Why Won't My Chest Grow?... 3 Ways Skinny Guys Can Grow Their Chest
Every skinny guy reading this probably started their fitness journey with one question in mind..."How can I get a bigger chest?"
It's a huge part of every guy's dream physique, but for skinny guys with long arms, it may be tougher to build an impressive/strong looking chest. Below are 3 problems that skinny guys have and ways they can overcome those obstacles to grow their chest.
Problem #1: You focus too much on the bench press
When skinny guys start their journey into the glorious house of gains, they see massive physical specimens strutting across the floor with massive pecs. These big guys spend the majority of their time in the gym on the bench press. So the correlation seems to be if you want a big chest, you bench press. The issue with that is that could be something holding you back from developing your chest.
The Fix: Focus on exercises that allow YOU to feel your chest working
If you bench press week-in and week-out, but you never feel much tension in your chest doing the workouts, but you DO feel a lot of stress on the shoulders and triceps, this applies to you.
While the bench press does allow you to use the most weight to work your chest, if you don't get chest stimulation, you aren't maximizing your chest gains.
Select a different chest exercise or variation that lets you feel quality squeezes in the chest. Some examples can be: Chest press machine, dips, pushups, dumbbell presses, decline presses, and cable flys.
Once you build a better mind-muscle connection with your chest, switch back to the bench press and you may see a huge increase in the weight you can use (While actually feeling your chest!).
Problem #2: You train chest too often/not often enough
How is it that a problem can be training too much AND not often enough? Let me explain. A lot of guys get really amped up at the possibility of growing their chest, so they may workout their chest most days of the week using the logic of more training equals more growth.
This is true to an extent, but the chest is a muscle group than generally doesn't recover extremely fast when trained at proper intensity. If you are training your chest 3+ times per week, you are either close to a burnout/injury occurrence, or you aren't training that hard.
You may also not be training your chest often enough. If you are only training your chest once a week or a couple times per month, you aren't giving your chest enough stimulus to maximize growth.
The Fix: Train chest 2-3 times per week, alternating between heavy/light weeks or heavy/light individual workouts.
For most skinny guys, the sweet spot of training volume for the chest is 2-3 workouts per week. This can be paired with other muscle groups or it's own training day (depending on your training split).
One factor you have to consider is central nervous fatigue, so I suggest not ALWAYS training heavy on chest every session. For example, you could have a heavy chest session on Monday, a light chest session on Wednesday, and a moderate chest session on Saturday. This would give your joints a break during the week, while allowing you to get stimulus from both heavy weight and high reps.
Problem #3: You aren't heavy enough to have a big chest
Let's assume that you have a great mind-muscle connection with your chest, and you have a quality training split that alters between heavy chest work and light chest work....but you STILL aren't getting a bigger chest.
Have you ever considered that you simply aren't big enough to have a big chest? How many skinny and lanky guys do you know that weigh less than 150lbs with a massive chest? It's super uncommon, but for some reason a lot of guys think they can do it.
The Fix: Gain another 10-15lbs
When you have a good connection with your chest muscles and your workout routine is dialed in, it's time to start building more muscle AND size. That can only happen consistently by eating in a calorie surplus.
You will probably need to put on another 10-15lbs to your frame to see a noticeable difference in your chest. Remember, your chest is just a small portion of your body, and unfortunately it can only grow so much while still being the same weight.
Track your food intake with MyFitnessPal and start with a 250-500 daily calorie increase over your maintenance. Once you have put on that new weight, MAINTAIN that weight as you begin training your chest harder.
With an additional 10-15lbs on your body, a couple months of hard training with good chest contractions, and exercises structured in a way that you don't overly fatigue yourself, you'll have a bigger chest in no time.
For proof, using the same strategies mentioned above, here is my own chest transformation (while being unflexed).
There are so many other strategies that skinny guys can use to enhance their physique and in particular, their chest.
For 59 tips designed specifically for skinny guys click here: 59 Fitness Tips For Skinny Men
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