Home chest push ups-middle-inner-low

Question

I will be focusing on push-ups because I have no money for a gym. I have checked out many videos, reading a lot, but I would like your help to achieve the best results I can for doing push-ups at home with no equipment.

• Upper chest - Which kind of push-ups do you think would offer me the best results?
• Middle chest - I haven't found a workout for these.
• Lower pecs - Which kind of push-up? I have seen a video that says that the hands should be not far from the chest when someone moves down up. Also, it looks like you should have something like chair or small table in front of you.
• How much should I be doing? (time/days)

Answer 1

I'm astonished that no answer mentioned that there is no such no such thing as middle chest as there is no inner or outer chest. I will not go on a rant about it but before providing some information on exercise selection, let me explain some basics about the chest muscles.

There are two muscles at what we call chest.

1. Pectoralis Major. This is divided into the sternal and the clavicular head. The sternal head is what we call the lower chest and the clavicular what we call the upper chest. Let me provide a source for these here and here.
2. Pectoralis Minor. This muscle is beneath the pectoralis major muscle. In other words, you do not directly see it and thereby I do not think you care much about it but I am mentioning it nonetheless. Apparently, this is not middle chest.

So no upper, middle and lower chest for starters. Just the upper and the lower one.

Now to what you should do for your home workout.

The more far apart your hands are placed from each other in a push up, the more you work your chest and not your triceps/shoulders, provided that you do a full range of motion.

Be careful though. Do not overdo it with the width. If at the bottom of the movement the wrists have a 90 degree angle with the ground it is probably wide enough. The wider you go the more you strain the shoulder joints so be careful with the technique and the width you have in order to stay far from injuries.

So for upper chest,

• You have to place your feet into an elevated position relatively to your body and do push ups from there. A 45 degree angle should be enough. Note that if the angle is very high you will start targeting your shoulders more than your upper chest. An analogy that may or may not help you understand how it works is that of an incline bench press. If the bench is really incline then you tend to do a shoulder press effectively putting minimal to zero stress on your pecs.

As for lower chest,

• Simple push ups will do. What is important is the hand placement as I mentioned before. Moreover, don't do too many reps as this will build more endurance than muscle size and strength. I would suggest that if it becomes too easy that you put some weight on you or on a bag that you can wear in order to make it more challenging. I can't find a paper that says which rep range is optimal for muscle growth but anything higher than 15-20 reps is commonly considered to build more endurance than size or strength.

Lastly, I would also advice you, like Pancake, not to do only chest exercises.

Answer 2

You shouldn't train only your chest and not your back or you're going to get all imbalanced.

Also you don't have to use only pushups because you don't go to the gym. You can work your whole body in a manner that continues to be challenging, at home and without a lot of expensive equipment. Once you can do 10-15 pushups (which is fairly quick to be able to do) pushups will become too easy to be challenging if you stay in the recommended rep ranges. You need to use a progression scheme for each exercise

It's also a good idea to use a program that has already worked for many people instead of throwing something together on your own

This comment is heavily ripped off from https://www.reddit.com/r/bodyweightfitness/wiki/kb/recommended_routine

The only equipment you're gonna need is a pullup bar and eventually gymnastic rings. Gymastic rings are light, cheap (~20-25$), easy to carry around, and very versatile. You can hang them from your pullup bar, from a tree or anywhere really

If there isn't anywhere for you to hang the rings and you don't have a pullup bar, drop the dips and pullups, and replace the rows by resistance band rows (these are also pretty cheap and they don't require something to hang)

For the pairs, you're supposed to do one set of the first exercise, rest 90s, do a set of the second exercise, rest 90s and start over.

For the progressions, you're supposed to choose the exercise that you CANNOT do 3 sets of 8 reps of. When you are able to do it, you go to the next exercise on the progression

* = see below for the condensed version, see the link to the recommended routine for more info and videos

Monday Wednesday Friday:

Warm-up dynamic stretches*
Warm-up bodyline drills*
Warm-up: 20 burpees (if you're not already warm)
Support practice*
Handstand practice*
First pair: 3x5-8 Pullup progression* + 3x5-8 Dip progression*. Skip this pair if you can't do 3x8 diamond pushups and 3x8 horizontal rows yet
Second pair: 3x10sec-30sec L-Sit progression* + 3x5-8 Squat progression*
Third pair: 3x5-8 Pushup progression* + 3x5-8 Row Progression*

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The warm-up dynamic stretches routine (~5min):
shoulder rolls
scapular shrugs
cat-camels
band: straight arm overhead pull downs
band: straight arm chest flies
band: dislocates
wrist mobility exercises
front and side leg swings

---

Bodyline drills

60s Plank
60s Side Plank
60s Reverse Plank
60s Hollow Hold
60s Arch Hold

No resting in between the holds

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Support practice

Parallel Bar Support (can also be done on the back of 2 chairs)
Ring Support Hold
Rings Turned Out Support Hold

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Handstand practice

Wall Plank
Wall Handstand
Freestanding Handstand

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Pullup progression

Pullup negatives
Pullups
L-Sit pullups
Bar pullovers

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Dip progression

Parralel bar dips (or negative ring dips if no parallel bar available, or dips between 2 chairs, or dips in the corner or your kithen counter)
Ring Dips
Rings L-sit Dips

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L-sit progression

Foot Supported L-sit
One-Leg Foot Supported L-sit
Tuck L-sit
Advanced Tuck L-sit or One-Leg L-sit
L-sit
V-sit

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Squat progression

Assisted Squat
Squat
Step-ups (one leg)
Deep Step-ups (one leg)

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Pushup progression

Vertical Pushup
Incline Pushup (lowering the incline over time)
Full Pushup
Diamond Pushup
Rings Wide Pushup / If no rings -> pseudo planche pushups (PPPU)
Rings Pushup
RTO Pushup (Rings Turned Out)
RTO PPPU

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Row progression

Vertical Rows
Incline Rows (lowering the incline over time)
Horizontal Rows
Wide Rows
Tuck Front Lever
Tuck Ice Cream Maker
Tuck Front Lever Row
Advanced Tuck Front Lever Row

Answer 3

Back when I was training at home, I would do super sets for chest training, which are necessary to gain any type of results, given the absence of weights, I would do normal push ups on the flat with the hands wider then your shoulder, otherwise your triceps will come into play, followed by push ups with my feet on a chair and followed by push ups with my feet at the bottom of the stairs and the hands on the fourth of fifth step upward, all of this for a total of 5 sets of 8 reps per stance, for a total of 24 reps each set.

This will train the lower, middle and upper chest muscles, simulating the different incline benches you would have in the gym.

You can always then get someone to push on your back for added resistance.

Regards,