Do you want to develop your upper body with the best exercises for pecs? Then you have come to the right place. Increasing the volume of the pecs is one of the male fascinations, of course, after the abs.
The truth is that this part of the body is important for men who want to look muscular and fit. And also for women who want to strengthen their upper body.
If your goal is to increase muscle mass in the pectoral or you want to strengthen that area of your body, this list of exercises is the best without a doubt. But be careful! It is important that you train all the muscles so that you maintain body symmetry.
That is why it is very important to know how to organize a training routine. So you can include all the muscles in your body, without leaving anything out, with the right volume, at the right intensity, and with the ideal training frequency.
Plus other variables that are also important in your training. Like warming up before starting your routine. That should not necessarily be cardiovascular exercise. It will be enough to do the first movement or exercise of your training routine with 50% of the weight of the previous week.
Before starting to teach you what are the best chest exercises I want to tell you that you do not need to be enrolled in a gym to train it. You can also train the chest and abdomen at home.
But your goal is to increase muscle mass, you will need to add weight to your exercises and you can do it with a set of dumbbells. You will be served some like the Bowflex that are our favorites since they are adjustable in increments of 2.5 pounds.
How to develop and grow the pecs?
Before you go straight to the exercises and then you don’t know what to do with them, I recommend that you watch the following video where we explain:
- How is your pectoral shaped?
- How to train it to achieve hypertrophy
- What muscles are involved in the different movements
- And one of the best exercises to work the chest
What are the best exercises for pecs?
The best exercises for pecs are:
1. Flat bench press with bar
What better way to start this list of chest exercises with one of the main exercises: Flat bench press with bar. It is the first that we usually learn in our first days of gym and without a doubt one of the best if not the best for the pecs.
Lying on a flat bench, extend your arms by lifting the barbell with weight. Or without the weight if you are a beginner and want to learn technique and movement first. The weight you put depends on your strength and endurance. if you are a beginner and you have mastered the technique, start with little and gradually increase the weight.
2. Incline bench press with bar
With the incline bench press with bar, you can work your upper pecs. Try looking for a bench without much incline so you don’t put more work on the front deltoids than on the pectoral. Studies show that if you are looking to develop your upper pectoral by bringing the grip a little closer, you can better focus the work on the fibers of the upper chest.
3. Decline bench press with barbell or dumbbell
Impossible to have a list of chest exercises and not to mention the declining bench press. This is the opposite of the previous one: That is, your chest and trunk will be declined downward.
4. Flat Bench Dumbbell Openings
It consists of being in the same way lying on the bench, totally flat, taking some weights or dumbbells and opening the arms to the sides. Also, it is slightly bending the elbows and closing over the chest. It is usually a difficult exercise to master in technique and movement for beginners but we have an alternative later in the list.
5. The classic push-ups
A list of the best chest exercises cannot be complete without the push-ups. They are the classic chest exercise that you can do at home to train or you can use it in the gym to warm up. Lying on your stomach with your hands flat on the floor, maintaining scapular retraction, lift your body with force on your chest and arms.
6. Bent-Arm dumbbell pull-over
This exercise is one of the least practiced chest exercises, usually because many people don’t even know which muscle works. But it has been proven that it is very effective to work the chest. It consists of supporting perpendicularly on a bench only the upper part of the trunk and supporting yourself with your feet. Now, take the dumbbell by one end with both hands at the height of your chest and bring it to the back of your head. And again, back to his chest.
7. Machine seated chest press
Free weights are undoubtedly excellent for training the chest. But exercises like the machine-seated press have unique benefits. For example, increase the time under tension by decreasing the speed in the path in both the eccentric and concentric parts.
They are also a very good option to make drop-sets or other types of series more advanced than traditional ones. Furthermore, it has been shown that this type of machine allows much better focus on the work on the pecs because it recruits fewer fibers from the deltoids compared to exercises with free weights. This is one of the best exercises for pecs.
8. Pec-Deck Machine
Dumbbell openings are usually somewhat difficult to do with dumbbells and cables. It is because the arms should be slightly flexed during the exercise. However, the Pec Deck makes it all more easy because the route is fixed and you don’t have to balance the weights. So it will be a machine that can teach you the correct technique. Therefore, you can move to the free weight of the dumbbell openings.
This means that you could be working in a range of repetitions different from the ones you do on a flat chest. So much so, given the difference in difficulty of each one, you could get a great muscular activation from this machine.
9. Squeeze Press with dumbbell
If you press the weights when you go up, you place all the tension right on the pecs. Keep the pecs working throughout the journey in this way, maximizing muscle growth. Do this lying on a flat bench with two dumbbells.
Stretch your arms over your head with your palms facing each other. Let the dumbbells touch and press one against the other as much as you can. Keep them like this throughout the tour. Now go down until they touch your chest, always having control in all the execution of the movement.
10. Flat bench press with closed grip
Number 10 on our list of chest exercises is the traditional but flat bench press. With a closed grip. In this way you focus more work on the triceps than on the chest so it could be a perfect exercise to complement your chest training.
11. Squeeze push up for chest
It is a variation of traditional push-ups. You just have to take a pair of dumbbells and glue and tighten them while doing a series of push up.
12. Flat Chest Dumbbell Press
We have left this exercise last because in fact it is quite similar both in movement and in muscular activation to the flat chest press with bar. Flat chest dumbbell presses can be done at the start of your routine for heavy sets and low rep ranges. So, these are the best exercises for pecs.
