All nitty gritty details about my chest workouts.

Check out my post from last week about my back workouts!

In my weekly workouts, I used to list all the exercises I do when I lift. But then I stopped because I didn't think anyone really cared! Plus, I am a creature of habit, and good or bad, I normally do the same thing each time, so I figured it was useless to keep posting it. However, since I haven't elaborated on my lifting for awhile and a reader requested that I explain more exactly what I do, I figured it was a good time to write a post about what exact exercises I do when I lift and what equipment I use.

Today, I will give you the nitty gritty details about my chest workouts!

When I lift chest, I do the upper body lifts, core exercises, and lower body strengthening exercises. Here's the break down of each of those types of exercises!

Upper Body:

Equipment- free weights, Perfect Push Ups, towel, piano bench, gloves (Even though I use gloves, I have a lot of callouses on my hands and they sometimes hurt when I lift!)

It should be noted that before I jump into my heavy lifts, I warm up with lighter weights. I warm up my rotator cuff, do chest press and shoulder press.

Chest Press

Even though we have an actual weight bench, it is large and takes up a lot of room. We keep that in the basement and I just lay on my extra piano bench with my head on the couch. It works just fine!

Push Ups

My dad got me these Perfect Push Up thingamabobs at a yard sale a year or two ago. Ever since I started using these, I never went back to "real" push ups. They put less stress on my shoulders and force me to use my chest and triceps.

Shoulder Press

After doing 100 push ups, it's really hard to do shoulder press! That's one of the reasons I haven't upped my weights in several years. I am always exhausted by the time I get to this exercise!

Tricep Dips

Since these are an isolation exercise, I do them last. I use the bay window and the couch! It's sort of weird, but it works!

I forgot to take this picture while I was working out so I posed for it in my jammies on Sunday morning!

That's right, I only do four lifts when I do chest. These are four quality exercises I can do at home. I personally would rather do several sets (5!) of quality exercises than the standard 3 sets of a bunch of different exercises that may not be as effective.

Lower Body:

**Note: I don't properly lift lower body anymore (aka squats, lunges, etc.) due to it aggravating my ITB. The following exercises are things I can do for my hips/glutes that don't bother my ITB. I miss properly lifting lower body A LOT.**

Equipment- towel

Donkey Kicks

Hydrants

Kickbacks

Core:

Equipment- towel, stability ball

Bicycle Crunches

Stability Ball Knee Tuck

Forearm Plank

Stability Ball Sit Ups

Okay, so now you are probably wondering how I put this all together. I do the workout in circuits. Most of the time it goes like this:

Chest Press- 5x10x30lb

Bicycle Crunches- 5x40

Donkey Kicks- 5x20

Push Ups- 10x10

Hydrants- 5x20

Shoulder Press- 5x10x20lb

Stability Ball Sit Ups- 5x15x15lb

Tricep Dips- 5x15

Stability Ball Knee Tuck- 5x15

Push Backs- 5x20

Forearm Planks- 5x1 minute

What are your favorite chest exercises to do?