Best Chest Workout at Home Without Equipment

So you’re stuck at home and can’t make it to the gym. Don’t worry, you don’t need all of those heavy weights and fancy machines to build the pecs of your dreams. Try this no equipment, home chest workout to get tons of growth out of your chest.

The Warm Up for Home Chest Workout

Just because you aren’t using heavy weights doesn’t mean you don’t have to warm up your body to workout chest at home. So follow this short warm up routine to prepare your body for an intense bodyweight exercise:

1. Do some cardiovascular exercise for a few minutes in order to get your heartrate up. This can be some jumping jacks or jogging in one spot.
2. Perform some shoulder circles in order to warm up your shoulder joint, by extending your arms out to your side and rotating them to make gradually larger circles.
3. Do a short set of around 10 reps of mountain climbers in order to warm up your core, by placing your hands on the floor and lifting your knees to your chest one at a time.
4. Perform a 2 short sets of around 5 reps of incline pushups in order to warm up your chest muscles.
5. Perform 2 short sets of around 5 reps of pushups in order to warm up your chest muscles.

It’s important to follow this warm up routine, or any similar routine, so your shoulder, chest and abdominal muscles are prepared for your home chest workout. This will help you avoid injury and improve your workout performance.

The No Equipment Home Chest Workout

This workout plan is designed to fully stimulate every part of the chest in order to get the most growth to take place. It’s the workout that I follow so it’s tried and true. Aim to do this chest workout around 1-2 times per week.

EXERCISE	SETS	REPS	REST (minutes)
Plyometric Pushups	2	8-10	2
Decline Pushups	3	10-12	2
Superset: Pushups and Incline Pushups	2	go until failure	2
Finisher: Isometric Pushup	1	hold until failure	–

Repetition numbers aren’t set in stone, but you should perform each set with a few reps left in the tank to make sure you can perform another set of the exercise. Therefore everyone, from beginner to advanced, can benefit from this home workout routine.

Follow the workout guide below to make the most gains out of your home chest workout with no equipment.

Exercise 1 – Plyometric Pushups

The goal of this exercise isn’t to perform as much reps as possible, but to lift explosively. That is because plyometric pushups can recruit a lot of the larger fast twitch muscle fibers in order to produce the force to push yourself off the floor.

If we can recruit these muscles early in our workout routine then we can continue to stimulate them throughout the chest workout to lead to even more growth. Therefore, our focus here is to produce a large force to engage these muscles, rather than fatigue them, so we’ll use lower reps.

How to Perform Plyometric Pushups?

1. Get down on all fours.
2. Place your hands shoulder width apart and under the level of your shoulders.
3. Tighten your abs and glutes in order to maintain a straight body position.
4. Bend your arms at the elbows to lower your chest to just above the floor.
5. Pause at the bottom.
6. Explosively push yourself up so that your hands leave the floor.
7. Bend your arms as you return to the floor to cushion your ‘jump’. This is 1 repetition.

Aim to perform 2 sets of 8-10 reps of plyometric pushups with up to 2 minutes of rest between sets.

Tips: Perform plyometric pushups on a soft surface such as grass or an exercise mat in order to prevent any wrist discomfort during your no equipment home chest workout.

Exercise 2 – Decline Pushups

This exercise puts a greater stress on the chest than regular pushups. Additionally, it emphasizes the upper chest which gives the chest a more aesthetic appearance. Learn more about decline pushups here.

Your goal with this exercise is to stimulate the chest muscles now that they are engaged. Perform your repetitions slowly and controlled and don’t be afraid to go closer to failure on these sets.

Find somewhere to elevate your feet. This can be a wall, chair, table or staircase. Keep in mind that the higher you place your feet the harder the exercise becomes.

How to do Decline Pushups?

1. Place your hands on the floor, shoulder width apart, just in front of the elevated surface.
2. Lift your feet, one at a time, onto the elevated surface.
3. Tighten your abs and glutes in order to maintain a straight body position.
4. Bend your arms at the elbows in order to slowly lower your chest to just above the floor.
5. Pause at the bottom.
6. Squeeze your chest and extend your arms in order to return to the starting position. This is 1 repetition.

