Welcome to part 2 and the conclusion of my article on how to build chest muscle fast!
In Build Chest Muscle Fast – part 1 we looked at two mistakes commonly made by people desperately trying to build chest muscle fast and I mentioned better alternatives to counter these mistakes.
Part 2 of this article sees us looking at three more mistakes that I feel are almost always made by beginners and believe it or not, sometimes even intermediates!
I left the last article with a controversial third mistake for you to think about. So without further a do let me elaborate on this strange sounding mistake…
Mistake number 3..
Not Training Your Legs
‘What?! Have you lost your mind Altug?’, I hear you say. What the fudge does training your legs have to do with building up your chest? They’re not even near each other!
Ahh, but the thing with building muscle is that it is not just a localized event! What I mean by localized is that the chest doesn’t just grow because you trained your chest and your arms don’t just grow because you trained your arms.
There are a multitude of things that are going on inside of your body which are contributing to you gaining or losing muscle. One of those things, as I mentioned above is that your testosterone is increasing with heavy weight lifting. What muscles should be the strongest on your body? That’s right, your legs and glutes. So exercises such as squats and leg presses (Beginners favorites! Yes, I’m sorry that was a little sarcasm :p ) promote the greatest natural increases in that lovely anabolic, muscle building hormone : Testosterone!
ANSWER : Don’t skip legs!! Heavy squats and leg presses will give you a bigger upper body and thus; build chest muscle fast too! In fact if there is one mistake you rectify today, let it be this one because training your legs helps you to build muscle fast on your WHOLE body!
Which leads us on to mistake number 4…
Training Arms Too Much
Another beginners mistake – Arms are more ‘vanity’ muscles that often get trained too frequently, with too much intensity. When I say that arms get trained too much, if we’re relating it back to this article about how to build chest muscle fast, then I am talking about the triceps in particular.
One thing people forget is that the triceps go through a pretty strenuous time when you’re working the chest and shoulders. The triceps assist you in all pressing movements involving these muscles. So surely it doesn’t make sense to absolutely annihilate them when you’re working your arms?
This will lead to the triceps not having enough time to recover and a plateau in strength because they won’t be able to assist you as best they can when you’re hitting that bench press. No increase in strength/reps = no progression = no muscle gain.
ANSWER : Go easy on your triceps! Don’t do too many exercises or sets! They are a small muscle group and don’t need as much stimulation to grow plus they get a workout when you’re training your chest and shoulder muscles.
and finally mistake number 5…
Not Having Optimal Recovery
As you should know by now, during the recovery process you need to give your muscles the fuel to recover and grow. So if you aren’t taking in enough protein and overall calories then you can wave goodbye to your dream of building chest muscle fast.
The same applies if you aren’t resting enough and getting adequate sleep. As far as muscle building supplements are concerned I’d stick with the bread and butter (not literally!) combination of multivitamins, creatine, whey protein and only optionally glutamine/ZMA.
ANSWER : Make sure you are doing everything in your power to grow! Rest adequately, eat well and use basic supplements to build chest muscle fast!
I hope that this article has been insightful and that you now know what the common mistakes are. All you need to do now is to simply look at the answers to counter the mistakes! Again, I say this a lot but just changing a few of these mistakes (if you’re making them) will give you a dramatic edge; not only if you want to build chest muscle fast but if you want to build muscle fast full stop!