Whether you are an amateur or experienced athlete, or simply looking for a better body harmony by reshaping your body, building up your torso muscles is often a priority objective.
Indeed, this part of our body is one of the most popular and is particularly exposed, especially for men.
But before we can achieve a perfect torso, we need to understand how the muscles work. How are the muscles of the torso composed? How can you build up your pectoral muscles? I give you some answers here!
Our torso, also called thorax, is a set of muscles that extends from the base of the neck to the lower abdomen.
It is a “star” part of our body to which we pay a lot of attention, the one that is most worked by bodybuilding enthusiasts such as bodybuilders, but also by more casual athletes looking for a more toned and harmonious figure.
The torso is made up of several distinct muscles that I advise you to know in order to be able to work effectively on it.
The two main muscle groups to know are the pectoral muscles and the abdominal muscles.
It is their development that will give you well-defined “pecs” as well as the famous chocolate bars in the abdomen.
The pectoral muscles are made up of the pectoralis major muscle (upper part) and the pectoralis minor muscle (lower part on the sides).
The abdominal muscles are composed of five pairs of muscles: rectus abdominis, external oblique, internal oblique, transverse and pyramidal.
Our muscles are made up of muscle fibers, in bundles or bundles (a bit like a cable filled with many wires), and they contain ATP (adenosine triphosphate).
ATP is an energetic amino acid that feeds the muscle when it is working, it is stored in our body and is also produced by CP (creatine phosphate) and glycogen when our muscles need it.
During the effort, during a bodybuilding session for example, the muscle is torn and reconstituted. Thus, thanks to the repetition of muscular work, your muscles regenerate faster and faster and become more resistant: the result is then visible, you gain in volume and muscle mass!
To have muscular and well-shaped pectorals, there are 3 elements to take into account: training, recovery, and nutrition.
First of all, for your training, I can only advise you to join a gym. You will have all the necessary equipment (dumbbells, benches, guided machines and cages) as well as the advice of professional instructors.
To build up your pectoral muscles, I recommend the basic exercises, i.e. bench presses to strengthen the pectoralis major (3 to 4 sets of 10 movements, gradually increasing the weight of the barbell or dumbbells), bench presses to build up the clavicular part of the pectoralis major (the upper part), and bench presses.
These exercises can all be done with dumbbells at home. You can complete them with pulley exercises in the gym, or with sets of push-ups at home… or elsewhere! At the end of your workout, I strongly recommend that you take a protein snack (in powder form or in bars) along with BCAAs (amino acids) to help your muscle recovery.
Amino acids help the synthesis of proteins that are essential to your muscles to rebuild and be more resistant.
These food supplements therefore help you during your recovery phase and they promote the development of pectorals.
I recommend one to two sessions per week at the most to build up your pectoral muscles, because a rest period is necessary for optimal recovery. It’s up to you!