We all want that sculpted, defined muscular upper body look, yet many of us are frustrated by a layer of fat that is covering our gains. The most noticeable area of fat covering muscle is the lower chest. If you’ve been struggling to get rid of chest fat, then you’ve come to the right place. In this article we are about to provide you with the 3 best ways to lose excessive chest fat for males permanently.
The Spot Reduction Myth
Before we jump into our 3 best ways to lose chest fat in males, we need to clear up the spot reduction myth. No matter what the glossy advertisements or clickbait YouTube titles tell you, it is impossible to spot reduce body fat. That means that you are wasting your time trying to do specific exercises to lose body fat directly from your chest. It is scientifically impossible to do this. Overall body fat comes off your body evenly, not from one specific area.
Strategy #1: Increase the Size of Your Pectoral Muscles
By making your chest muscles bigger, you will be able to give structure and shape to your pecs. This will make them appear much more impressive. As you fill out the lower chest, your chest fat will appear smaller.
To build up your pecs, you should be concentrating on variations of the Push Up. It is a far better chest exercise than the barbell bench press, which is dominated by the front deltoids.
Push Ups are the oldest and still the best single move you can do for your chest. Here is a progression of variations of this classic exercise that you can make use of to hit your pecs anywhere, anytime. Try to progress from one version to the next every week. Train the push up every day, giving yourself a target to reach and getting there in as few sets as possible. If you are a beginner, we suggest beginning with 50 but the target you choose should be challenging enough that it takes at least 4-5 sets to get to the target.
In addition to your chest fat workout, do two fully body workouts per week. In these sessions target belly fat as well as building muscles in other body parts. The more overall muscle you have, the more fat you will burn off.
The exercise video below demonstrates the 6 push-up variations explained below:
Standard
Start from a standard plank position. Your hands should sit directly under your shoulders (this is closer than most people position their hands). Place your feet together and think of your body as a single unit in a straight line from head to toe. Look down at a slight angle to ensure proper spinal alignment. Your scapula should be in a retracted position.
Slowly lower down under control until your chest is hovering about an inch from the ground. Now contract your arms, back and chest as you push through the floor to return to the top position. Be sure to come all the way up so that your arms are fully extended and your shoulder blades fully retracted.
Decline
To perform the decline push up, place your feet on a bench or stool and get into push up position. Your body should be at around a 30-degree angle to the floor. Perform the push up movement as described in the standard push up description. Focus on maintaining tightness in the core and squeezing and contracting your chest on each rep.
Shoulder Tap
Begin in the standard push up position. Perform a push up as per normal but, on the way up bring your left hand up to tap your right shoulder. On the next rep touch your right hand to your left shoulder.
Plyo
From the standard push up position, lower yourself into the bottom position. From there explosively push through the floor with your hands, lasts and chest. Propel yourself off the floor so that you are airborne for a second.
Work up to generating enough explosive pushing power that you are able to clap your hands together before descending.
Handstand
Position yourself about a foot away from a wall, get down on all fours with your palms on the floor. Now put your feet on the wall behind you and walk your way up the wall to the point where your body is as close to vertical as you can get it.
Perform a push up by lowering your head to the floor. You must touch your head to the floor and then completely extend your arms to lockout to complete one rep.
Hover
From the standard push up start position, lower yourself until you are in the mid-point range. Now simply hover in this position for the required amount of time.
Strategy #2: Fat Burning Cardio
As well as your chest specific push up workout, you need to be doing exercises that burns calories. This will allow you to lose body fat from all over your body, including your chest area. Your smartest option is to choose a calorie burning exercise that involves movement of your chest muscles. A could of exercises that I especially like for this purpose are the elliptical machine and the rowing machine. Both of these moves involve a back and forth arm motion that will get your pecs directly involved as they churn through the calories.
Spend 30 minutes on either of these cardio machines 3 times per week in order to burn the maximum amount of calories to get rid of your chest fat. Make sure that you are exercising at an intense pace to burn as many calories as possible in that 30- minute time span. On the days that you are not doing your cardio workout, go for a 30-minute walk around the neighbourhood to keep up your calorie burning activity level.
Strategy #3: Fat Loss Nutrition
The third prong of your 3-part strategy to burning chest fat involves what you eat. You need to get rid of the high carb, empty calories foods that you are eating and replace them with high protein, healthy fat and low simple carb alternatives. This will stop the insulin spikes that are leading to fat gain while also supporting the muscle gain that will help to sculpt your chest and reduce chest fat.
Cut out all of the processed high carbs from your diet, including pastries, pies, sodas, fatty meats, sweets and cakes. Replace them with such protein rich alternatives as eggs, protein powder, tuna, chicken and lean cuts of red meat.
You should also cut back your daily caloric intake by 500 calories. Over the course of a week this will help you to losing fat, around a pound of fat. Not all of that will come from your chest, but some of it will!
Accumulated chest fat may be partly caused by hormonal imbalances. Ensuring that you get a healthy selection of vitamins and minerals through fruits and vegetables can help to offset this problem.
You May Also Like: Fat Burning Treadmill Interval Workouts
Wrap Up
When you get rid of the chest fat from your upper body, your physique will take on a whole new level of impressiveness. Apply our 3 strategies consistently and you will soon be able to get on top of your chest fat problems, allowing you to build a truly impressive pair of pecs.
Over time you should be able to burn fat consistently to get rid of ‘man boobs’. This will help to reduce fat and build muscle. Furthermore, maintain a good diet and if you are able to follow a calorie deficit diet plan this should help get results quicker. However, if you are able to follow caloric deficits on some days this would help.
If you are unsure of technique or an exercise given your specific circumstances also ask a personal trainer on the best workout to lose chest fat and, in fact, losing fat overall. This maybe because of an injury or medical condition in which case an alternative training program can be implemented for example dumbbell press, incline bench for upper chest workouts only, use of resistance bands, dumbbell pullover and many more.
