CALISTHENICS CHEST WORKOUT GUIDE

I’m sure you’ve all seen it before, a guy on a magazine cover or at the beach with a muscular physique and giant triceps.

You might have also asked yourself,” how can I get that kind of physique?”.

A likely answer to that question would be by lifting some extreme weights in the gym. This is a possible answer, but that isn’t the only answer.

Although this is an over-simplification of process, the core principle here is that you need to lift weights to build muscle. However, lifting weights isn’t the only way to build muscle mass.

You can build muscle mass without having to set foot in a gym. All you have to do is be consistent with the calisthenics workout routine that provides the same resistance to your muscles

If you’re are not aware of what calisthenics are, then let me explain. Callisthenics workouts involve you using your body-weight as resistance during your workouts to stimulate muscle growth.

For your muscles to grow you’ll need to put them under heavy loads or stress. After increasing the physical demands on your muscle, they get damaged on a microscopic level, and you need to rest and recover afterward for them to grow stronger

This cycle of damage and repair leads to muscle growth and an increase in strength. This process is known as Hypertrophy

It is worth noting that lifting weights is a more straightforward method of building muscle. All you have to do to increase the stress on your muscles is to increase the weights.

Unfortunately, having access to weights isn’t always an option for everyone

In this particular post, We’re going to give you a list of callisthenic workouts for training your chest muscles that you can do anywhere without weights.

We’ll be splitting the workouts into beginner and advanced workout routines.

It is worth noting that not all calisthenics workouts are equal in difficulty and impact on your muscles

The difference in resistance and effects between exercises is based on the position of your hands and feet; this is called leverage

Putting these parts of your body in a different position can either make a workout easier or harder, so keep that in mind throughout this post.

With all of that said, let's dive start into some incredible workouts for developing strong chest muscles.

Beginner Chest Workouts

A majority of chest workout mostly consist of push-ups, and that for a good reason.

Your chest plays an integral role in any pushing motion, therefore push-ups will have a profound effect on growing a bigger chest.

Push-ups have plenty of variations that can target the lower, middle, and upper parts of the chest

When training your chest with push-ups, you’ll need to focus on two things; Hand and foot positions.

As we have said before, moving your hands and feet can make any exercise easier or harder, it all depends on the person.

Altering the hand and foot position is the best way to progress a workout. For example, bringing your knees down to do a push-up can make it easier, while elevating your feet off the ground can make it harder

Some of the workouts we’re going to show you are going to have a different point of leverage for targetting different parts of your chest.

Wide Hands Push-ups

This kind of variation is slightly more difficult compared to the standard military push-up. Due to its increased difficulty, wide push-ups will give you muscle more resistance and stimulation.

Increasing the parallel distance between your hands stimulates your core and upper chest.

More stimulation leads to increased hypertrophy, which essential for muscle growth. Try different exercise routines if your current routine becomes too easy.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Get into a normal push-up stance.

• Widen your hands till they are outside your shoulders.

• Lower and raise your body as you normally would with a regular push-up.

Separate your hands as wide as you comfortably can to maintain your balance. Decreasing the distance between your hands when the exercise makes it easier.

Staggered Push-ups

This particular variation of the push-up alters the position of your hands as you are during the exercise. Staggered push-ups require both explosive movement and proper stability.

This kind of explosive movement stimulates your shoulder, arm, and mid-chest muscles in a very intense way

Maintaining proper form and control during the exercise is very important if you want to get the most of this workout

INSTRUCTIONS

• Enter the standard push-up position and place, one hand slightly above your chest, and the other hand a few inches below your chest.

• Ensure your elbows are tight to the body

• Bend your elbows to lower your chest. Lower your chest till it is slightly below your elbow.

• After one or two reps switches hands

For maximum results, you’ll have to do this in an explosive and quick movement

You can make this workout more difficult by adding a decline, or you can make it easier to bring your hands closer together, but not parallel.

Declined Push-ups

Declined push-ups are an exercise that works on the upper chest, and can also help with bicep and triceps muscle growth

All you need for this workout is anything you can set your feet on to produce a decline with your body angled downwards

This variation is noticeable more difficult compared to other types of push-ups. In case it’s too hard to perform with good form, considered using a lower surface

INSTRUCTIONS

• Firstly, Kneel with your back to the surface you want to use to elevate your feet.

• Put your hands on the floor, make sure your shoulders are directly above your hands.

• Place your feet on the object you want to use to for elevation, it could either be a chair, or a stable box.

• With your arms straight, bend your elbows to a 45-degree angle (exactly as you would with a normal push-up).

• Push your body upwards back into your starting position

A common mistake most people make is moving their hands too far forward or backward. The key to proper form is making sure your shoulders are directly above your hands.

Diamond Push-ups

This is a very intense variant of the push-ups. It hits the middle and upper chest and stimulates your shoulder muscle. As always good form is key.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Assume a standard push-up position

• Bring your hands together to form a triangle.

• Bend your elbows to lower your body to the floor, and repeat for reps

Diamond push-ups are one of those workouts that are simple, but extremely effective. After the first, or second set, your chest and arm muscles will feel intense tension and strain.

Understand that feeling pain during a workout is a sign that the workout is working. Hypertrophy is always accompanied by pain.

Exercise Routine

For each workout, you should aim to reach 7 to 15 reps and 2 to 4 sets of each.

Going any higher would make your muscles work more toward endurance, rather than strength. If you’re going for muscle endurance you aim for more explosive reps and a higher quantity of reps.

In the event you’re geared more toward strength, you’ll need to switch up the workout variations to increase the difficulty and load on your muscles

Try to stay in the 7 to 15 rep range for strength training. The entire chest workout routine should look like this.

