A powerful-looking upper body starts with a chiseled chest. And there are no better power tools for sculpting your pecs than the 5 exercises that follow.
Choose two or three to work into your routine, and for best results, rotate in new movements every 3 or 4 weeks.
Exercise 1 Incline bench-press
This exercises helps to focus more on pec-minor and less specifically helps to build muscle in the upper chest.
Flat bench-press
This the middle-ground which incorporates both pec-minor and pec-major, however doesn’t particularly focus hypertrophy to a specific part of the chest.
Decline bench-press
This exercise targets pec-major, and helps to improve the lower chest. In terms of free-weight benches which you can adjust yourself, the higher the bench is standing, the more you’ll incorporate your pec-minor and deltoids; it’s important not to set the bench up too high, otherwise you’ll end up shoulder-pressing. A sensible angle would be between 20° and 30°. As for doing bench-press on a declined angle, use the same angle in a negative direction.
Exercise 2: Decline Barbell Bench-Press
Starting with a strong compound movement is a great way to get the blood pumping into your muscles at the beginning of a workout; this is why I choose to start my chest workout with the decline bench-press.
Exercise 3: Incline Bar-Press
Now that we’ve got the blood rushing through the pec-major, we want to involve the pec-minor so that the whole of the chest experiences a workload and forces more blood into the upper chest in order to help bring a ‘pump’ to the entire chest.
Using the incline bar-press is a unique way to directly focus on the pec-minor; this also involves some use of the deltoids.
If your gym does not have a barbell floor mount which stops the bar from rolling when you pick up one end, you can place the bar into a corner of a room in order to perform this exercise.
Exercise 4 dumbbell Squeeze Press
Squeezing the weights together during a chest press shifts all the stress onto your pectorals. This simple tweak engages them throughout the entire range of motion, which is a key factor in maximizing muscle growth.
Related: The Simplest Way to Build More Muscle
Do it: Lie on a bench holding a pair of dumbbells with your arms straight above your chest, palms facing together. Let the weights touch and squeeze them together as hard as possible.
Maintain this squeeze the entire time, making sure the dumbbells stay in contact with each other. Lower the weights to the sides of your chest, and then push them back up to the starting position.
Exercise 5 Chest Squeeze Pushup
This exercise tasks you with squeezing a pair of dumbbells together while doing a pushup.
“The squeezing action creates a stimulus that really fires up the muscle fibers in your chest,” says BJ Gaddour, Men’s Health Fitness Advisor.
Do it: Place two dumbbells next to each other so that they’re touching with the handles are parallel to each other. Assume a standard pushup position, grabbing a dumbbell handle with each hand. Your arms should be straight and your body should form a straight line from your ankles to your head.
Related: The Pushup Workout From Hell
Forcefully press the weights together, and lower your body until your chest nearly touches the dumbbells. Push your body back up and repeat, but don’t stop “squeezing” the dumbbells together.