P90X Workout Review: Chest and Back

Article by Clint Nolan

P90X Chest and Back is the major upper-body “push-pull” routine of the P90X Home Fitness package. The emphasis is on doing pushups, pullups, and rows at a huge variety of angles in order to tax the entirety of the chest and back muscles.

Time Required: 1 hourEquipment Required: Pullup bar, Pushup bars, Resistance bands or dumbbells

– At first it felt a little weird working along with a video, but I reminded myself to keep a beginner’s mind and just stick with the plan. Admittedly, Tony Horton’s bravado is part of the motivation throughout the workout. When you workout alone, staying motivated is critical and Tony does a good job here.

-The goal of the is to work to “failure”. Momentary muscular failure is the point where the muscles are so fatigued that they are burn like crazy and you have no further ability to grind out another repetition. This causes a reaction in the body and forces the muscle to adapt by getting stronger.

-The whole workout is 12 compound movements, involving multiple joints, performed in a modified circuit. Meaning, you do one chest exercise of max reps, then move to a back exercise that is also max reps. This allows the pushing body part (chest) to recover slightly while the pulling part (back) is working, and vice versa.

-Your body is taxed to an extreme level, yet it’s scaled to where you are right now, that your body has no choice but to evolve and adapt. Just make sure that you can pass the “fit test” at the beginning of the program and you’ll do great if you hang in there.

-Pushing movements include standard pushups, military pushups, diamond pushups, wide fly pushups, dive bomber pushups and decline pushups.

-Pulling movements include wide front pullups, reverse grips chin ups, close grip overhead pullups, lawnmowers, back flys, and heavy pants.

-It’s emphasized, as in every p90X workout, to keep track of your reps and weight, and to set a goal on every set. This is one area where many workout plans fail to progress, is not keeping track of their total workload to ensure that they are always moving forward. Tony Horton is constantly reminding you to record your progress.

In summary, P90X Chest and Back is a well planned and well executed example of how people can get a high-quality home workout that is equal or superior to going to the gym. If you’re not sore after this workout, you’re doing it wrong.

Find More Chest And Back Exercises Articles

The Best Chest Exercises

Chest exercises help to develop an area on your body that some might say is the most attractive body part. It signals vitality and health, and it just makes the owner of a well-developed chest feel better.

Although typically associated as a male exercise, exercises for your chest are equally important and beneficial for women. Although the exercises will not transform cup sizes, they will help you by lifting sagging chest and breast and enhancing your cleavage.

So to enjoy these benefits, you of course have to exercise that area. Although there are a countless number of exercises that you could perform, the following are some of the best chest exercises.

However, before going over these exercises, here are some tips on technique and form that will help you to get the most out of your workout.

Tips for Technique and Form

For each exercise, don’t arch your back, as this can lead to injury.

Always keep your back flat against the bench. Equally important, keep your feet planted firmly on the floor.

In addition to working your chest muscles, these exercises will also strengthen your wrist, which will grow stronger as you continue to lift. Just make sure when your are gripping the bar to keep your wrist straight.

For more strength and to avoid unnecessary strain, the bar should also rest on your palms.

As you perform each rep, make sure that the motions are smooth and even. With barbell exercises, there is a tendency to let the bar bounce off your chest. Don’t do it. Let the bar touch your chest and continue upward in a smooth motion.

Best Chest Exercises

Flat Bench Press The flat bench exercise is the standard of chest exercises.

To perform it, lay on the bench with your grip slightly wider than your shoulders. Make sure to keep your elbows in. Repetitions: 8-10

Incline Bench Press The incline bench chest exercise is performed with the bench angled upward and is designed to work your upper chest or pecs. Because of the angle, you can’t lift as much as with the bench press, so don’t try. Also, as a second reminder, since many lifters tend to do this with this exercise, do not arch your back. Repetitions: 8-10

Decline Bench Press For the decline bench exercise, the bench is angled downward and is designed to work the lower chest. You can use either the barbell or dumbbells to perform this exercise. It you are just beginning, start with the dumbbells. This will help you to become accustomed to the position and the motion of the exercise. Repetitions: 8-10

Dumbbell Flyes Designed as a inner chest exercise, dumbbell flyes are performed lying on a flat bench. Holding your arms out and your elbows slightly bent, perform a flying motion. When lowering the dumbbells, do not go pass the level of the bench, as this will help to avoid overextension injury. Repetitions: 10-12

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Chest Exercises For Men

Of all of the different muscles that are worked out at the gym regularly, the chest is probably the one that most men spend the majority of time working on. The unfortunate thing is, many of them are working it in such a way that they see some results but not the amount of results that they could see if they worked properly.

Many guys waste tons of time in the gym lifting in ways that are not the most effective for getting a good looking chest. If you want a chest that is strong and, more importantly, looks strong you have to switch up your workout. Stop doing the bench press with the bar every time you workout your chest. If you have man boobs or if you have no chest at all you can benefit from these exercises.

So, what chest exercises for men are there? Well, if you are one of the people who had never been to the gym before, one exercise you must know of is chest push ups.

Besides adding strength to your chest, this exercise will stimulate a small muscle called serratus anterior, which is the part responsible for the movement of your shoulder blades.

Chest Exercises For Men can be done with very basic equipment, for example could it be a set of barbells and a bench. While lying down on the bench lower the barbells to within 3 inches of your chest, just a tad below the Adam’s apple, and then lift it up and place it on the rack. As you are getting stronger you can gradually increase the weight

Dips are an awesome, but often neglected, exercise. You don’t need fancy equipment to perform dips (you can improvise with a couple of chairs), but, like the overhead press, you aren’t directly targeting your chest, so your gains will be minimized if you only do this movement.

To do a pseudo planche pushup, get in a regular pushup position with your elbows locked at the top of the movement. Now, lean your body forwards so you hands are now closer to being beneath your hips, as opposed to beneath your shoulders. Your elbows should still be locked in this position.

Dumbbell Flyes: Make sure you don’t lock your elbows when you do these. Really concentrate on flexing the chest to the top of movement for maximum effect. Concentrate on doing the movement slowly at first then work on adding heavy weights slowly.

Begin to place a small books under one arm and perform push-ups. Then place books under other hand and exercise other side. Develop your push-ups to the level where you can make a push up with one hand on at least nine inch high support.

The weight of the bar can be adjusted by adding or removing plates from the bar. It is always a good idea to have someone spotting when using a bench press because the weight can cause injury if the user is unable to lift it from his chest.

Although these chest exercises are great, you want to make sure you’re switching it up and increasing your intensity regularly. If you don’t progress, you won’t make gains. It’s as simple as that.

Keep a high protein diet with at least 1 to 1.5 times your body weight in grams of protein. If you are looking to build muscle you should think about keeping a calorie surplus.

There are various exercises that you can do to improve the muscles in your chest. You just need to make sure that you will choose the one which will be appropriate for you. Always remember that each exercise has its own specialty. Learn to do exercises that can help you improve the body part that you want to look good.

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