Exercises to Build Your Chest Muscles

Building your chest muscles can improve your bust line if you are a woman, lifting up the bosom area and extending it forward. If you are a man, exercising this area pumps out your chest, giving it a more pronounced look. But building your chest also improves sports performance, according to the Mayo Clinic. Three chest exercises can help: the chest press, the butterfly and the push-up.

Chest Press

• Lying flat on your back on a flat bench or other flat and sturdy surface, such as the floor, grasp the dumbbells or barbell with your hands. Keeping your neck, head and feet directly against the bench or floor, with legs bent and knees pointed upwards, extend the weights directly overhead until your elbows are almost locked in place. Do not lock them, however, before lowering the weights and repeating a total of 12 to 15 repetitions. One to three sets of reps should be completed. Chest press machines can also be used in a gym, offering more control.

  Do not attempt to lift more weight than you can handle exercising alone, and use a barbell rack overhead if you choose that type of weight, so you can put the barbell back up quickly if the exercise becomes too taxing.

Butterfly/Pec Deck

• Butterfly chest exercises, also known as a pec-deck fly, can be done with a machine or dumbbells. This exercise works the chest muscles worked in a chest press exercise (deltoids and pectoralis major, sternal), but also works the pectoralis claviclular, too, which defines the area between the breast. Using a flat or incline bench (a bench that is raised almost to a sitting position), the exercise requires considerable control over the dumbbells if they are used instead of a gym machine.

  Extend elbows parallel with the shoulders, outstretched from the bench, and round the forearms upward, toward the ceiling and the hand-held dumbbells. Feet should be flat on the floor to each side of the bench, knees bent. Move dumbbells towards one another as you maintain the rounded arch of your arms, repeating the exercise without touching the weights together and squeezing your pecs as you complete the exercise. Repetitions of 12 to 15, in sets of one to three should be done with the dumbbells or machine.

Push-ups

• Using your own body weight you can do a simple chest exercise without any equipment or benches. Stretch your body out parallel with the floor. Place your hands flat on the floor below the shoulder area and keep your arms extended outward until elbows are almost locked. Let your toes touch the floor and slowly lower your entire body without bending your knees, only bending your elbows. Straighten the elbows as you push back up from the floor, keeping your knees straight, but don't lock your elbows before repeating the move 12 to 15 times, one to three sets. Bend the knees if you cannot complete the exercise otherwise, at first.