Chest and Back Workout for Hypertrophy

If you want a simple but effective chest and back workout designed for muscle growth, this page will show you what to do.

Ideally you’ll have access to a commercial gym, but a well-equipped home gym set up in your garage, basement or spare room will do the job almost as well.

Chest and Back Workout

• Neutral Grip Pull-Up 3 sets x 5-8 reps
• Press Up 3 sets x 20-30 reps
• Seated Cable Row 3 sets x 8-12 reps
• Cable Crossover 3 sets x 15-20 reps
• Incline High Row 3 sets x 15-20 reps
• Decline Bench Press 3 Sets x 5-8 reps

Neutral Grip Pull-Up

Sets 3 Reps 5-8

Exercise number one is the pull-up, which I like to do with a neutral grip, meaning that my palms face each other.

Doing them this way, rather than using an overhand (palms facing forward) or underhand (palms facing me) grip feels a lot easier on my shoulders and elbows.

I’ll do three sets of pull-ups, aiming for somewhere between 5 and 8 reps in each set. As soon as I hit the point where I can do 8 reps in all three sets, I’ll add weight using

In other words, I’m not pushing that final set to complete failure, but I am getting close. There’s at least one more rep, possibly two, left in the tank.

After that first work set, I’ll rest for around 60 seconds before I move to the next exercise, which is the press-up.

Press Up

Sets 3 Reps 20-30

In days gone by, the first exercise for my chest was always the bench press, usually with a heavy weight for somewhere between 5 and 8 reps.

Problem is, heavy benching causes an old shoulder injury to play up. I tried a few different things to work around the problem, but none of them worked. So now I do press ups, which I find a lot easier on my shoulders.

I’ll usually crank out somewhere between 20 and 30 reps in each set before I get close to failure. In terms of progression, my focus is on adding reps.

I do have a weighted vest that I could use to add load and train in a lower rep range, but my shoulders feel better when I train in a higher rep range. Plus, lighter weights and higher reps stimulate just as much muscle growth as heavy weights and low reps, so I’m not missing out on any gains.

Done properly, press ups are a highly effective way to stimulate muscle growth in the chest, shoulders and triceps.

In one study, four weeks of push-ups delivered gains in muscle size that were no different to those seen with the bench press [2]. In another, eight weeks of training with the bench press or push-up delivered similar gains in muscle thickness in both the chest and triceps [3].

Press ups are also a very joint-friendly way to fatigue my chest, shoulders and triceps. As a result, I don’t need to use as much weight on some of the chest exercises that come later in the workout.

Training this way isn’t ideal for strength development. But it works well for building muscle, especially if your joints give you grief when you go heavy. Lighter weights means less stress on the joints, which means less potential for injury.

I’ll superset press ups with pull-ups until I’ve done three sets of each. That is, I’ll do a set of pull-ups… rest for 60 seconds or so… do a set of press ups… rest for 60 seconds or so… do some more pull-ups… and so on.

Here’s what it looks like:

• Pull-Ups
• Rest 60(ish) seconds
• Press Ups
• Rest 60(ish) seconds
• Repeat

Seated Cable Row

Sets 3 Reps 8-12

As an exercise for working the muscles in my upper back, I much prefer seated rows to barbell rows.

With barbell rows, your spinal erectors — those cable-like muscles that run up both sides of your spine — have to work very hard to keep your spine in a neutral zone and prevent it rounding. 

As a result, they can end up getting fatigued before your lats and upper back, causing you to terminate the set. Either that, or you end up rounding your spine, potentially exposing yourself to an increased risk of injury.

Because you don’t have to support the weight of your head and upper body, the seated row is a lot easier on your lower back than the barbell row.

This lets you focus on training your lats and upper back without lower back fatigue getting in the way.

There are lots of different ways to do seated rows. 

You can use a narrow or a wide grip. You can flare your elbows out to the side or keep them close to your body. You can also row your hands into the lower part of your stomach or higher up towards the chest. 

Each variation is going to work certain areas of the back harder than others.

To maximize the amount of work done by the lats, I like to do seated rows using a V handle. 

My elbows are kept relatively close to the body, rather than being flared out to the side. I also focus on pulling the handle into the lower part of my stomach, rather than higher up on the torso.

Cable Crossover

Sets 3 Reps 15-20

One of the functions of the pecs is to draw the arms across the body in a hugging-type movement, which is exactly what you get with exercises like cable crossovers and flyes.

