Rainham's Exercise of the Week

21/04/2009 | by Lorraine White

The Chest Workout – Do you want to really work your chest? Try this mini workout for a quick chest blast!

Have a good warm up first and then:-

Chest Press Machines – pyramid training

• Start with a low weight and perform 20 reps
• Put your weight up by one or two plates and perform 15 reps
• Again, put your weight up and perform 10 reps
• One more time put the weight up another one or two plates and perform 5 reps (this should be quite difficult for you)
• Then, reverse the exericse by working back up again, make the weight lighter and perform 10 reps, lighter again performing 15 reps etc.

Press Ups

• Start with normal press ups (hands underneath shoulders) and perform 10 reps
• Then, make it a little more difficult, bring your hands closer together and perform 10 reps
• Make it harder again and this time place your feet on a Swiss Ball, this will help to improve your balance as well, perform 10 reps.

Bench Press – matrix training

• Choose a comfortable weight using the barbell
• Perform 7 reps of the full exercise
• Then, without a break again perform 7 reps but only push the bar up half way up (so this is just a small movement)
• Again, without resting, start with the bar half way up, use that as your starting point and push up for 7 reps again, then rest.

Press Ups on the Power Plate

Perform press-ups on the power plate on a level of your choice for 30 seconds and perform 3 times.

Chest Stretches

• Bring your arms behind your back, keeping your elbows soft and stretch out the chest
• If you can’t feel this, try kneeling on the floor, placing on arm on a Swiss Ball and try to feel the stretch across the chest that way.

If you need any guidance with these exercises please see an instructor.

By Kirsty Kemp