What Are The Best Chest Exercises At Home Without Weights?

Time for your chest to get shaped.

The good news is you don’t actually need to attend a gym session to build your chest, especially if you are having a busy lifestyle all the time.

Home chest workouts without using any weights are possible to build up a powerful defined chest.

What are the best chest exercises at home for building a protruding chest without weights?

Let’s dig deeper here.

Image photo: A trainer with a defined upper body and chest built

Can You Build A Nice Chest Without Weights?

Yes, you can.

If you have light or heavyweights such as dumbbells at home, it is a bonus but you can still build a great chest without the equipment too.

How?

The very basic workout is the pushups. I, myself do this form almost every day as I have been avoiding the fitness center due to the Covid-19 pandemic. A basic pushup is a very classic chest workout that everyone knows and helps to improve chest strength.

Pushups have varieties of forms you can practice at homes such as incline/decline pushups, backpack pushups, plyometric pushups, and single-leg pushups.

The last two pushups are more challenging to start and you may need to slowly progress from other easier forms to this.

How can you get a bigger chest in a week?

Again, by doing pushups IF you keep the consistency going every day.

If you are a beginner, start with the low basic pushups first for the upper body to gain strength. You can start by doing 15 to 20 pushups a day, and gradually increase the reps every day. In order to maintain a great upper body, an experienced pusher will strive for between 50 -100 pushups a day!

To be honest, to see some difference in your chest with pushups is too intense for a newbie. In general, you should allow at least 8 weeks on a steady chest workout routine to give the pectoralis major and minor muscles to slowly form a bigger chest.

Even though you are pushing up on your chest every day, it doesn’t really help the muscles to grow as they need time for resting and repairing in between workouts. That is why you may need a longer time to see the difference.

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What Are The Best Chest Exercises Without Weights?

Let’s get a little bit deeper into these no-weights chest exercises.

Before that, don’t forget to do chest stretching (extending your arms in front of you and quickly moving the arms back as far as you can while keeping the elbows straight) for about five minutes for the muscles to relax and stretch.

1. Basic pushup is really a classic oldie good workout. By lying face down with your shoulder extended straight and slowly raising and lowering the body down. Try to avoid lowering the upper body too low to the ground as this may cause tear tissues on the shoulders.

Do 10 to 12 reps each set or as many times as you can.

You can also do this pushup using the knees instead of the toes. Be sure that the back and the legs should be straight too. It is easier and less stressful on the shoulder to begin but for sure, you will progress ahead later.

2. Incline/decline pushup. Incline pushup is not as hard compared to the basic pushup. You can try this pushup (which is good for lower chest workouts) using a bench or desk to have your hands rest against it.

Meanwhile, decline pushups is targeting the upper chest and deltoid muscles by placing both your feet on a chair or bench. Make sure the chair is against the wall to ensure stability.

3. Plyometric pushup. This ‘gorilla’ pushup can be fun and explosive by quickly off the ground, clapping or slapping your chest, and quickly returning both hands to the start position. This form is an advanced form and should not be done for a beginner.

4. Wide pushup is another awesome workout not only for the chest but also tricep, deltoids, and pecs. Your hand’s shoulders are slightly wider as your body slowly raises and lowers near the ground.

5. Diamond pushup is extremely good for an inner chest workout. This is also one of my favorite variations of home chest workouts.

Your index fingers and thumb are touching to form a diamond shape as you raise and lower your body with the back and legs straight.

6. One-leg pushup is a standard pushup form but with one of your legs raise up and glutes tight to complete one rep. Then change to another leg to make another rep.

7. Backpack pushup is also similar to the standard pushup. You are just adding extra weight and stress at the back for more rigorous pushups.

How Can You Get Rid Of Saggy Flabby Chest?

Having fat developed in the chest area is showing signs of oxidative stress in the body.

You need to reduce the overall body fat percentage through a ‘calorie deficit’ diet and of course by exercising too. That should be the best way.

If you have these great home workout equipment such as a treadmill, exercise bike, rower, elliptical, or even just your own bodyweight workouts help a lot too.

Remember, we are not in control as to where we want our body to burn fat, so you have to exercise your entire body to shed off the body fat.

Hopefully, by doing this, some fat especially within the lower chest (that’s where the fat chest is stored most) will be reduced.

Are Planks Really Effective For Your Chest Workouts?

Planking in general is more for the abs exercise and is effective in building core strength and (#Ad)burning belly fat.

They are not geared for chest workout although it gives slightly a bit of result only. Instead, do pushups workouts for targeting the upper body such as the chest and shoulders.

Overall, I would say that pushups are more effective than planks in building chest muscles, as well as shoulders and triceps.

Image photo: A male trainer on a bench press workout

Can You Get a Bigger Chest Without Bench Press?

Sure you can.

You don’t necessarily need to build a defined chest with a bench press. You can always do the classic pushups as many times in a day as you want, and keep the consistency throughout the chest training.

Another non-bench press form is doing weighted dips between two chairs (or with two parallel steel bars) with your feet elevated. This is also one of the best superior workouts for building chest muscles.

Is doing benching alone enough for chest workouts?

Maybe or maybe not!

The questions here, are the pecs is getting enough stimulation to (#Ad)get the muscles to grow when doing bench press? Then, the workout intensity and repetitions? Is it sufficient?

For intensity, the amount of weight used on the bench press should have more additional chest-focused workouts. In terms of repetitions, you need to know how much (volume – reps, sets, weights) you are benching in the program.

Overall, in order to have a well-proportionate body, you have to work on the lower body too such as barbell squats. Concentrating on building muscles in the upper body will only make you look like a Hulk.

Aim for a balanced and proportionate body instead!

Depending on your busy daily schedule or commitment, try to train the different muscle groups on different days. For example, do arms or shoulders workouts on Tuesday, take off on Wednesday for the body to rest, then do chest workouts on Thursday, or whatever forms that fit for you.

Plan a suitable workout program or get help from your personal trainer.

How Long Does It Take To Have A Muscular-Toned Chest?

There is actually no exact time frame and it can take weeks or even years to get to this defined stage. Unless you are taking steroids for faster routes, which we all know the side effects it has on our body in long term.

Dedication, consistency, and proper diet play important roles in any fitness success. If you don’t give your full dedication and consistency seriously, no matter how hard and frequent you are in developing these muscles, you are not going any further.

And, if you don’t control or monitor your diet carefully, you are also not going to notice anything changes.

Just start to practice now, and at the same time, the diet plan should not be ignored. If you keep this ahead consistent, you may notice changes in weeks’ time.

Your muscles chest may become slightly bulkier but not big muscles or muscular, but at least there are some noticeable changes that you are aiming at.


My Conclusion: What Are The Best Chest Exercises At Home Without Weights

Don’t forget that chest muscles are also important to muscle groups in our bodies.

Whether you are lifting, pulling, or swinging the arms, chest muscles control most of your arms movements.

Not only that, but training muscles on the chest wall also boost your overall metabolic rate and gradually helps in burning calories which lead to weight loss.

Never overlook this powerful home chest workout the next time you are doing your home routine workout.

Leave me a comment below if you have and I will be back within 24 hours.

Have an awesome home workout!

 

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