A big chest can be appreciated and noticed year-round — under a tank top or a parka, it shows. And the chances are good that if you’ve spent years building up your pectorals to Terry Crews’ level, then you probably also have the pressing strength to match. Not there yet? That’s cool.
Whether you’re taking your first steps in the weight room or are a gymgoing veteran, you probably celebrate International Chest Day every Monday like most folks. No matter which day you opt to hit your pecs, you need the right exercises to occupy your workout program.
We’ve compiled a list of the 17 best chest exercises (which, yes, are still useful if you’re already jacked) and a few sections on how to train your chest. Heed our advice and then heave some weights.
17 Best Chest Exercises
- Barbell Flat Bench Press
- Barbell Incline Bench Press
- Barbell Decline Bench Press
- Chest Flye
- Dumbbell Bench Press
- Push-Up
- Dip
- Svend Press
- Cable Iron Cross
- Chaos Push-Up
- Plyo Push-Up
- Dumbbell Floor Press
- Pause Push-Up
- Side-to-Side Landmine Press
- Close-Grip Push-Up
- Cable Press-Around
- Incline Dumbbell Hex Press
1. Barbell Flat Bench Press
The bench press is a classic exercise. Powerlifters do it to see who has the most pressing strength, gym rats use it to build up their pecs, and athletes utilize the bench for explosive pushing power.
[Read More: 5 Bench Press Programs to Build a Bigger, Stronger Chest]
The bench press should be a staple in your routine for more chest size and strength, since compared to most other chest exercises, you can load the bench press up with a relatively heavy amount of weight. Beyond that, benching is necessary for powerlifters, since it’s one of the three lifts judged in a powerlifting meet.
How to Do It
- Lay back down on a bench, arch your lower back slightly, and plant your feet on the floor.
- Pull your shoulder blades together to enhance stability and upper back strength.
- Grab the bar and squeeze the hand hard to flex the arm and grip muscles maximally.
- With the load unracked, think about pulling the barbell to the body to touch the sternum/base of the chest.
- Press the weight upwards, making sure to keep your back tight, and shoulder blades pulled together.
Coach’s Tip: A strong spinal arch will reduce your range of motion and improve your leverage.
Sets and Reps: Go hard and heavy with 4 sets of 5 to 8 reps.
2. Incline Bench Press
The incline press is somewhat of a hybrid of an overhead press and flat bench press, and so pressing a barbell (or a pair of kettlebells or dumbbells) from an incline recruits more of the muscle fibers in the upper chest and taxes the shoulders a bit more. For that reason, strongmen like to use this pressing variation since it has more carryover to log presses and axle bar clean and presses.
The incline bench press benefits you by providing more shoulder and upper chest activation than a standard flat press. Also, the increased emphasis on the front delts should provide carryover to overhead pressing movements.
How to Do It
- Adjust a weight bench so it is at a 45-degree angle and set up similarly to that of the flat bench press.
- Unrack the loaded barbell and begin to pull the load downwards to line with the upper chest (a few inches below the clavicle).
- With the shoulder blades pulled together and elbows angled at about 45 degrees.
- Push the barbell upward.
Coach’s Tip: Adjust the seat such that the barbell is slightly behind your eye line before you unrack it.
Sets and Reps: Try 3 or 4 sets of 6 to 8 reps.
3. Decline Bench Press
The third major barbell bench press variation focuses on the lower pectoral fibers. This pressing variation is typically less strenuous on your shoulders than the standard bench press because of the shifted shoulder angle.
[Read More: What Are Workout Splits and Which Is the Best One?]
You’ll also be able to target your chest from a different angle, which is important when you’re looking to develop a well-rounded musculature. If anything, the decline bench press gains points for novelty alone.
How to Do It
- Start by securing your feet into a decline bench set up and secure your upper back and hips to the bench (similar to the flat bench press).
- Unrack the weight and pull the load downwards toward the sternum while keeping the shoulder blades pulled together.
