Ectomorph Chest Development

As a classic ectomorph the one muscle that I have struggle developing is the chest. This muscle area is outright the most stubborn body part for me. I was always told when I first started training that if you want bigger muscles in the chest, you bench, bench, bench and then bench some more. The bench press while a brilliant and worthwhile exercise just wasnt working for me.

 In fact I found because of my long limbs I was walking away from the exercise with sore delts and triceps and not much pump in the chest. With those long ectomorph limbs we have a long way to press that bar and I found it was just to much pressure on the other muscles and not enough on the chest. The way I combat this is to do half reps, in that I don't fully extend my arms and fully activate the tricep muscles. This way I can keep the tension on my chest and not have to worry about my triceps and delts exhausting before my chest does. I only ever raise the bar high enough to work the chest, I'm not interested in activating the other muscle groups , they have their own set days for exercise. Since I chose that variation of the bench press I have had much better pumps in the chest area and more accelerated growth too.

Another way I improved impact that bench pressing has on me was to change the angle of the bench. I almost always bench press on a decline now. I feel it offers more than incline and flat bench as I really feel more of the weight on my chest. The angle the bar has to come down at really activates the chest more for me and I also find it more comfortable on my body. Incline and flat bench pressing almost always give me pain in the shoulders when going heavy with them.

The dumb bell press on incline is also a great chest builder in my opinion. Again I do half reps when performing this exercise so I can give the chest no rest at all and keep the weight on it. I really like to exhaust the muscle with this exercise. I think it offers much better range of motion than the bar does. That little bit of extra stretch you can attain at the bottom of each rep really makes a massive difference from my experience. I've never had no problems with pressure on my joints when doing this exercise and always feel that my chest has been worked really hard.

The other exercise I perform at the end of my chest work out is the parallel dip! I defy you to do these and not feel an agonising burn in the chest! I normally perform these at the end and I do each set to failure. Failure is where the true growth is.

My chest work out that I'm doing at the moment looks like this:

decline bench press:
Set 1 15 reps
Set 2 12 reps
Set 3 10 reps
Set 4 10 reps
Set 5 8 reps

I haven't included the weights as we all have our own levels of strength. I keep the same level of reps on set 3 as I do in set 4 but increase the weight on the fourth set just to add a little bit more intensity.

Incline dumbbell press:
Set 1 10 reps
Set 2 10 reps
Set 3 8 - 10 reps

I increase the weight on every set but like to keep the amount of sets lower than on the first exercise. I believe if you have hit your chest hard enough on the first exercise you shouldn't be able to perform at the same level on your second exercise as it should be exhausted.

Parallel dips:
Set 1 to failure
Set 2 to failure
Set 3 to failure

I do all the sets to failure to ensure there is absolutely nothing left in my chest. I do not want to leave a workout knowing that I could have done more.

As a beginner ectormorph I have found this has worked for me the best so far. I've had much better results following this routine. It won't be for everyone. But I have aimed this more of the beginner ectomorph, as that is where I am myself. So if you are struggling with chest development as I have, give this a go, it has certainly been very effective for me.