THE BEST BAND-ONLY CHEST WORKOUT

One of the best ways to make a muscle grow is to make it stretch at the bottom of a rep. This helps recruit muscle fibers and signals the nervous system that it needs to contract hard to prevent any further stretching, which could cause injury . Bands are great for feeling a stretch on chest exercises and, combined with pushups, can pump your pecs up fast.

HOW IT WORKS 

The chest can get worked in every way , even when heavy weights aren’t available. The plyo pushup recruits some of the strongest pec fibers, and band flyes and pushups stretch and exhaust them from a variety of angles. Be prepared to walk out of the gym so pumped that your chest passes through the doorway long before your chin does.

DIRECTIONS

Perform the paired exercises (marked “A ” and “B”) as supersets. So you’ll do one set of A and then B before resting. Complete all the prescribed sets for the pair before moving on. The last exercise is done with conv entional straight sets.

1A PLYO PUSHUP

SETS: 4 REPS: 6–8 REST: 0 SEC.

Perform pushups, but explode upward on each rep so that your hands leave the floor and you can clap before landing. When you land, go immediately into the next rep. Stop the set as soon as your movement slows down, even if it’s before six reps are completed.  

1B WIDE-GRIP PUSHUP

SETS: 4 REPS: 20 REST: 90–120 SEC.

Place your hands wider than shoulder width and perform pushups.  

2A BAND-RESISTED PUSHUP W/FEET ELEVATED

SETS: 4 REPS: 8–10 REST: 0 SEC.

Grasp an end of the band in one hand and wrap it around your back. Pin both hands to the floor with the ends of the band in your palms. Rest your feet on a box, bench, or mats so that your body forms a straight line parallel to the floor. Perform pushups.  

2B BAND-RESISTED FLYE

SETS: 4 REPS: AS MANY AS POSSIBLE REST: 90 SEC.

Attach a band to a sturdy object at shoulder height and repeat with another adjacent to it. Or wrap a band around the object and hold an end in each hand. Step forward so that your arms are drawn back 90 degrees to your sides and you feel a stretch in your pecs. Keeping your elbows slightly bent, bring your hands together in front of your chest as if you were giving someone a bear hug  

3 PUSHUP

SETS: AS MANY AS NEEDED REPS: 150 TOTAL

Perform 150 total reps, taking as many sets as you need and resting as little as possible between them. If pushups are easy for you, begin using the band for resistance and then get rid of it as fatigue sets in and finish your reps with body weight alone.