- Press through the barbell to lock out your elbows. Be sure not to allow the elbows to flare excessively out.
Coach’s Tip: The barbell should hit lower on your chest than during a flat or incline press.
Sets and Reps: 3 to 4 sets of 6 to 8 reps should work well here.
4. Chest Flye
The chest flye — which can be done with dumbbells or on a cable machine — is a popular bodybuilding exercise to stretch the muscle fibers and pump up the muscle. That pump will help to drive nutrient-rich blood to the target area to help speed up muscle recovery.
Using dumbbells will also help improve your body’s ability to coordinate as you’re forced to stabilize each weight independently. Cables, on the other hand, provided consistent mechanical tension. Regardless, the chest flye is useful for training your chest without having to resort to ultra-heavy weights.
How to Do It
- Lie back on a bench (either flat, decline, or incline), with a dumbbell in each hand.
- With a slight bend in your elbows, lower your arms out to your sides slowly and with control.
- Now, reverse the motion to engage the chest. You should look like you’re hugging a tree.
Coach’s Tip: You can pause at the bottom of each rep for some productive loaded stretching.
Sets and Reps: Start with 2 sets of 12 to 15 reps.
5. Dumbbell Bench Press
The dumbbell bench press doesn’t allow you to go as heavy as its barbell counterpart, but there’s a lot to like about this move. For one, you’re controlling two dumbbells, which works your chest (and the smaller stabilizer muscles around your shoulder joint) differently than the bench press.
If you have a weaker side, then this movement’s unilateral nature allows one side to catch up to the other. If you’re a person who suffers from shoulder or elbow pain, using dumbbells lets you manipulate your grip and arm angle to find a pressing position that’s more comfortable for you.
How to Do It
- Sit up on a flat bench and then hinge forward to pick up each dumbbell.
- Place each weight on a knee and get set.
- Lean back and then drive the dumbbells back towards you (carefully) with your knees, simultaneously pressing the weights over your chest.
- Lower the weights, keeping your elbows tucked in at 45 degrees until your elbows break 90 degrees.
- Then, drive the dumbbells back up.
Coach’s Tip: Push the weights both upward and in toward your midline.
Sets and Reps: Try 3 or 4 sets of 8 to 10 reps to start.
6. Push-Up
You probably performed push-ups in gym class as a kid, though not explicitly for the purpose of growing your pecs. However, that doesn’t mean you should leave them behind on the gymnasium floor.
Push-ups are severely underrated, even for intermediate or advanced lifters. Because you’re working out with just your body weight, your joints won’t be under as much stress as weighted movements. You can also really do a lot of pushups in a short amount of time, so you’ll accumulate more muscle-building stimulus overall.
How to Do It
- Get into a plank position, with your hands underneath your shoulders, back flat, and feet together.
- Screw your palms into the ground. You should feel your chest tighten.
- Hold this position, and then slowly lower yourself until your chest is about an inch from the floor.
- Now, drive back up through the palms of your hands.
Coach’s Tip: Contract your abs hard. There should be no dip in your lower back.
Sets and Reps: Work up to 20 unbroken push-ups in a single set, and then start doing a few sets of 6 to 10 reps with a small weight plate on your back.
7. Dip
The dip is another bodyweight gem. Compared to the push-up, which has you on all fours, you’re suspended for the dip, and so your complete body weight is in play.
[Read More: The 15 Best Shoulder Exercises For Building Muscle]
You’ll also seriously recruit your triceps, which are essentially involved in all pressing movements, so working them in tandem with the chest will help strengthen the synergistic muscles in unison.
How to Do It
- Grab the dip bar firmly and get yourself in the top of the dip position, with your upper back tight and shoulder blades squeezed together.
- Angle your torso slightly forward and allow your elbows to bend as they slightly tuck inwards towards the sides of the torso.
- Lower yourself down until your elbows bend at about 90 degrees.
- When ready, press through the handles and bring your body upright into the top of the dip position.
