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

If you want to build a bigger chest and you don’t have a lot of time, this is the right chest workout for you. In this video, I’m going to show you six exercises for your chest that you can use as a stand alone chest workout that will take just about ten minutes to complete. You will be working hard. We are going to trade in workout length and junk volume for intensity and effort.

To start, you will ideally have access to a dual cable machine. If you do not and are doing this chest workout at home, you can easily substitute these out for resistance bands. The key is that the cables or bands provide an element of resisted adduction which is not found when simply using dumbbells and a bench. You want to choose a weight that you will reach failure in at the 8-10 rep mark.

With only transition rest, stand up and adjust the cables up (or the bands) so that you can perform the next chest exercise in this workout; cable crossovers. Here you want to choose a 10-12 rep max and work each arm to failure. Don’t worry if you find that due to the fatigue you are only able to get out 8 or 9 reps. The key is that the drop sets are set up in such a way that it is meant to accommodate your fatigue and allow you to do some work where you wouldn’t previously be able to do any.

Finally, the third exercise in this first circuit is the pushup. When doing these, you want to once again rep out until failure. The idea here is to not just push your body away from the ground but to think of it as squeezing yourself off the ground. This will engage more of the chest and work on recruiting more chest fibers as you incorporate an element of resisted adduction.

This whole first drop set should take you somewhere around two and a half minutes to complete.

Next, move immediately over to the second chest workout circuit.

This one starts with a pair of dumbbells and the floor press exercise. Again, the weight used here should be something that challenges you and causes you to reach failure in the 8-10 rep range. Go to failure on this exercise and then pick up one of the dumbbells for the second adduction focused exercise of the workout; the Cavaliere Crossover.

Perform 12 reps on each arm and then head over to the dip station for the final exercise in the workout. If you don’t have access to a dip station you can easily perform this at home in the corner of a kitchen counter. Do your dips until you reach failure and your second circuit is done. Once again, this entire circuit should take you about two and a half minutes with the entire workout clocking in around 5 minutes to this point.

From here, head back to the original circuit and perform it for a second round. Do the same for the second circuit as well. If you have to adjust the weights down slightly to accommodate the mounting fatigue you may do so. Keep in mind, the most important thing you can do is keep the effort level high and take your sets to failure.

At the end, you should be done in about 10-12 minutes tops. You do have the option to to through this one more round for a total of 18 high effort sets and a workout time that will barely surpass 15 minutes. The key to the effectiveness of this chest workout is that it is condensing the amount of work being done by the muscles into a shorter period of time. This type of workload can have a stimulatory effect on the muscle and lead to muscle hypertrophy through multiple mechanisms, one of which being a metabolic training benefit.

Try this out and let me know how you like it. If you want me to make more in this series just let me know and I’ll create videos and workouts for each of the main muscle groups as well as a total body fastest workout option as well. You can find all of these videos on this channel. Be sure