Building a wide chest will not only make you look strong and more attractive to the opposite sex, it will also help get rid of that “man boobs” look if you have too much chest fat.
I’m sure you’ll agree when I say that a wide chest is maybe the single most prevailing mark of power and masculinity in a man.
If you look at a Roman suit of armor, you’ll see that it has that V-taper with a wide chest and slim mid-line. This makes anyone wearing that suit of armor project a masculine power that instills fear in his enemies on the battlefield.
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| A wide chest is a mark of masculinity and power |
When you build a solid chest, it will make you stand out of the group when you hang out with your buddies. It will automatically fill you with confidence, and just having that V-tapered frame will force people to take you seriously, and will make women go weak at the knees.
As Chest Sculptors, we not only work on losing chest fat and building a powerful set of pecs, but since our goal is to look powerful, masculine, unstoppable… we must also work on increasing the width of our chest.
As a benefit on the side, if you have man boobs, making your chest wider will force that breast fat to be spread over a greater surface, so your chest looks flatter.
“But Isn’t My Chest Width Determined By My Genes?”
You may have heard some people say that the width of your chest is determined by your genes and there’s nothing you can do about it. This is true, but only after a certain level of muscular development.
If you develop your upper body muscles as much as you can, another guy who works out just as much, might come along and show off that he has a wider upper body than you. No matter how hard you try, you will not be able to get a wider upper body than that guy, simply because your genes are not programmed for your upper body to expand that much.
But the good news is, you can sure as hell expand your chest and upper body far more than what it is now.
Because the muscles in your upper body are not fully developed, you have not yet reached your genetic potential of upper body width. So stop letting these people with their stories of genetic limitations hold you back.
Like my good ol’ bodybuilder friend Mike always says,
“If you’re not at an advanced level, you have no idea what your chest shape is…”
The 2 Keys To A Wide Chest
Unfortunately, most guys have no idea how to go about building that perfect chest with excellent proportions and good width.
I see guys getting it wrong at the gym all the time. Most guys doing chest exercises aren’t able to grow any muscle at all, and those that do, do it all wrong so they end up looking like freaks.
When it comes to building good chest width, there are two important keys you need to keep in mind…
Key #1: Train with a full range of motion (ROM), being sure to stretch the pecs as much as possible at the bottom of the movement.
Recent studies have confirmed that the ‘all-or-nothing’ rule of muscle contraction is complete bullshit. We now know that doing partial reps will only work out a particular portion of a muscle.
Let’s take the regular barbell bench press as an example. When you use a wide grip and let the bar go right down to the point where it’s almost touching your chest, you will feel a stretch in your pecs that lets you know you are working the outer portion of your pecs.
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| O=Outer Pecs, I=Inner Pecs You train the outer portion of your pecs when you get a full stretch at the bottom of the movement. Training the outer pecs is important for developing maximum chest width. |
If you want to increase the width of your chest, then you have to work the outer portion of your pecs by letting the bar go down as low as you can.
Where working the outer portion of your pecs increases chest width, working the inner portion of your pecs (near the midline of your chest) increases chest thickness.
What I see a lot of guys doing wrong at the gym, is they keep the bar a good few inches away from their chest at the bottom of the movement, simply because it allows them to lift a heavier weight. By doing this they are working mostly the inner fibers of the pecs.
Doing partial reps like this rather than using a full range of motion and allowing the bar to come all the way down to your chest, makes your pecs thicker, but not wider.
When you work only on chest thickness and neglect width, that’s when your chest sticks out and you can look like you have man boobs even if you don’t have any excess chest fat. And if you already have man boobs, it’ll make your man boobs look bigger.
This applies regardless of what type of chest exercise you are doing – pushups, dumbbell flys, bench presses, neck presses or dips.
And just on the side, if you have man boobs, when you combine this method of increasing chest width with the methods I discuss in this video, you’ll be surprised at how quickly your chest will start to flatten out.
With benching movements, using a barbell can limit your range of motion, because you can’t take the weight any lower than when the bar hits your chest. This is yet another reason why I prefer using dumbbells, because you can get a far better stretch at the bottom of the movement.
If you are doing pushups, you can use pushup bars or two stacks of books to raise the level of your hands, so you can go deeper at the bottom.
So my advice here is this: leave your ego at the door, pick up a lighter weight, and work those chest muscles through a full range of motion.
Key #2: Train The Antagonist Muscles
We’ve all seen that huge muscular guy walking around in a tight t-shirt, with his arms held bent at almost 90 degrees. At first you might think ‘hey, that’s just the way he walks’, but then you see him standing around and he still has his arms bent. Hey, I even grappled with one of these guys in my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu class, and you know what? I couldn’t even PULL his arm straight!