Coach’s Tip: Keep your shoulders packed down and away from your ears the entire time.
Sets and Reps: Once you can perform 20 clean reps on the dip bars, you can start doing additional sets with a light weight between your ankles.
8. Svend Press
The silliest-looking move on this list might just be the most painful(-ly effective). To avoid dropping two plates on your toes, you need to squeeze the weights together continuously. That alone will get those pecs activated.
Then, you’ll extend your arms to squeeze the chest together even more. The Svend press is low-impact and thus easier to handle than doing even more heavy pressing. It also requires little equipment (so you won’t need to wait for a bench to open up in a busy gym.)
How to Do It
- Start by taking two smaller weight plates (five or 10-pound plates) and pressing them together between your hands.
- Your arms should be extended outwards in front of you.
- While actively pinching the plate together and not letting them slip apart (constant tension), pull the plates towards your sternum as you keep your chest up and shoulder blades pulled together.
- Flex your chest and press the weights back outwards. Keep the plates pressed together and the inner chest muscles engaged.
Coach’s Tip: Use the Svend press to prime your pecs between sets of other chest exercises.
Sets and Reps: Five slow and controlled reps should do the trick.
9. Cable Iron Cross
The iron cross is a gymnastics classic, but when performed in a cable tree can be great for physique development too. This exercise stretches your chest muscles from the start and takes you through a large range of motion for better chest-building potential.
[Read More: The 15 Best Home Gym Machines]
The constant tension from the cable machine also means that your muscles are under tension longer for improved chest hypertrophy. The iron cross also trains the hard-to-reach lower chest area for more complete and comprehensive muscle growth.
How to Do the Cable Iron Cross
- Set the handles at both ends of the cable machine at the highest level.
- Stand in the center with a staggered stance and take hold of both handles.
- Lean your torso forward keeping your spine in neutral and bend your elbows slightly too.
- Keeping your core tight pull both handles down and across your body and squeeze the chest muscles at the end of the movement.
Coach’s Tip: Think about actively jamming your upper arm against your torso at the end of each rep.
Sets and Reps: Pump your chest up with 2 or 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps.
10. Chaos Push-Up
Resistance bands are a great tool to build the chest too. By looping a heavy band around a squat rack, you can perform a variety of exercises — including the chaos push-up. The unstable resistance band fires up all your stabilizing muscles while performing a push-up.
If you’ve got anything less than perfect form, the band will give you instant feedback. Plus, the increased time under tension does wonders for building your chest. Band training also activates the smaller stabilizers (shoulder, core, and hips) while improving proprioception.
How to Do It
- Loop a heavy-duty band around the squat rack.
- The higher up the band, the easier the exercise. Lowering the band makes it harder.
- Place your hands on the band in a shoulder-width grip and grip tight.
- Bring your legs behind you. Engage your glutes and core.
- Slowly lower yourself down into a push-up. Press up against the band.
Coach’s Tip: Think about pulling the band apart as you lower yourself down to activate your rear delts.
Sets and Reps: 2 sets of 10 reps should fire you up at the start of your workout.
11. Plyo Push-Up
When you get into the higher push-up rep ranges, you’re training muscular endurance and not just muscle-building. Enter the plyo push-up, one of the more difficult push-up variations to perform.
[Read More: The Best Back Workout for Men, Women, Strength, and More]
You’ll primarily be training power rather than run-of-the-mill endurance. Performing the plyo push-up will activate your fast-twitch muscle fibers, which have tremendous potential for growth. This isn’t just important for aesthetics. More powerful muscles can directly carry over to your bench-pressing prowess.
How to Do It
- Get into a push-up position with your hands underneath your shoulders.
- Lower yourself to the floor.
- Explosively push yourself up, with your hands leaving the ground.
- Slightly bend your elbows on the way down to better absorb the force.
- Rapidly descend into another push-up. Repeat.
Coach’s Tip: You don’t need to push yourself off the floor as high as possible, you just need to explosively contract your pecs and arms.
