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The Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs in Only 20 Minutes

Optimise your gains in only 20 minutes.

This chest workout for perfect pecs in only 20 minutes will help stimulate the maximum amount of hypertrophy in the minimum amount of time.

Jeff Cavaliere from Athlean X has designed the workout.

The Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs in Only 20 Minutes

“If you want to build a perfect chest but you only have 20 minutes for your chest workout, what would you do? In this video (see below), I’m going to show you the best workout for chest that you can do if you are pressed for time and want to not have to skip yet another workout.”

Mistakes Slowing Down Chest Gains Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs

Strength Focus Isn’t Possible

“To start, any fast chest workout must come with the acknowledgment that building strength should not be your top priority. You simply require too much time to get an adequate strength building workout given the extensive warmup time often needed to get ready to press really heavy weight as well as the prolonged interset rest periods that are needed to recover between sets.”

Muscle Building IS Possible

“That said, a chest hypertrophy workout is something you can absolutely do. Especially, if you know the right strategies and methods for intensifying your workouts that will help you to counteract the decreased time of your workout.”

“So, we start this perfect chest workout 20 minute edition series with a step by step workout for building a bigger chest that is designed to show you exactly what to do.”

Cable Crossover with Static Dumbbell Bench Press

“First, we are going to superset a cable crossover with a static dumbbell bench press. This is performed for 3 sets to failure.”

“The key to this chest exercise combination when short on time is utilizing the first exercise as a pre-exhaust for your pecs. Often times in chest workouts you tend to let the shoulders and triceps dominate the movement. When this happens, the chest growth tends to lag behind. This is especially important when you only have 20 minutes to make sure that the pecs are doing their share of the work.”

Fatiguing the Pecs

“By pre-exhausting with cable flys you are able to isolate the pecs as much as possible to fatigue them heading into the second half of the combination. Here we have the static dumbbell bench press. Now, in addition to the limitations in strength building that a fast chest workout like this has, we opt for the dumbbells since the load can be lighter and the switch between weights that will likely occur between sets as fatigue mounts will be quicker.”

“The static press gives me an option however to not have to go light on the exercise. We still want to maximize the amount of tension we can drive into our pecs. By maintaining the hold in the low position the tension is kept at a high level whether pressing or not pressing. The slow movement and focused effort on one arm at at time also allows the shoulder to feel better with less warmup than a traditional bench press.”

Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs – Dumbbell Incline Bench Press

“We move onto a classic dumbbell incline bench press for 3 sets to failure. This is a great classic second exercise to ensure that we hit the upper pecs as well.”

Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs – Dips

“We move onto the third exercise and it is a dip. Here however we are doing it in drop set fashion again. We move from a bodyweight dip into an assisted dip or weighted to bodyweight if you can do more than 12 reps in a set at this point. The key is fewer sets but done as a superset to limit the interset rest periods to keep the workout moving.”

Chest-muscles-james-newbury Best Way to train the Chest for Hypertrophy-Incline Bench Press Build More Muscle Mass for the Lower Chest How to Get a Better Chest in 22 Days Exercises for Fuller Upper Pecs How to Build Chest Muscle Mass for Your Lower Pecs How to Get Bigger Upper Pecs Commandments of Chest Training 3 Better Exercises for Building a Perfect ChestSource: CrossFit Games / Depositphotos

High to Low Banded Crossovers

“Finally, with just minutes to spare, you grab the band used for dips and do some high to low crossovers. Once again, taking advantage of the chest muscle adduction to finish with a lower pec burnout.”

Full Chest Workout

All together the perfect chest workout 20 minute edition looks like this:

1A. Cable Crossovers – 10-12 reps to failure

1B. Static DB Bench Press – 5 reps each arm to failure

Perform 3 sets as a superset. Don’t be afraid to drop the weights as needed to maintain high tension even if rep counts change a bit as a result.

2. DB Incline Bench Press – 10 to failure

Perform 3 sets of 10 to failure

3A. Bodyweight Dips to failure

3B. Band Assisted Dips to failure

Perform 3 sets as a superset. If you can do more than 12 reps of bodyweight at this point in the chest workout than add weight and use bodyweight dips as your second exercise.

4. High to Low Banded Crossovers x 30 seconds each arm

Perform 3 sets of each. Do not rest between sets. Your rest for your right arm is when your left arm is working and vice versa.

Video – Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs

Learn More – Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs

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Muscles of the Chest

The chest muscles are responsible for moving the arms and shoulders. The pectoralis major is the largest of these muscles, while the pectoralis minor is a smaller but important muscle that helps stabilize the shoulder joint. In this article, we’ll explore each of these chest muscles in more detail.

Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs – Pectoralis Major

The pectoralis major is a fan-shaped muscle that covers the anterior and lateral surface of the chest. It originates from the clavicle, sternum, and costal cartilages of ribs 2–6, and inserts into the upper arm on its medial aspect. The major has two divisions: the sternocostal head and the clavicular head (also known as “clavicular portion”).

The pectoralis major functions to adducts (move toward midline) and medially rotates (rotates toward medial side) your upper arm. You can feel this muscle bulge out during push-ups or any exercise that requires you to pull your arms across your body.

For example, if we are standing up with our arms hanging by our sides, then we would be performing an external rotation movement because we are rotating our hands outwardly relative to our bodies (i.e., moving them away from each other).

Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs – Pectoralis Minor

  • Origin: medial half of the clavicle and the coracoid process of the scapula
  • Insertion: lesser tubercle of the humerus
  • Action: adduction and medial rotation at shoulder joint; flexion and depression of arm at shoulder joint; slight elevation of scapula when contracted alone; assisted by serratus anterior in scapular protraction
  • Sensory innervation: lateral portion by subscapular nerve (C5-C6), medial portion by fifth or sixth intercostal nerves (T1-T3)
  • Blood supply: thoracodorsal artery runs along its inferior border, with accompanying veins and lymphatics on both sides; axillary artery supplies branches to pectoralis minor as it crosses under clavicular tendon; accessory hemiazygos vein drains into left brachiocephalic vein

Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs – Serratus Anterior

The serratus anterior is a muscle that originates on the costal cartilages of ribs 1-4 and inserts along the medial border of the scapula, especially in its upper third.

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This muscle works to protract (stretch forward) and rotate your scapula when you inhale, bringing it closer to your thoracic spine. It also assists with shoulder stabilization during movements such as throwing or punching.

The nerve supply for this muscle originates from the axillary nerve, which comes from C5-C6 segments of your spinal cord.

Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs – Subclavius

The subclavius is a muscle that connects the clavicle and first rib. It has two heads, one of which originates directly from the medial border of the clavicle, while the other originates from a tendon that inserts onto the lateral surface of this bone.

The muscle’s function is to depress and rotate your shoulder joint.

The subclavius also receives its innervation from branches of both the cervical plexus and brachial plexus (C5-T1). This nerve supply allows it to influence movement in your arms as well as aid in respiration.

Anatomy varies among individuals; some may have a third head originating near their sternum or right below where you’d expect this muscle to be located

Conclusion – Best Chest Workout for Perfect Pecs

The pectoralis major is a large fan-shaped muscle that covers most of the chest. It also forms part of the upper arm, where it inserts at the humerus.

The pectoralis minor is a small but important muscle in the chest, forming part of the anterior wall and helping to stabilize the shoulder joint.

The serratus anterior muscles are located on either side of rib cage; they form part of scapular stabilizers as well as assisting with pec movement.

Subclavius muscles are found underneath clavicle (collarbone), and help keep shoulders stable during arm movement.

Use the workout above to build and test your chest in only 20 minutes.

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