Most men want to know how to get pecs. It’s a staple of a good shirtless look. And for me, that’s one of the benefits of having muscle. That when you take your shirt off, for some imaginary or even real reason, people look in admiration.

I’ve found that building a great looking set of pectoral muscles to be the easiest of the main ‘showy’ muscles to sculpt well. It seems to take little to maintain and I’m guessing it may well be the same for you if you want to build up your pecs or just get more defined in that area.

In my opinion, pecs are the difference between looking buff and looking weak. At first glance many people will say ‘it’s the biceps’ but I wouldn’t say you have to have toned arms to not look weak. Remember those adverts where the puny guy has sand kicked in his face. His thin wiry frame may well have had biceps attached to it, but no pecs, no way.

So, there are three types of chest you can have and one that you want…

The ‘no-pec look’. Guys like this have no definition on their chests. It’s like they have never done any exercise that’s had any impact at all on that part of their body. It makes them look skinny and it’s not attractive by any means.

Worse by far are man-boobs. Even though when you have great pecs, people will still call them man-boobs. I don’t get it, but the look of saggy, slack, sacks of fat on a man’s chest is a serious turn off for ladies and is relatively easy to fix, so don’t stand for moobs!

The third look is the one we’re going for, so let’s find out how to get pecs.

First of all, there is one exercise which alone can give you great pecs and is fantastic for your arms and shoulders as well. You guessed it.

The Push Up

Many of you know how much I really like to promote these simple exercises that use your own body weight as the resistance. There’s a few reasons for that:

  • They’re simply and easy, and it’s hard to do them so wrong that you’ll cause yourself injury
  • You can do them anywhere and at nearly anytime so there’s no excuse not to
  • They actually work

Get to 100 push ups in the morning and you’ll know you’re getting fit. And that’s proper push ups, you know exactly what I mean.

They’ll do wonders for your pecs.

The Bench Press

If you’ve ever lifted weights to any degree, you’ll know about the bench press. Used often as a strength yardstick, not always correctly, with guys across the world asking ‘so, how much can you bench?’ and then exaggerating their own answer.

Most often used with a barbell but you can replace that with two dumbbells. In essence you’re lying flat on a bench, with your feet on the ground and lifting a barbell to almost fully extended above your head and down almost to your chest.

The Dumbbell Fly

Similarly to the bench press, you’re lying on a bench face up. Raise dumbbells above your so that they’re almost touching and move them apart to the sides to nearly the same level as your chest.

Some very simple and very effective exercises that will improve your physique immensely and when you’re doing them you’ll know that this is how to get pecs because you’ll feel it. In your pecs.

Now, what a lot of people aren’t telling you is that getting an awesome looking chest isn’t just about doing a bunch of exercises aimed solely at those specific muscles.

It’s also about building up other muscles and also your diet.

Other Muscle Groups

If you’re serious about building muscle and looking ripped, then you MUST work all of your muscle groups. If you’re just trying to tone up, it’s advisable to work all of your muscle groups.

In this case please make sure you’re also doing something with your shoulders and your arms. Firstly it’ll look weird if you don’t and secondly in order to have truly impressive pecs the surrounding muscles also need to be strong and visible.

Diet

Uh-oh. Surely you don’t need to diet when you’re lifting weights! Well, it depends what you mean by ‘diet’.

I don’t think the average Joe needs to get by on nothing but raw eggs and broccoli, but just remember, if you’re stuffing your face with pizza and burgers all week long your muscles that you’ve worked so hard to build will be covered by fat. And then your man-boobs will be worse than ever.

As with anything, use common sense and don’t ruin your own hard work.

Orientation Program

January 23, 2012