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Kettlebell Not having access to a bench or barbells, should I give up on chest?

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Eric Wilson

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My fitness goals are pretty general, including strength, conditioning, and mass. (I'm a man in late forties, very thin, and not strong.)

I'm working with kettlebells, a pull-up bar, and an ab wheel currently, with no plans on investing in a bench.

Should I try to do some sort of horizontal push? If so, what is the most effective, with my current equipment.

Or should I give up on strengthing / building pectoral muscles?

A dip rack would probably be cheaper and smaller than a bench, would that be a good substitute?
 
You can do kettlebell floor presses, not to mention push-ups. Push-ups with your hands raised on blocks or similar so you can get a bit more range of motion in the movement will really emphasise the chest.

Parallel bar dips are a great way to build the chest and are also really easy to load if you invest in a dip belt.
 
Arthur Jones quote :
“…just about anybody else in this country can produce nearly all of the potential benefits of proper exercise without spending much if anything in excess of about twenty dollars. You can build both a chinning bar and a pair of parallel dip bars for a total cost of only a few dollars, and those two exercises, chins and dips, if properly performed, will stimulate muscular growth in your upper body and arms that will eventually lead to muscular size and strength that is very close to your potential.

I'd reckon to say that chins and dips will build you up sufficiently.
 
If you're asking about choosing between them, I'd pick pushups or dips over a KB floor press, for the greater ROM if nothing else. Use your KBs for overhead work. Overhead and horizontal pressing, for me at least, have been surprisingly orthogonal - they don't seem to interfere with each other.
 
A dip bar is a good investement. You could also consider buying gymnastic rings since you already have a pullup bar.
Of course you can still train chest by doing pushups and dips.
It all depends on your specific goals but you do not have to do bench presses in order to train your pecs.
 
I'm taking it that you're relatively untrained? With the equipment you listed in your original post, you have everything you need to do the program, as written, from "Enter the kettlbell".

Just doing that program alone will cause many composition changes. I say that because is easy to start chasing exercises. I.e "I need a big chest", "oh this article says my lats are important, what exercise targets them" and the next thing you know you're not sticking to anything and your missing out on all the gains you'd get by just picking a program and sticking to it. This has been my unfortunate experience.
 
People already told you what to do.
Depending on your starting point you can use pushups (later elevated/with added weight through vest, backpack and/or resistance bands), dips (which you can later load up with a dip belt), one-arm pushups and KB floor presses. You definitely don't need a bench to work the pecs.
Imagine someone being able to do 5-10 one-arm-pushups per arm, dipping for 10reps with 50Kg added to the dip belt, doing 10rep sets (per arm) KB floor presses with the Beast...Do you think that's someone without good chest development?
 
My fitness goals are pretty general, including strength, conditioning, and mass. (I'm a man in late forties, very thin, and not strong.)
[…]
Or should I give up on strengthing / building pectoral muscles?

While I understand what you are trying to do, I will offer a small note of caution. The influence of Joe Weider got bodybuilders to fixate on their chest, and the influence of bodybuilders caused many ordinary guys to fixate on their chest. But one can work successfully on their overall strength without having to treat the chest as an isolated body part.

(For myself, I find it a lot more fun to explore what I am capable of than to view myself as a bunch of separate body parts each in need of remediation. This is not meant to diss your efforts at self improvement, as I respect what you trying to do. I am just offering an alternative way to look at such self improvement.)
 
My fitness goals are pretty general, including strength, conditioning, and mass. (I'm a man in late forties, very thin, and not strong.)

I'm working with kettlebells, a pull-up bar, and an ab wheel currently, with no plans on investing in a bench.

Should I try to do some sort of horizontal push? If so, what is the most effective, with my current equipment.

Or should I give up on strengthing / building pectoral muscles?

A dip rack would probably be cheaper and smaller than a bench, would that be a good substitute?

Steve Maxwell crusher pushups are a good choice:



Pushups with a sandbag or similar on my upper back are my favorite horizontal push, I don't think I'd use benchpress even if I had one.
 
While I understand what you are trying to do, I will offer a small note of caution. The influence of Joe Weider got bodybuilders to fixate on their chest, and the influence of bodybuilders caused many ordinary guys to fixate on their chest. But one can work successfully on their overall strength without having to treat the chest as an isolated body part.

(For myself, I find it a lot more fun to explore what I am capable of than to view myself as a bunch of separate body parts each in need of remediation. This is not meant to diss your efforts at self improvement, as I respect what you trying to do. I am just offering an alternative way to look at such self improvement.)
That's helpful.

I'm not focused on the bodybuilding look, I just don't want to overlook a major group of muscles, as I have slowly lost weight over the last thirty years, such that I think hypertrophy is important for my long term health.
 
Do you have a floor? If so, do push-ups. HFT, Chad Waterbuty’s Style works well.
Rings are great and inexpensive. Push ups and dips on rings are great and easier on shoulders than parallel bar dips or bench press. You can also add weight to them with weight vest or dip belt. I have 60 lbs vest and like to use it for ring push ups. My shoulders like it much better than bench press.
 
Part of my question (implied) is: Are kettlebell floor presses a good and effective exercise?
For building strength? No, they are to light. For hypertrophy? No, you need a bigger range of motion. Think ring pushups or chair pushups if you don’t want to spend $30 for rings. KB are good accessories and conditioning tools.
 
You could do pushups for a lifetime going from regular pushups to pushup variations (hindu, divebomber, close grip) to one arm to one arm one leg pushups. I second Chad Waterbury's approach, which is in line with SF recent work. Pavel's Grease the Groove to start.

I would do rows with your KB if you do a lot of pushups.

Dips are great but easy to go wrong for an exercise that looks so simple.
 
I like floor presses, I think they are a worthwhile exercise. That said, if general strength and health is your goal, I think that a properly executed push up can achieve just about everything you need it to. If you need more, I'd buy the Naked Warrior and explore 1 arm pushups. Backward crawling is another wonderful activity that will strengthen you appropriately.

I wouldn't stress about not having a bench. The strong men of olde were very impressive and didn't have the (relatively modern) bench press as an option.
 
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