Sets and Reps: Try 3 to 4 sets of 5 reps to develop muscular power.
12. Dumbbell Floor Press
The dumbbell floor press overloads your triceps and chest while limiting your range of motion (ROM). This makes it a viable option if you want to avoid too much shoulder strain or wish to emphasize the second half of the bench-press pattern specifically.
The neutral grip and the reduced ROM on the floor make this move easier on your shoulders. Also, reducing lower-body involvement with the floor press puts more focus on your chest and triceps.
How to Do It
- Lie on your back with a dumbbell by your side.
- Roll over and grip the dumbbell with both hands, press it up, and take one hand off.
- Have your feet planted on the ground or extend your legs. This is a matter of personal preference.
- Lower the dumbbell down until your upper arm touches the ground.
- Press up to lockout. Reset and repeat for reps. Repeat on the other side.
Coach’s Tip: Think about gently “kissing” the floor with your elbows rather than banging them against the ground.
Sets and Reps: Start out with 2 or 3 sets of 8 to 12 reps.
13. Pause Push-Up
There’s nothing wrong with pumping out as many push-ups as possible — but you’ll be crossing into muscular endurance territory and not as much hypertrophy. When you want to feel your chest muscles working (and growing), the pause push-up is what you want.
[Read More: Build a Titanic Torso with These Bodybuilding Chest & Back Workouts]
The pause gives your chest muscles more time under tension for better muscle-building potential. It also takes the stretch reflex out of the muscle, making you work harder to overcome gravity. You’ll build more core strength because you’re pausing in a difficult position and your lower back and anterior core work harder to maintain a neutral spine.
How to Do It
- Set up as you would for a regular push-up.
- Lower down with your arms about 45 degrees out from your torso.
- Stop with your chest just above the ground for three to five seconds.
- Push back up until lockout. Reset and repeat.
Coach’s Tip: The longer you pause, the harder your core will have to work.
Sets and Reps: 2 sets of 12 to 15 reps should have you burning from head to toe.
14. Side-to-Side Landmine Press
The side-to-side landmine press is another great landmine press option when you want to train the chest and triceps with increased load. Holding the barbell with two hands in a close grip allows you to go heavier than other landmine press alternatives for increased chest size and strength.
The act of pressing and lowering from shoulder-to-shoulder also trains anti-rotational core strength. That’s crucial for other unstable moves like Olympic lifts and even squats — which demand a lot of lateral stability for the most efficient lifts.
How to Do It
- Hold the end of the barbell with both hands a few inches from your right shoulder.
- Keep your shoulders down and your chest up.
- Press the barbell up and to the center of your body. Lock out your arms.
- Lower to your left shoulder. Press to the center again.
- Lower down to your right shoulder. Keep alternating sides for an even number of reps on each side.
Coach’s Tip: Actively resist the weight as it attempts to twist your torso while you perform your reps.
Sets and Reps; If you go heavy, 2 sets of 5 to 8 reps should be plenty here.
15. Close-Grip Push-Up
The close-grip push-up is where you set up with your hands closer than shoulder-width apart. You’ll keep your upper arms tucked even more closely to your rib cage. This shifts the load more to your triceps, inner chest, and anterior delts.
[Read More: The 15 Best Shoulder Exercises For Building Muscle]
Because of the reduced base of support, you’ll perform fewer reps than the regular push-up. But you’ll be training the pectorals from a different angle for better muscle development. Since your shoulders are more internally rotated and less externally rotated, you’ll take some of the pressure off your shoulder joints.
How to Do It
- Get into a plank position. Keep your hands close together, back flat, and feet wider than hip-width.
- Screw your palms into the ground. Try to feel your chest tighten.
- Slowly lower yourself until your chest is about an inch from the floor and your upper arms are touching your sides.
- Drive back up until lockout. Reset and repeat.
Coach’s Tip: Wearing wrist wraps may alleviate some discomfort during this exercise.
