And theres a simple reason for that. Whenever you set up under the bench press (or heck, whenever you do a pushup), youre working your chest. You know that. Especially when it comes to the bench press, youre doing the movement in an effort to build more chest size, muscle, and strength.

But your chest doesnt work in isolation. Anytime you push anything, youre utilizing your chest in conjunction with your shoulders and (yep) your triceps. Your tris, the thick muscles on the backs of your arms, are key pushing muscles, straightening your arms and driving your hands farther away from your body.

Your chest and tris work together so often that it makes sense to build them into the same workout. And thats what youre going to do in this session.

Chest-and-Triceps Workouts Fit With Pull-Push-Legs

The great thing about a chest-and-triceps workout is it works despite your training style. Its especially valuable, too, if you train with the pull-push-legs split. In that training split, you attack back and biceps on one day, hit your legs on a separate day, and then, on push days, you hit chest and triceps.

The muscles complement each other so it makes sense. Youre activating your tris on that bench press and, if you push your body hard enough, youre overloading your triceps with a stimulus that can spark growth. Why not finish them off with a little triceps isolation at the end of your chest session?

Its an effective use of gym time that can get you to many of the goals you have, especially if they regard a chiseled chest and powerful arms.

Arranging a Chest-and-Tris Workout

The key to the workout is the setup. Your chest is the more dominant, powerful muscle group, so you want to attack it first, ensuring that youre moving your heaviest weights. This also creates greater calorie-burning stimulus: Youre firing up your metabolism when you move those heavy weights in multijoint motions like the bench press and incline press.

Youre also warming up your triceps on all those bench press and pushup moves, because, again your triceps cant help but be part of the equation. One of your triceps main jobs is extending your arm at the elbow, driving your arm straight. Every time you lock out at the elbow? Yup, its your tris that get you there.

So theyre getting a little work on every rep you do for chest. Then, when theyre fatigued, youre smoking them a bit more with lighter-weight isolation ideas to spur arm growth.

Your Workout

Do this workout twice a week. Ideally, youll also train your back twice a week ( ) then do a separate legs workout, like .

Warm up for this workout by doing a quick circuit: Do 20 jumping jacks, 10 Superman holds, a 30-second plank, and this warmup. Then do each move in order. Complete all reps and all sets before heading to the next exercise.

Dumbbell Bench Press

Start with the most fundamental mass-builder for your chest. Do 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps. Rest 90 seconds between each set.