These types of exercises are also useful because they challenge your muscles at longer lengths. That is, there’s a high level of tension on your muscles when they’re in a stretched position.

Why is that important?

Various studies have been done to establish the importance of training at long muscle lengths when it comes to hypertrophy [4].

In one trial, a team of Japanese scientists compared seated and lying leg curls to see which one stimulated more growth in the hamstrings [5].

After 12 weeks of training, the seated leg curl stimulated significantly more muscle growth in the hamstring muscles that cross the hip, which were the ones trained at long muscle lengths.

A similar study, this time using the leg extension, also shows a faster rate of growth when a muscle is trained at longer lengths [6]. 

Partial reps performed in the bottom third of the movement, which challenge the muscles at long lengths, stimulated more growth than partial reps done in the top third of the movement.

Other muscle groups, specifically the biceps, triceps and calves, have been shown to respond in a similar way [7, 8, 9].

Incline High Row

Sets 3 Reps 15-20

The final back exercise is the incline high row, which looks like this:

Because I’ve already done some lat-focused rows earlier in the workout, this time I want to focus more on the muscles in my upper back.

To do an upper-back focused row, allow the elbows to flare out to the side (as opposed to keeping them close to your body).

Doing the exercise on an incline bench also means that my body weight is supported. This lets me focus on working my upper back muscles without fatigue in the spinal erectors getting in the way.

Decline Bench Press

Sets 3 Reps 5-8

Finally, it’s the decline bench press.

Because I’ve already fatigued my chest, shoulders and triceps with press ups and crossovers, I don’t need to go as heavy on the bench press. 

As I mentioned earlier, this isn’t such a good idea if I wanted to bench the maximum amount of weight possible. But from the point of view of stimulating muscle growth with minimal joint stress, it’s ideal.

Rather than use a flat bench, I set the bench up with a slight 8-degree decline. This has the effect of reducing the range of motion slightly, which makes the exercise a lot easier on my shoulders.

Chest and Back Workout Split

Where does this chest and back workout sit in your weekly training schedule? You’ve got a few options.

The first is to add some exercises that hit the shoulders and arms directly and turn it into a complete upper body workout. 

Most chest and back exercises will hit the shoulders and arms to some degree, so you don’t necessarily need a lot of additional work. A few sets of lateral raises, curls and pressdowns will do the job just fine.

Here’s what it looks like:

• Monday: Chest/Back/Shoulders/Arms
• Tuesday: Lower Body
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Chest/Back/Shoulders/Arms
• Friday: Lower Body
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

However, if you don’t have time to train your entire upper body in one workout, you also have the option of moving the shoulder and arm work to the leg day.

Here’s what it looks like:

• Monday: Chest/Back
• Tuesday: Legs/Shoulders
• Wednesday: Off
• Thursday: Chest/Back
• Friday: Legs/Arms
• Saturday: Off
• Sunday: Off

Training the legs alongside smaller muscle groups like the deltoids, biceps and triceps makes it relatively easy to incorporate paired sets (sometimes referred to as supersets) in your workouts, which is a much more efficient use of the time you spend in the gym.

For example, you might do a set on the leg press, then rest just long enough to catch your breath. 

Next, you pick up a light dumbbell and crank out a set of lateral raises, curls or pressdowns. Then you rest again for a minute or so before going back to leg presses.

Training like this cuts down on the amount of dead time you spend sitting around resting between sets. You get to squeeze in some extra work for your shoulders and arms while keeping your workouts down to a reasonable length.

Option three is the Arnold Split. This is a 6-day routine where you train chest and back on day one, shoulders and arms on day two, followed by legs on day three, then rinse and repeat.

Here’s what it looks like:

• Monday: Chest/Back
• Tuesday: Shoulders/Arms
• Wednesday: Legs
• Thursday: Chest/Back
• Friday: Shoulders/Arms
• Saturday: Legs
• Sunday: Off

How to Warm Up for a Chest and Back Workout

The number of sets listed are the actual work sets only, and don’t include warm-up sets.

It’s always a good idea, especially if you’re using heavy weights, to do several progressively heavier warm-up sets. This will prepare the joints, the muscles and the nervous system that controls those muscles for the heavy work to come.

Your muscles will be able to perform better in the work sets to come, as well as being more resilient to injury.

