Huge in a Hurry: 30 Minute Chest Workout

It’s time for another entry in our Huge in a Hurry: 30 Minute Workout for Mass series! 

For most of you following along with this series, the workout you’ve been waiting for -- 30 minute chest workout for mass!

Now, it’s no secret that guys love to train their chest. In fact, if they had the recovery ability of Wolverine, they’d train chest every day of the week and twice on Sunday!

But, the reality is that sometimes less is more.

We’re going to show you how to accomplish more quality work in less time with the 30 minute chest workout.

As with the other 30 minute workouts for mass, these workouts are straightforward, but not easy. You’ll have to be fully locked in and committed if you want to get the most muscle-building bang for your buck.

Using supersets and trisets, with little rest in between, you’ll be able to better maintain size and strength in other areas. If done properly, you can get all the benefits in a 30 min chest workout, rather than pushing set after set.

LET’S GO!

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30 Minute Chest Workout for Mass

Option #1

Option #2 -- Rest-Pause Rampage

Note: See workout pointers below for full description.

Option #3 -- Bodyweight Bonanza

Note: See workout pointers below for full description.

Workout Pointers

Just as we did with the other 30 minute workouts for mass, we’re going to take advantage of some time-saving muscle-building techniques to help maximize every minute that you’re in the gym for more gains in less time.

Workout #1

For this 30 minutes chest workout, we’ll lead off with an incline dumbbell press. Most guys have underdeveloped upper pecs, and beginning with an incline press helps to address the weak point by attacking it when you are your freshest mentally and physically.

We like to use a low incline angle (no higher than 30 degrees). Going much above a 45-degree incline makes the press more delt-focused than pec focused.

After performing your warm-up sets on the incline press, you’ll perform one set with two drops. So in essence, you’re condensing three working sets into one extended set. This enables you to accumulate a lot of hard reps in a short amount of time.

Here’s how to do it:

• Do 6 reps to failure
• Drop to a load that you can do for a set of 12 (performed to failure)
• Drop the weight again and complete 20 reps

After performing your drop-set on the incline press, you’ll move onto a compound set of machine chest press supersetted with cable crossovers.

Rest minimally between the two exercises. After the two exercises are completed (and you have a huge pump in your chest), rest 90-120 seconds and get back after it!

Workout #2 -- Rest-Pause Rampage

This 30 minute chest workout is all about rest-pause training. It’s an extremely efficient, yet diabolical method of training. You basically hammer a muscle until it’s exhausted, allow it a brief reprieve and then hammer it again and again and again.

In the workout listed above, you’ll see the bench press for 5 sets and 35 reps. That doesn’t mean you perform 5 straight sets and need to perform 35 reps each set.

Each exercise is divided into 5 mini-sets and the reps listed are your goal. When you can complete the number of reps listed for the exercise (i.e. your rep goal). Simply add a small amount of weight the next time you perform the workout.

Here’s how each exercise is to be performed:

• Perform your first mini-set on the bench press using a weight you can lift for 12-15 reps.
• Perform as many quality reps as possible, ending the set when you feel you might miss the next rep.
• Rack the weight, rest 30 seconds
• Perform your second mini-set, stopping when your form starts to break down or you feel you might miss the next rep
• Rack the weight, rest 30 seconds
• Perform your third mini-set
• Rest 30 seconds
• Perform your fourth mini-set
• Rest 30 seconds
• Perform your fifth and final mini-set
• Lay on the floor and gather your wits then move to the next exercise

On a closing note, you can feel free to end the workout after your three rest-pause sets are over. But, if you’re feeling particularly spry, do one all-out set of push-ups to failure and get ready for a pump (and subsequent soreness) you’ve never felt before!

Workout #3 -- Bodyweight Bonanza

Sometimes you’re so short on time, you don’t even have time to drive to the gym and back, or you may just prefer working out in the comfort of your home and may not have the equipment available to you like you would at the gym.

You might wonder if a chest workout in 30 minutes will yield results. Fear not, we’ve got a solution to help you build big pecs using just your body weight in the form of a bodyweight 3-minute muscle-building stack.

You’ll perform three exercises back to back with no rest

Perform as many high-quality reps as possible during the minute -- no half reps, no bouncing, no cheating. Slow, controlled descent and explosive press to the top

When you reach failure, rest the remainder of the minute until it’s time to start the next move or use rest-pause to grind out a few extra reps (it’s best to save this for the final round or two, though as it is highly fatiguing).

3-Minute Muscle Building Chest Workout

• Dips*
• Feet-Elevated push-ups
• Standard push-ups

*Note: If you don’t have dip bars, just find a corner in your kitchen and perform your dips using the counter.

Yet another option for those of you that don’t have access to dip bars at home is to perform a mechanical drop set of pushups where you adjust your body angle to make the pushup easier as you become more fatigued. 

This increases time under tension and hits your upper body pushing muscles from a variety of different angles, providing an awesome muscle-building stimulus and crazy muscle pump. 

Perform each move for 40 seconds of max quality reps with only 20 seconds of rest between moves:

• Feet-elevated pike pushup
• Feet-elevated pushup
• Standard pushup
• Hands-elevated pushup

That’s 1 cycle.

Perform 2-3 cycles, resting 2 minutes between each cycle.