Train Like an Athlete by ATHLEAN-X (Video Podcast)

Some think that bodyweight chest workouts are not intense enough to build muscle at home without equipment, they would be wrong. In this 6 minute bodyweight chest workout, you will use nothing but your own body to push your chest to the limit and force new growth using an intense metabolic training effect. You see, high reps does not mean no muscle. If you build up metabolites through your training and push through the burn you can do some serious damage to your muscles and spark new growth even without the heavy weights.

This chest workout will do just that to your pecs, that is, if you can last the entire 6 minutes. In this one, I’m including beginner, intermediate and advanced versions to allow you to train your chest regardless what level you are at right now. It involves just two bodyweight chest exercises, dips and pushups. What matters most however is how you perform these movements so that you can keep repping out long after you fatigue on one version of the exercise.

We start with the decline pushup. To perform this chest exercise you simply need to elevate your feet onto something higher than the ground behind you. This can be a bench if you are going to do this in the gym or, more likely, a couch or chair in your living room if you are going to be trying this out at home. Either way, you are going to attempt to complete the entire first minute of the workout doing reps of decline pushups. Beginners get to perform them from their knees. Intermediates perform them in standard fashion on their toes. Advanced will do this first chest exercise with a twist to increase the level of difficulty and challenge your pecs even more.

If for some reason you are unable to complete the entire one minute of this exercise you will not want to stop. Instead, drop down to the floor and perform the remainder of your time from that position. If you ever had to drop again, you may do so by finishing in the incline position. Likely however, you will not have to drop two times within the first sixty second time period.

As soon as you are done, stand up and get in position to do your second and final exercise, the dip. This exercise once again can be performed on a kitchen counter or even the back of a couch if you are going to be doing this at home. There are no excuses for not doing this bodyweight chest workout. The way you do these makes a huge difference however. Do a triple pulse in the top one third of the rep and then drop down into a slow eccentric lowering. Step back up to the top and repeat. Beginners will perform 20 seconds of this and rest the remainder of the second minute. Intermediate will perform 30 seconds and Advanced will perform 40 seconds.

Immediately go back to the floor for the third minute of this chest workout, except this time you are going to be performing flat ground pushups for the minute. Here again, beginners can do them from their knees, intermediate from their toes and advanced in twisting pushup fashion. See if you can make it through the entire third minute but drop to the incline version of the pushup if you need to in order to finish out your reps.

Back to the dips in the same style for the fourth minute. Finally, finish with the incline pushup done the same way depending on the level of ability you are performing this bodyweight chest workout at. Wrap up your entire workout with one final round of dips and see if you can make it all the way to the end.

After you have finished this workout for your chest you will likely be convinced that time is not the measurement of an effective chest workout. How intense you make it will always be the main consideration