Best Chest Exercises

Chest ExercisesBuild Up Your Pecs!

One of the best things you can do for you body to sculpt it the way you want, is to use chest exercises. There are so many different exercises, it can get a little overwhelming and even a little intimidating. You probably don’t want to spend an entire day trying all these exercises and figuring out which one work and don’t work for you. You just want to know which exercises are best for building that muscular chest that you’ve been working towards. Bodybuilding.com developed a list of some the best chest exercises that you might want to add to your routine!

Your chest is comprised of several different muscles. Finding the right chest exercises for each can be a little time consuming, however, you can probably knock out a few exercises because there are several that can do a couple at once! The chest is the muscle that is hit best by heavy pressing movements, as the chest looks best with mass and the best way to get mass is by using those heavy pressing movements. Try out these best chest exercises that Bodybuilding.com put together for your next workout!

What Are The Best Chest Exercises?

The pectoralis major is the big muscle that covers each half of the front of your chest. One of its jobs is to turn your arm inward. Its other job is to help pull your arm forward and down. The pectoralis minor, on the other hand, is directly below the pectoralis major and attached to your third, fourth, and fifth ribs at the bottom and at the top it’s attached to the front of your shoulder blades. These are the two muscles that do most of the work and show the most muscularly. Read below the list of best chest exercises to help build these two muscles!

  • Barbell Bench Press – You have the ability to generate the most power with barbell lifts, so the standard barbell bench allows you to move the most weight. It’s also an easier lift to control than pressing with heavy dumbbells.
  • Flat Bench Dumbbell Press – By using dumbbells, it allows each side of your body to work independently, which recruits more stabilizer muscles. Dumbbells are harder to control than a barbell. They allow for longer range of motion than the barbell bench press,.
  • Low Incline Barbell Bench Press – If the option is given to you, go for a less steep-incline to hit the upper pecs without as much stress on the delts.
  • Machine Decline Press – You can sit sideways on the apparatus of this machine and press across your body one arm at a time. This delivers a completely different feel than when you sit straight on.
  • Seated Machine Chest Press – Machines presses have more added benefits to using them. It’s easier to slow down the repetition, both in the concentric and eccentric phases. The machine bench press recruits much less of the three heads of the deltoid than free weight variations of a decreases need for numeral stablization.
  • Incline Dumbbell Press – Changing the angle of the incline from one set to the next, or from on workout to the next. Hitting a muscle from varying degrees of incline angles builds it more thoroughly.
  • Dip For Chest – Make sure to put your feet behind you, lean forward as far as possible, and allow your elbows to flare out as you dip.
  • Incline Bench Cable Fly – This is an effective move to isolate the pecs after completing your multi-joint exercises. The cables allow for continuous tension throughout the exercise’s full range of motion.
  • Incline Dumbbell Pull Over – The inclined version puts your chest fibers under tension for a longer range of motion. Try and sit at a 45 degree angle and make sure the dumbbell clears the top.
  • Pec-Deck Machine – This simplifies things because it allows you to work in only one pathway unlike trying to use free weights. This is a great exercise and movement teacher and you can go for a great pump without having to balance any weights.