Aim to perform at least 10-12 repetitions of decline pushups for 3 sets. Increase the number of repetitions as the exercise becomes more easy.

Tips: Take around 2-3 seconds to lower your chest and pause at the bottom for a second in order to get the most growth out of the home chest workout without equipment. Avoid locking out your elbows so that your triceps don’t fatigue and limit the number of reps you can do.

Exercise 3 – Superset

This superset will take your chest growth to a new level because it aims to fully fatigue your chest muscles. It is a mechanical drop set involving pushups and incline pushups.

Your goal here is to do as much reps of pushups as possible before moving on to do as much reps as possible of incline pushups. If you can fight through the pain you’ll realize you don’t need any equipment for your chest workout to be effective. Learn how fast to do pushups here.

How to do Pushups?

1. Get down on all fours.
2. Place your hands shoulder width apart and under shoulder level.
3. Tighten your abs and glutes to maintain a straight body position.
4. Bend your arms at the elbows in order to lower your chest to just above the floor.
5. Pause at the bottom.
6. Squeeze your chest and extend your arms in order to return to the starting position. This is 1 repetition.

Perform as much repetitions as possible with good form before moving on to incline pushups.

You’ll need to find an elevated surface to place your hands when you’re doing incline pushups. Keep in mind that the higher you place your hands the easier the exercise becomes. Learn the difference between Incline and Decline pushups here.

How to do Incline Pushups?

1. Place your hands shoulder width apart on the elevated surface.
2. Move your feet backwards.
3. Tighten your abs and glutes to maintain a straight body position.
4. Bend your arms at the elbows in order to lower your chest to just above the elevated surface.
5. Pause at the bottom.
6. Squeeze your chest and extend your arms in order to return to the starting position. This is 1 repetition.

Perform as much repetitions as possible to take your chest muscles to failure.

Tips: To truly fatigue your chest muscles, follow up your incline pushups with another set to failure at a higher level of incline, then perform eccentric repetitions when your chest is fatigued. These are just the lowering portion of the exercise.

Exercise 4 – The Finisher

This exercise is meant to ensure your chest muscles are completely fatigued, so that you make the most gains out of your no equipment home chest workout. It simply requires you to hold a pushup position for as long as possible.

How to do an Isometric Pushup?

1. Get down on all fours.
2. Place your hands shoulder width apart and under shoulder level.
3. Bend your arms at the elbows in order to lower your chest to just above the floor.
4. Hold this position for as long as possible.

How to Progress in your Home Chest Workout?

To keep your chest muscles growing when you are following this workout program you have to be progressively overloading your muscles. You can do this by gradually performing more repetitions, by including a heavy backpack for added resistance or by improving your rep quality.

That means, perform the reps with proper form and increase the amount of time during the eccentric and isometric phases of the exercise.

Putting it All Together

Follow this no equipment home chest workout routine and you’re sure to make a lot of gains. It worked for me and its sure to work for you. If it’s still too hard you can check out this beginner home chest workout.

References:

Adams, G., Cheng, D., Haddad, F. and Baldwin, K., 2004. Skeletal muscle hypertrophy in response to isometric, lengthening, and shortening training bouts of equivalent duration. Journal of Applied Physiology, 96(5), pp.1613-1618.

Ebben, W., Wurm, B., VanderZanden, T., Spadavecchia, M., Durocher, J., Bickham, C. and Petushek, E., 2011. Kinetic Analysis of Several Variations of Push-Ups. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 25(10), pp.2891-2894.

VOSSEN, J., KRAMER, J., BURKE, D. and VOSSEN, D., 2000. Comparison of Dynamic Push-Up Training and Plyometric Push-Up Training on Upper-Body Power and Strength. The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 14(3), p.248.

Cogley, Robert M ; Archambault, Teasha A ; Fibeger, Jon F ; Koverman, Mandy M ; et al . Comparison of Muscle Activation using Various Hand Positions during the Pushup Exercise. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research ; Champaign  Volume 19, No. 3,  (Aug 2005): 628-33. DOI: 10.1519 / 00124278-200508000-00024