Building your chest is invigorating and makes you feel amazing during and after. While that rush involves ample exercises to work the upper and middle chest heads, the lower chest is often skipped over. The information ahead goes over 3 home workouts to carve out your lower chest and how to incorporate them easily into your life.
Creating a home workout can be a great way to get your workouts in, without having to spend the time driving to the gym. If you are strapped for time or just want a little more exercise, consider keeping your workouts at home. 
Benefits of Home Workouts
With all of the perks and benefits of taking exercise to a gym, there is a lot to be said for sweating it out at home. Whether you have a full-blown in-home gym, a treadmill, or just free weights hanging around, here are some benefits to expect from home workouts.
- Time efficient. No need to spend time driving or waiting for machines to clear up at busy times, your home gym is there and ready to go.
- Comfort. Having a home office has increasingly grown for many adults, so having a gym at home can blend naturally.
- Save money. Gyms are great for including many and all features that appeal to adults and families. With that said, more features includes more money and it can add up.
- Daily work. Daily challenges often include various equipment and time to complete and hitting the gym every day is not always feasible. Add in a daily challenge with your home workouts and wait for the results to take place.
Anatomy of the Chest
The chest consists of the pectoralis major and minor muscles. Each portion of the pecs are worked depending on the angle of resistance. This angle is critical for working the upper, middle, and lower portions of the pecs.
The lower part of the pectoralis major muscle is strengthened from a lower angle of resistance. It originates to the spine, attaches at the glenohumeral joint, and primarily performs horizontal adduction of the arms. To isolate the pectoralis major, lower portion, adding a lower angle is necessary or changing the body position to a declined configuration.
Lower Chest Exercises for Home Workouts
Here is the exercise bank to reference for your workouts, with tips on how to do each.
- Decline push-ups. Decline push-ups are easy to set up, effective, and target the lower pecs. Utilize the couch, a chair, bench, or stability ball and place your hands on any of these to create the declined angle. You will likely be able to do more of these than the standard push-up, but their effectiveness is still great.
- Low dumbbell chest fly. The dumbbell chest fly can be performed at home while on a bench or stability ball. In comparison to a standard chest fly, the low dumbbell version has the arms abducting at the level of the diaphragm or lower chest.
- Standing resistance band chest fly. Resistance bands offer a great deal of versatility and can be performed anywhere in the house. While standing, the handles of the resistance bands remain at each side of the body and using straight or slightly bent arms, touch the handles in front of the body, at the level of the lower chest.
- Dumbbell decline chest press. The dumbbell decline chest press targets the lower pecs and can be used in various ways. Throw your legs up a bench or drape down a stability ball to create a decline position and to target this part of the pecs.
- Lower chest dips. Using various parts of your home such as between two counters, using a chair seat, bench, or stairwell, chest dips serve as a compound exercise that also works the lower chest. Bodyweight dips are tough and if you can do these with your feet off the floor, your intensity will be through the roof.
- Single arm standing resistance band chest fly. Similar to the double grip version, the single arm chest fly with a resistance band targets and unilaterally works the lower pecs. Add this exercise to isolate each side of the body and pay close attention to the eccentric part of this exercise.
3 Home Workouts to Carve Out Your Lower Chest
Workout 1: Fast Tempo, Power
This workout is designed to target power in the lower chest for strength, size, and power. For this workout, the concentric phase should be performed quickly, with a slower eccentric part. For this workout complete the following:
- As many reps as possible in 25 minutes:
- Decline push-ups.
- Dumbbell decline chest press.
- Lower chest dips.
Workout 2: Strength Focus
This workout is designed for controlled movements with a tempo that is equal parts concentric and eccentric. Complete the following workout to focus on strength training:
- Complete 3 sets of 15 of each:
- Lower chest dips
- Standing resistance band chest fly
- Low dumbbell chest fly
- Decline push-ups
Workout 3: Burnout
The final workout of the bunch focuses on exercising until failure. This method fatigues the lower chest to allow for optimal strength and hypertrophy. Follow along with this workout as follows:
- Complete 3 sets until failure for each:
- Single arm standing resistance band chest fly
- Dumbbell decline chest press
- Low dumbbell chest fly
- Decline push-ups
Stretching is Critical
One of the best parts of taking your workout at home is that you can stretch afterwards to your leisure. Stretching can help to bring your muscles in safe alignment and prevent any tightness that follows any workout.
While stretching has been shown to have no effect on delayed-onset muscle soreness, it can just feel good after exercise in the first place. Also, studies have shown static stretching to be effective in helping to create gains in muscle strength, and more reps of stretching can increase to more gains as well.
The next time you skip over the stretching, just remind yourself that it is a part of the overall equation that could contribute to your gains.
Conclusion
Taking your workouts at home can be a n efficient way to work the body. Follow along with any of the 3 home workouts to carve out your lower chest above to help set the tone for your upper body gains.
Resources
https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004577.pub3/full
