Best Gym Machines for Pectoral Muscles
Whether you are a male or female, strong pecs are an important part of bodybuilding and fitness. The pectoral muscles are four large paired muscles that are often thought of only as the muscles of the breast area, but when put together they create a large chest plate that protects the rib cage and help the upper limbs move smoothly. Core exercises may help a little with strengthening pecs but to really target the pectorals there are a lot of exercise and gym machines you can use.
Barbell and Bench Presses
There are a variety of machines that allow you to build pectoral muscles. Some examples of these are the barbell bench press, flat bench dumbbell press and low incline barbell bench press. All you need for these exercises is an adjustable bench press and a set of dumbbells.
Horizontal Chest Press Machine
Rather than dealing with dumbbells and weight bars, using the chest press machine will build up your pecs, biceps and triceps. This gives you more strength in your upper body and is equivalent to doing pushups or bench presses.
Seated High Row Machine
This exercise targets the back and shoulders, but the strength involved helps build arms and chest muscles as well. The more targeted exercises you do that benefit the pectoral area the better. This means that even though a machine isn’t designed specifically for pecs, it will still help build up your chest muscles.
Lat Pull-Down
This reverse pull up can be adapted to target specific muscles based on your grip. It always works the pectorals but can also benefit the oblique muscles, triceps, biceps and upper back. The more muscle groups you can work with one machine the better your workout will be.
Pec Fly Machine
As the name says, this machine is specifically designed to help you exercise your pectorals. This is also a good exercise to help open up your chest expansion and build your shoulders.
Whether you choose to target your pecs through free weights or using machinery, it is a good idea to start with a low weight and more repetitions then build up to more weight. Developing your pectoral muscles not only gives you more strength and flexibility, it also helps with your overall fitness goals because we all know muscle burns more calories than fat. So if your goal is to have a great looking chest and be able to do “The Rock” pec dances or simply to tone your whole body for overall health, working out your pectoral muscles is an important part of your workout.