Sets and Reps: Work up to 20 clean reps and then consider adding weight for additional sets with fewer reps.
16. Cable Press-Around
To make the most of your chest training, you should include exercises that take your pecs through their full contractile range of motion. Neither flyes nor presses satisfy this requirement perfectly, but the cable press-around does.
The cable press-around is a mixture of a flye and a chest press. It includes a rotational component and can stimulate your pecs in a whole new way if you can get the technique right. This exercise applies constant tension to the muscle from the cable station and also lets you work your chest unilaterally without a high balance component.
How to Do It
- Stand facing at a 45-degree angle away from a cable handle set at around waist height.
- Grab the handle and allow it to pull tension across your chest.
- With a slightly bent elbow, sweep your arm around your torso.
- Squeeze your pec hard and pause for a beat at the end, and then reverse the motion.
Coach’s Tip: Your arm should cross your midline to fully contract your pectorals.
Sets and Reps: Try out 2 or 3 sets of 12 to 15 reps.
17. Incline Dumbbell Hex Press
To build the best pair of pecs you can, you need to do more than slam presses on a flat bench (though that’s certainly a good starting point).
[Read More: How to Do the Lat Pulldown for a Wider Back and Better Pull-Ups]
The incline hex press accomplishes several things at once. You can train your triceps and front delts simultaneously, you can contract your chest isometrically and dynamically, and you can also engage your upper chest throughout.
How to Do It
- Lie on a low-to-medium incline bench with a pair of dumbbells above your head.
- Tuck your inner arms against your torso and clasp the sides of the dumbbells together.
- Squeeze them tightly and lower your arms down until the bells touch your chest.
- Reverse the motion, ensuring the dumbbells don’t come apart at any point.
Coach’s Tip: Actively push the dumbbells against one another the entire time.
Sets and Reps: Try 2 sets of 15 reps at the end of your workout.
Chest Warm-Up
A good warm-up can make an average workout exceptional. To get the most out of your chest day, you need to prime the pecs for contraction and ensure your shoulders, wrists, and elbows are all ready to handle heavy weights.
[Read More: Use the Bent-Over Row to Make Big Gains With Big Weights]
After a few minutes of light cardio, perform any upper back exercise that you find comfortable and effective for engaging your scapula — think face pulls, rear-delt flyes, or band pull-aparts. After that, a few light sets of your first exercise, focusing hard on the contraction and engagement of the pecs, should have you ready to go.
Need a sample chest warm-up? Here you go:
- Band Pull-Apart: 2 x 15-20
- Scapular Push-Up: 2 x 10
- Rear Delt Flye: 2 x 12
- World’s Greatest Stretch: 3 x 4 per side
- Push-Up: 3 x 5-10
You’ll notice more than a couple of back-focused warm-ups here. That’s because your lats are actually quite involved in stabilizing your big chest moves. To protect your shoulders, you’ll want to get your back ready for chest day, too.
4 Chest Workouts To Try
There’s no all-in-one “best” chest workout; it all depends on your goals and what you want out of your pec training. Want to build a pair of pecs you can balance a beer can on? We’ve got you covered. Need to bring up your bench press max ahead of your next powerlifting meet? You should probably get comfortable with the barbell. Try out
Chest Workout for Strength
A good strength-focused chest workout begins on the bench press. The barbell bench press allows you to lift tremendous amounts of weight for progressive overload, and is also the standard by which most people measure true chest strength. Afterwards, follow your benching up with a few smartly-selected accessory movements, and you’re off to the races:
- Barbell Bench Press: 5 x 5
- Incline Dumbbell Flye: 3 x 8
- Weighted Dip: 3 x 2 reps shy of failure
- Banded Push-Up: 3 x 2 reps shy of failure
Chest Workout for Mass
You might be able to lift heavy, but if you’re not training for chest hypertrophy, it might not look that way. If you really want to target your chest for size, you’ll want to choose moderately heavy weights and focus on time under tension, and achieving an adequate range of motion. Your chest has a lot of dimensions, so you’ll want to emphasize each chest angle with your training.
