FRUGAL FITNESS ®: Tone Up Your Chest!!

Firm Up Your Chest w/ Pec Flies, Diet, Cardio, & More!

Frugal Fitness Question:

During my last couple months of working out I'm noticing gains and toning/definition in all areas except my chest area, i'm getting gains on the bench but as far as looks go im worried i may have too much estrogen conversion or a slight case of gyno going on, wondering if you had any tips to tone that area up, and/or tighten it down, i know diet and exercise is key, however i wanted to know foods to look out for or a targeting workout you might know of especially for that...thanks man look forward to hearing from ya.

Frugal Fitness Answer:

I hear ya loud and clear man, I have always genetically had a large and very strong chest no matter what type of training I've done. I can do bench press with barbie weights or just high repetition sets of pushups and I'll have a big powerful chest anyways. This can be a good thing if you are into powerlifting or bodybuilding, not quite as good if you want a flatter, more toned and defined chest. If you put on bodyfat, as I've done on and off over the past couple of years, your ripped chest will end up looking more like moobs than pecs. Unless you are on the Jersey Shore trying to pick up Snookies, or at a Creatine convention, not many people want to see that stuff.

Chest Fail

Unless you have hormonal imbalances, have taken steroids or pro-hormones in the past, or some other sort of medication or medical conditions, you are probably not suffering from gynecomastia, aka "gyno" aka man titties aka man boobs (moobies), there are plenty of names for them. It's a good thing I've never used any roids or I'd have a rack as big as Brooklyn Decker's! Chances are, you just have some extra bodyfat combined with muscle mass and you need to lose that bodyfat asap.

Piercing them doesn't make them look any better

Chest exercises are important to help tone up the area (keep the skin tight by causing muscle to protrude) but the man thing is to boost metabolism and burn fat to get rid of that fatty tissue. For this I would recommend speeding up your workouts, reducing rest between sets, and keeping the heart rate up. This will increase fat burning and turn your weight training workouts into more circuit training / cardio. You can also add in some cardio intervals of 1-3 minutes in between your weight training workouts to do that as well.