer. (I like to do both)
Set this up with an Incline bench at a 70-80 degree angle (see video above)
Ideal rep range 6-12
Standing overhead press
-Same as above but you are standing up with no back support from a bench. Works the same muscles and is easier to set up. It requires a bit more core stability than if you were seated which is why it is not number 1.
Ideal rep range 6-12
Lateral raise
-An isolation movement that works the side delt and really helps with the width of the shoulders. Can use dumbbells, cables or a machine, whichever you prefer. You cant use heavy weight on this exercise which is actually a good thing because it is not as tiring as the compound shoulder exercises.
You can add extra volume without much extra fatigue.
Ideal rep range 10-15
Shoulder press machine
machine version of an overhead press. The reason this is 4th is because most shoulder press machines are not very good. They tend to put your arms in a fixed position compared to a barbell or dumbbells and can be quite uncomfortable. I recommend you try them out and if they work for you, that's great. If they don't stick to the free weight variations
Ideal rep range 6-12
you may notice I haven't included exercises here that target the rear delt. This is because the rear delt is recruited in a lot of pulling exercise (back and biceps), so I will talk about rear delt exercises in the back and biceps section.
Triceps
Triceps
Function-The triceps function is to extend the arm to its straightened position. Its easy to train as it only really performs one movement. They are a highly resilient muscle group that can handle a lot of stress
The triceps are already worked in other push movements like the bench press and shoulder press. This means it doesnt need too much direct training.
Best Exercises
1) Close Grip Bench Press
2)Cable Pushdown
3) Skull-crushers
4)Overhead extension
Close Grip Bench Press
This is an alternative to the regular bench press if you want to target more triceps than chest. It still recruits the chest and shoulders so you can do this as your main form of chest press or as a variation from time to time.
Ideal rep range 8-12
Cable pushdown
This is the best isolation exercise for the triceps because it is easy to set up and easy to perform. You can use different cable attachments. (ie. straight bar, curved bar, rope) again its personal preference
Ideal Rep Range 10-20
Skull-crushers
An isolation exercise performed with barbell or dumbbells. The name comes from the fact that you are lowering the barbell to your forehead hence a skull-crusher. Keep your elbows tucked in with a shoulder width grip. Try to bend only at the elbows and keep the shoulders in a fixed position
Ideal rep range 8-15
Overhead extension
perform with cables or a dumbbell. Very similar to a pushdown but instead of extending your arm down by your sides, you extend your arm overhead. A very good exercise but lower on the list as it is a bit harder to set up and a requires a bit more stability than a regular pushdown
Ideal rep range 8-12
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