In most cases, somewhere between 1-3 warm-up sets will do the job. However, the exact number of warm-up sets you do will vary depending on a number of factors, including the temperature of the gym you’re training in, how your joints feel, the amount of weight you’re lifting, and where that exercise is placed in the workout.

There have been times when I’ve been training in a cold gym, it’s early in the morning and my joints are feeling a bit stiff, where I’ve ended up doing 7-8 warm-up sets before getting into the heavy stuff.

On the flip side, with some of the exercises that come later in the workout, the muscles being worked are already warm, so you won’t need many, if any, warm-up sets.

Because the first exercise is the pull-up, I’d suggest a few light warm-up sets on the lat pulldown machine.

And by light, I’m talking about a weight that’s around 40-50% of the weight you’d typically use in a work set.

What about stretching?

In most cases, there’s very little benefit in stretching, be it dynamic or static, as part of a warm-up.

While the adverse effects of stretching on strength and power have been exaggerated, most studies show that pre-exercise stretching does little for injury prevention and has no beneficial effects on lifting performance.

Can you stretch as part of your warm up? Yes. Do you have to? No. It’s certainly not mandatory, and many people will do just as well without it.

You can read more about how to warm up for weight training here.

How To Progress A Chest And Back Workout

No matter how your training split is set up, it’s important to train hard and focus on improving your performance in the gym over time.

Do the same exercises, for the same number of sets and reps, while lifting the same amount of weight, for the next five years. Nothing much is going to happen.

That’s because the training you’re doing is a challenge your body has already adapted to. As a result, no new muscle mass will be gained.

I’m not saying you’ll make progress every time you go to the gym. To do so indefinitely would be impossible, and there’ll be times when you end up lifting the same amount of weight, for the same number of sets and reps you did before.

However, you should be pushing yourself to increase the amount of work your muscles are doing in the gym, whether that’s lifting heavier weights, doing more reps with the same weight, or doing more sets (up to a point, anyway).

You need to give your muscles a reason to get bigger, or you’ll remain stuck at the same size you are right now.

So make sure to keep a training journal, write down your numbers, and always try to beat your previous workout in some way.

You’ll notice that the workouts use rep ranges, such as 5-8 or 8-12, rather than a fixed number of reps in each set.

For example, let’s say that the prescription for a particular exercise is 3 sets of 5-8 reps.

The idea is that you select a weight that allows you to perform at least 5 reps in each set, but no more than 8.

Every time you go to the gym, you try to do more reps than you did the workout before. Once you’re able to do 8 reps in every set, increase the weight for the following workout.

It’s a form of progression known as the double progression method. Here’s an example of how it might look in practice:

Workout 1

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 5 reps

Workout 2

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 7 reps

Workout 3

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 7 reps

Workout 4

• Set 1: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 2: 100 pounds x 8 reps
• Set 3: 100 pounds x 8 reps

Workout 5

• Set 1: 105 pounds x 7 reps
• Set 2: 105 pounds x 6 reps
• Set 3: 105 pounds x 5 reps

As you can see, in workout four, once you’re able to do 8 reps in all 3 sets, you add weight in the fifth workout and repeat the cycle. 

This simple double progression method can work well for most exercises, and will produce decent gains in muscle mass over several months, just as long as you stay consistent and work hard.

It’s also important to make sure that your technique remains solid from one workout to the next. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’ve gotten stronger, when all you’re doing is cheating on those last few reps to get the weight up.

The exact number of workouts it takes to reach this point will vary from person to person, and from exercise to exercise.

It might take 10 workouts or it might take 5. But wait until you can do 3 sets of 8 reps before adding weight.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many sets and reps should I do for chest and back?

As a rule of thumb, I’d suggest doing 2-5 sets per exercise, and anywhere between 5 and 30 reps per set.

The number of reps you do depends a lot on whether you want to build size, strength or a mixture of both.

Muscle growth can be achieved with both heavy and light weights. But if it’s strength gains you’re after, keep your reps near the lower end of that range. 

Personally, I like to include a mix of both heavy and light training in my workouts. Some exercises lend themselves to heavier weights and lower reps (such as the bench press and pull-up, for example), while others (such as cable crossovers or dumbbell flyes) are better suited to higher reps and lighter weights.

Should I do chest or back first?

You can start with chest or back first, it’s not going to make a meaningful difference to the effectiveness of the workout one way or the other. As long as you warm-up properly, your first exercise can be a chest exercise or a back exercise.