The truth is that these big muscular guys don’t keep their arms bent that way to show off or to try and look more muscular. Their arms have become fixed in this position, and they can’t straighten their arms even when they try.
So why does this happen? Well it’s because these guys train their biceps more than they train their triceps. The biceps and triceps are “antagonising” muscles to each other, which means that they act against one another and have opposing effects on the joint they control – where the biceps bend the arm, the triceps straighten the arm.
When you train your biceps to be bigger and stronger than your triceps, then your arms will be held bent at rest. If at the same time you don’t train your biceps with a full range of motion by straightening your arms fully at the bottom, then you will not be able to straighten your arms at all.
So How Does This Apply To The Chest?
Guys with man boobs or just too much chest fat are way too obsessed with training the chest. The problem here is that the main chest muscle, the pectoralis major, attaches from the breast bone in the middle of the chest to the shoulder on either side.
If you train only the chest muscles without training the antagonising upper back muscles, your shoulders are going to be permanently hunched forward – just like your arms are held bent when you train only your biceps and neglect your triceps.
With your shoulders held forward, the width of your chest area becomes smaller.
A combination of big chest muscles with a narrow chest is a huge recipe for bigger man boobs.
This is yet another reason a lot of people tell you not to do chest exercises because they’ll make your man boobs bigger. These people are totally right, but only if you are doing chest exercises the wrong way by ONLY doing chest exercises while ignoring the opposing, antagonising muscles.
What ARE The Antagonising Muscles Of The Chest?
The main opposing muscle of the chest is the latissimus dorsi (lats) of the upper back. Where the pectoralis major of the chest pulls your shoulders forward, the latissimus dorsi pulls your shoulders back.
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| The lats are the main muscles in your back that oppose your chest |
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| A wide upper body not just makes you look more manly, it will also help to flatten out those man boobs. |
The secret lies in growing your upper back muscles just as much as you grow your chest muscles. With large and strong pecs and lats, your shoulders will be held back in a neutral position, and your chest and whole upper body will get wider.
The Importance Of Good Upper Back Development In Chest Sculpting
If you’re looking to get that wide, herculean, V-shaped upper body, then a powerful set of lats is a crucial piece of the puzzle.
Although the lats are located on your back, they affect the way you look from the front, more than your pecs or your abs do.
See, the muscles on your back are postural muscles, and they play a more important role in determining the overall frame of your body. They hold your skeletal structure up in an erect posture, and give you that manly look without you having to take your shirt off.
A guy with powerful back muscles will look good in anything he wears, whether he’s wearing a thick sweater, or walking around topless on the beach.
If on the other hand you have strong pecs and abs on the front but weak lats on the back, your body will be permanently hunched forward, and the only way anyone would ever know you have any muscle, is when you take your top off. But even then it won’t look too impressive.
Well-developed back muscles are the true mark of an unstoppable man. Wide lats and big back muscles in general are what make women weak at the knees, and other guys nervous in your presence.
I could go on describing the importance of good back development all day, but they say a picture speaks a thousand words. Here’s one of Steve Reeves that says it all.
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| Steve Reeves: Note his wide lat development. This is a true mark of a powerful man. With good lat development, you will look good regardless of what you are wearing. |
I remember being at the gym some years ago when I saw this really skinny, shriveled, weak-looking guy wearing a hoodie. I felt sorry for him because he looked just like the kind of guy who gets pushed around everywhere he goes because he just looks so weak.
But then, just before he started his workout, he took his hoodie off. He was wearing a thin vest underneath and to my surprise this guy was actually impressively muscular! He had big chest muscles, a solid set of six-pack abs (yes, all six), and big thick arms!
I realized though that he had very little back development. As a result, his posture was slumped forward, and you would never know that he even worked out if he was wearing anything more than a tight vest.
Summary
A wide chest is a hallmark of masculinity, but there’s more to getting a wide chest than just randomly throwing weights around at the gym.
There are two key factors for increasing chest width – using a full range of motion in your chest workouts, and working out the antagonizing muscles of the chest, i.e. the upper back muscles.
The back, in particular the lats, is probably the most important body area to work out if you want to look good regardless of what you are wearing – whether you are topless, wearing a t- shirt, full shirt, hoodie or jacket.
If you only work on your chest and abs like most guys do, then the only way people will ever notice the fruits of your labor is if you take your top off – try doing that at the workplace. If you want to impress that cute girl at work or the girls in your class, then make like Steve Reeves, and work both your chest and lats.
If you have man boobs, then getting a wide chest is an excellent way to improve the way your chest looks. By increasing the width of your chest, you force the fat on your chest to spread over a bigger area, making your man boobs less noticeable. But a wide chest is just one piece of the puzzle. To actually lose your man boobs, you’ve gotta lose the fat on your chest. To do this, you have to use special hormonal tactics that I discuss in the following video:
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