Wide push-ups: Sets: 3. reps: 7-15. rest: 30se

Staggered push-up: Sets: 2. reps: 9-15. rest: 30se

Declined push-up: Sets: 2. reps: 7-15. rest: 30sec

Diamond push-ups: Sets: 2. reps: 10-15. rest: 30sec

Sticking to this routine for a few days will make your muscles sore, so take at least one day off. If you want to reduce the pain and increase the recovery time you should eat properly and if you feel it’s necessary to take fitness supplements.

You can take BlackWolf workout supplements, its a great option for beginners, and it's designed for both man and woman.

I have a review for it which you can find HERE.

Remember that supplements aren’t a substitute for a proper diet.

Advanced Chest Workout

When it comes to callisthenic, things don't get more difficult and advanced by just adding weight. Your body's weight doesn't change too much for it to affect your workout.

Things get more intense when you change the leverage (hand and foot position) in a workout to force your muscle to move your body in more difficult and extreme ways

The workouts I’ve shown you are geared toward intermediate and beginners and have a simple range of motion that isn’t hard to perform, but this workout routine is on a different level.

As I said before there are different variations of every callisthenic workout that a beginner, intermediate, or advanced fitness enthusiast can perform

One-handed Push-up

The name of this workout says it all, to perform this exercise you’ll need to have enough strength in one hand to lift your entire upper body.

For many people, this is considered a fitness milestone, and it should be. Doing a push-up with one hand is an incredible display of muscle coordination and strength. Having the strength to do this is the first step. The second step is to have to go the technique so that you don’t hurt yourself.

There are certain exercises you can do to prepare for it. The sliding push-up and a one-handed inclined push-up are good ways to prepare.

INSTRUCTION

• Firstly, go down on your knees and put one hand on the floor.

• Go into a push-up position with your legs wide apart for support.

• Tighten your core and glutes (doing this stabilizes your entire body).

• Put on hand on your waist or back.

• Lower yourself down and push yourself back up.

• Repeat for reps.

Change hands after a few reps and remember to do it in a controlled and mindful manner, don’t rush yourself.

At this point, if you’re able to do this workout then your chest muscle must already be very developed.

This kind of push-up will only increase the muscle mass in your biceps and triceps.

Hand-stands push-up

Before you even consider doing this workout, warm-up and loosen your wrists.

If you’ve ever experienced any wrist pain when doing any regular push-up, then the pain from this workout will be 100 times worse.

Remember that when you’re doing this workout your wrists are understood large amounts of pressure.

Don’t attempt this workout unless you’re comfortable with being upside down, and you have the strength necessary to lift your entire body in this manner.

You’ll first need to be able to do a regular hands stands before doing this workout. There are plenty of great resources online that can teach you how to do handstands.

INSTRUCTION

• Go into a hands stands position.

• Lean forward with your elbows bending back ( this is done with all pressing movements to avoid aggravating your shoulders).

• Ensure that you have good hands stands form and a straight back.

• Don’t curve you backward.

• Carefully lower your body, and then raise it.

Workouts like the pike push-up and elevated pike push-up will help you in performing a hands stands push-up.

This sort of workout will leave not only your chest sore but your arms as well.

I highly recommend beginners to first get used to standard push-up and have the ability to da a hand-stands before attempting to add a push-up into it.

Diamond declined push-ups

This a more advanced variation of the inclined push-up and therefore is more difficult. Just think of it as the regular diamond push-ups harder, meaner cousin.

This isn’t a very hard workout to do in terms of technique but it is difficult because of the position your hands are in during the motion.

INSTRUCTIONS

• Place your feet on an elevated surface.

• Get into a push-up position with your palms forming a diamond

• Lower your body downwards, keeping your back straight.

• Slowly raise yourself back up while keeping proper form.

• Repeat for reps.

A workout like will have a major impact on your entire chest and will make it more toned overall because you bring your chest muscles closer and putting them under strain.

Archer push-up

This one is less difficult compared to all the other advance workouts I have shown you, but that doesn’t make it any easier.

None the less, the benefits are very much worth the effort it takes to perform it.

INSTRUCTION

• To start, you'll need to entire the standard push-up position.

• Spread one hand wide and the other being close to your body, make sure that the other hand is spread out flat on the ground.

• Tilt and move your body in the direction that the other hand (the one closest to your body).

• While doing this, drag on the extent on the floor closer to your body.

• Wrist will bend a little bit, so make sure you’re very careful in performing this motion.

• Repeat the entire process by alternating which hand is extended.

Repeating this process will help increase the muscle mass in your general chest area and some other muscles will be engaged during the workout.

EXERCISE ROUTINE

The entire workout routine should look like this;

Archer Push-ups: Sets: 2. reps: 7-15. rest: 30sec

Diamond Inclined push-ups: Sets: 2. reps: 9-15. rest: 1min.

One-handed Push-up: Sets: 2. reps: 5-15. rest: 1min.

Hand-stands push-up: Sets: 2. reps: 6-15. rest 1min.

If you’re wondering why the number of reps and sets is similar to the beginner set of workout it’s because to achieve hypertrophy you need to stay within a specific rep range (7-15).

Going any higher will make your muscle geared towards endurance rather than muscle growth.

Other ways of making sure your muscles grow better and burn more muscle are by getting enough sleep and eating all the essential nutrients your body needs.

If you ever feel it necessary to talk supplements to speed up muscle growth then try CrazyBulk. It’s a good choice for getting extra muscle gains and ensuring you’re getting all the nutrients you need to build stronger muscles.

Taking supplements can help, but they aren’t a substitute for good food.