Welcome to our Insane Calisthenics Chest Workout!

Before we dive into this incredible routine, I want to share with you a crucial insight I wish I had known when I first started out.

Having trained thousands of athletes, we’ve noticed one recurring mistake: blindly selecting exercises or workout routines without considering your current level of fitness. The workout we’re about to unveil may be too challenging or too easy for you. Since we don’t know you personally, it’s difficult to gauge.

This oversight can lead to two common outcomes:

1. Struggling with exercises beyond your capabilities, which can risk injury or render your workouts ineffective.
2. Following generic routines that, while convenient, may not yield the desired results.

As you delve into the world of calisthenics, specifically aiming to sculpt your shoulders, we’re here to equip you with everything you need to know. However, it’s crucial to recognize that some exercises may be too advanced while others may not provide enough challenge. Finding the right balance is essential to:

1. Preventing injuries.
2. Maximizing your workout efficiency.

In the past, we categorized workouts into beginner, intermediate, or advanced levels, but we found this approach often stunted progress. Lack of personalization can significantly hinder your fitness journey.

That’s why we’ve developed The Movement Athlete Academy – a personalized, progressive, and adaptive training program that utilizes AI to tailor your training plans and guide you through them.

If this personalized approach intrigues you, I encourage you to take our FREE assessment for a customized plan. Say goodbye to guesswork and injury risks – trust me, it’s a game-changer.

About this Calisthenics Workout

No one leaves out the chest when working out. It’s one of the first muscle you will notice on someone. It’s the front part of the body, and it’s just below eye level – that’s why your eyes can dart quickly there. And that’s why you, too, shouldn’t leave out the chest!

Here’s a workout routine that will get your insane chest pumpin’ for strength and muscle growth.

Aside from aesthetical purposes, the chest is also a major muscle group. Not training your chest properly will cause imbalances and will affect your movements for other muscle groups as well.

Let’s dive right into it. You’ll be training, the upper, middle and lower portion of the chest. We’ll list your exercises – all you have to do is follow and execute them as well as you can.

Target your insane chest with these exercises by practicing your mind-muscle connection.

You might know this from our other workout pages – mind-muscle connection is an essential for every workout session, whatever body part you’re working on.

Mind-muscle connection is an old concept in the fitness industry. It’s visualizing the movement being executed by a particular muscle group before and during the exercise. When you’re visualising the movement, you can activate more muscles in particular body part. You should have a proper amount of intensity (not too much) for it to work. Working out isn’t just about your muscles, you also need to keep the mind working!

Before the workout, warm up your body first!

Do a proper warm-up first to increase your performance. It prepares your body for the upcoming stress it’s going to experience. Do simple warm-up routines to get the blood flowing and your joints lubricated. But also don’t over do it, you don’t want to be passed out before the main event.

How it’s done

Flat Push-ups

Basic good ol’ flat push ups on the ground are a staple of any chest workout routine. This targets mostly middle of the chest, while also hitting triceps, shoulders and core. But the rest of your body will be active too. Just remember to keep a good position – have a pelvic tilt, clipped wings, no flaring of elbows, protracted at the top, retracted at the bottom, mind-muscle activation, proper breathing, and a regular tempo. Quite a handful of things to remember, but believe me when I say it is worth the effort.

Incline Push-ups

Next, you’ll move to a relatively easier progression that targets your lower chest. Don’t worry too much if the exercise is too easy, since we have another exercise that is a lot heavier for the lower chest. This could be considered your “ active rest” period and adds volume to your lower chest exercise. All of the forms said in the first exercise still applies here.

Decline Push-ups

Declines mostly work your upper chest this time, as well as your deltoids. Here, you really have to focus on engaging your chest in each repetition. Don’t go overboard with your feet elevation. The higher your elevation, the more target the shoulders are. Same concepts apply from the previous push-ups.

Chest Dips

Let’s get back to your lower chest with chest dips. To perform the dips intended to maximize chest activation, all you have to do is to tilt your body forward. Other than that, you need to keep your dip form in check. Keep your shoulders depressed and don’t let the elbows flare out. Maintain a straight body line. You can go lower than 90 degrees but listen to your body. This would depend highly on your strength and mobility.

Pull-ups

Famously recognized as a back-bicep exercise, the pull-up happens to activate the middle portion of the chest as well. Keep in mind the mind-muscle connection. Activate your chest when pulling up. To also increase the chest activation, you may do a close grip pull-up.

Muscle ups

Finish with muscle ups. Since as said earlier, pull-ups has some chest activation. Combine them with dips (which also target your chest). Be sure to check out muscle up progression. Remember that the muscle requires not only strength, but also skills.

Focus on proper form when executing the movements and also focus on the chest activation. Don’t forget the mind muscle connection! Now, it’s time to build that insane chest of yours!

But what if I can’t do some of these exercises?

Get a tailored training routine just for you.

It’s a problem many of us face. We’re given routines – usually based on a standardized level – beginner, intermediate, advanced. The Movement Athlete because it’s very hard to create a personalized training for each and every person unless we spend a significant amount of time with them.

There was just one problem with this approach (actually there are a lot of problems with it) – it hindered our athletes’ progress. We’ve written extensively on the matter in the blog post, The end of beginner/intermediate/advanced – that is hurting your training.

It simply explains why a lack of personalization is hurting your training.

Imagine if some of these exercises above were too hard for you. Your body will try to compensate with a poor form, movement dysfunction and possibly risk injury if it’s too challenging.

If some of these exercises were too easy they wouldn’t challenge your muscles to grow – you’d simply be wasting your time.

This is why we created The Movement Athlete: to offer a fully personalized training program reflecting exactly where your level is for optimal performance.

Take the assessment to see how do you stack up on the 8 fundamental calisthenics moves.

 
Stay strong, friends!