When building a stronger chest, don’t make pure strength your primary goal. As an athlete, you also have to think about function, so your body can meet the demands of your sport. Muscle that lacks flexibility or endurance won’t do you much good on the field.
Suspension training chest exercises are perfect for building both strength and function, because they add instability to your workout. Suspension exercises teach your muscles how to control your body in an unstable and unpredictable environment, similar to what you experience in sports. Although you won't be lifting massive amounts of weight with suspension exercises, you will increase your mobility, stability, balance, endurance—and, yes, your strength.
For a more balanced workout, add the following suspension exercises to your upper-body training once or twice a week. I recommend performing them for time instead of reps. Start with three sets of 30 seconds each and progress to sets of 60 seconds. After you’ve mastered 60-second sets, make the exercises more difficult by taking additional steps back to increase your forward lean. Once you can support most of your upper-body weight throughout these exercises, move on to the more advanced suspension chest exercises coming in Part 2.
Check out FMX legend Brian Deegan's brutal TRX Atomic Push-Up routine.
When performing suspension chest exercises:
