What are the best exercises for my chest and shoulders?

So what are the best chest exercises?

We could debate that till the end of time. In this short blog we will give you some ideas on different ways to train your chest using both the barbell and dumbbells.

Really there is no such thing as the BEST exercise for anything. As what is good for one is not good for another. Just like diet, one food which is great for one person’s system is not good for anothers.

Let’s start by discussing 2 key areas we see many clients going wrong with training their chest so you can avoid that….

1. Most people will split their week into chest as a single workout by itself.

What’s the issue with this? Well muscles work together as teams, they don’t function well by themselves. Completely smashing one area per day leads to many issues we see clients come in with. Firstly, it can cause pain and injury by over-loading that part of the body (high force over and over on one part). And secondly, it teaches the person how to move as separate parts (poorly).

2. Alot of people will bias the chest and shoulders and leave out loads of important other areas in their training. 

What’s the issue with this? Hopefully that one is obvious!

So rant over. If you want to avoid shoulder injuries … Start with not smashing your chest by itself every Monday and loading ‘teams’ of muscles in your training sessions. AND don’t leave out the important bits you know you should be working on (the stuff you don’t enjoy as much).

We have prepared 7 different chest exercises you could incorporate into your week here on Youtube

Below are just 3 of these 7 exercises to get you started.

Extra tips:

1. Training on the floor can help reduce your range of motion to prevent excessive strain on your shoulder (floor press). 

2. Training with 1 arm and not 2 adds in an extra layer of core stability and challenge. Embrace the challenge!

As always you should train to have a healthy body long term.