- Decline Barbell Bench Press: 4 x 8
- Incline Push-Up: 3 x 2 reps shy of failure
- Weighted Dip: 3 x 2 reps shy of failure
- Cable Flye: 4 x 12
- Push-up: two sets of max reps
Chest Workout for Beginners
If you’re a gym newbie, you’re in the unique position to benefit a lot from a low amount of stimulus. What this means in practical terms is that you won’t need the kind of high-volume, comprehensive training that a lifter with several years of training under their belt requires to progress. Hitting this workout once, maybe twice per week is more than enough to start building up your chest.
- Barbell Bench Press: 3 x 5
- Incline Dumbbell Press: 3 x 8
- Dumbbell Flye: 2 x 12
- Bodyweight Dip: 2 x 2 reps short of failure
Bodyweight Chest Workout
Endless, regular push-ups aren’t the only way to work your chest without equipment. Yes, a lot of push-ups will be involved. But you’ll also vary the types of push-ups, speed, range of motion, and angle. Just make sure your form is spotless throughout. You can perform this workout two or three times a week, depending on your experience level and comfort with bodyweight movements.
Perform these exercises back-to-back as a circuit, with little to no rest in between. Repeat the circuit three times in total, resting up to four minutes between rounds.
- Incline Push-Up: two reps short of failure
- Decline Push-Up: two reps short of failure
- Plyometric Push-Up: three reps short of failure
- Close-Grip Push-Up: one rep short of failure
Benefits of Training Your Chest
Chest training isn’t just for the vain-of-heart beach bro, or the competitive powerlifter. A well-developed pair of pecs is a statement and are surprisingly functional in real-world scenarios.
Upper Body Aesthetics
When it comes to appearances, your chest is often the first thing people notice about your physique. Big pecs shine both shirtless and shrouded under a t-shirt. Moreover, they contribute to giving your torso a thicker, three-dimensional look when viewed from the side.
Functional Pressing Power
A big bench press is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to chest training. Sure, throwing up two or three wheels on the bench is impressive. But strong pectoral muscles also assist in real-world or sport-related scenarios, such as performing push-ups for time, shoving an object or opponent away from you, and much more.
What Muscles Make Up the Chest
Your chest (or rather, the anterior compartment of your torso) houses your pecs … duh. But there’s more going on under the skin than you think, and more muscles at play as well. Here are the major players you’ll work during any well-rounded chest workout:
- Pectoralis Major: This two-headed muscle connects from your clavicle and sternum onto your upper arm bone and is primarily responsible for arm flexion and shoulder adduction.
- Pectoralis Minor: This smaller pec muscle connects from your ribcage to your shoulder blade and assists the pec major in performing its duties.
- Serratus Anterior: The serratus anterior isn’t directly attached to the chest, but it sits on the lateral sides of your ribcage and performs many of the same functions. Namely, protracting your shoulder and flexing your arm forward.
Get Pumped
Whether you’re chasing a sweet pump, looking to build a bigger chest, or want to bust out a new bench press personal record, you’ve got a lot of chest exercises to try out. Whether you’re performing a single-joint isolation move or are going after a big compound lift (think: the classic bench press), make sure you’re paying close attention to your form.
Being strict with your form and being smart about how you program your chest exercises is the best way to chase that Fabio-worthy chest.
References
- Schoenfeld, B. J., Ogborn, D., & Krieger, J. W. (2017). Dose-response relationship between weekly resistance training volume and increases in muscle mass: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of sports sciences, 35(11), 1073–1082.
- Williams, T. D., Tolusso, D. V., Fedewa, M. V., & Esco, M. R. (2017). Comparison of Periodized and Non-Periodized Resistance Training on Maximal Strength: A Meta-Analysis. Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 47(10), 2083–2100.
Featured Image: Jasminko Ibrakovic / Shutterstock
