The best exercises for growing your chest.

Criteria for how they’re ranked and chosen:

1. Heavy weight potential
2. Deep stretch at the bottom
3. Can be progressed on for a long time
4. Actually trains the pecs as a main mover
5. Focus on the upper and middle chest

The bench press is the best exercise to build the chest muscle for most people. It is the easiest to constantly progress on for a long time and lift a lot of weight on. It is very stable, fun and provides a good enough stretch to properly induce growth. It is the bread and butter of all chest exercises and if it doesn’t cause you pain/discomfort, you should be doing it. Since it is a compound lift, it also trains the triceps and front delts, with the entire back musculature acting as a stabilizer. Some people might not experience much chest stimulus depending on their anatomy and strong points, so they have to focus on their form or use different exercises.

Any type of incline bench press will make your chest visibly bigger as you get stronger on it for reps. The incline bench press is focused on the upper chest, though it trains the entire chest. It’s a great accessory for the bench press, meaning you can progress both movements faster if you include them both in your training program. For most people best done on a regular barbell, then secondarily done with the dumbbells. With the barbell it’s fine to focus on the weight. With dumbbells it’s usually best to focus on form and letting the weight stretch out your pecs as much as possible. For people with shoulder issues the smith machine and dumbbells are likely the best option.

A much less recovery taxing variation of the bench press. Provides a better stretch at the bottom, however can’t be progressed indefinitely (will max out weights at the gym in time) and can’t lift as heavy as on the barbell variation. Functions as a perfect secondary/tertiary exercise after the bench press to get more chest volume. The great thing about dumbbell bench press variations is that they can be done in a specific way that makes them harder and emphasizes the stretch more. If you let the weights drift to the sides at the bottom of the lift, due to disadvantaged leverage you will feel a very deep stretch. This way you can get alot more out of less weight. Doing that turns the dumbbell bench press into a dumbbell bench-chest fly.

Perfect finisher in a workout. Can be done with dumbbells, cables or a machine. Cables seem to provide the most pleasant resistance curve from my experience, with a perfect stretch and a really great contraction. Best done for high reps, to failure every time. Make sure to emphasize the stretched position. This will force your chest to grow. Very simple and effective movement.

Best done as a swap out for the bench press. Not as much chest, however heavy loading stays similar. Can be used to let the body recover and get resensitized from the regular bench press. Directly builds the bench press, leading to more overall chest gains. Easy on the shoulders. Other than these things, everything is similar to the regular bench press.

Though you may not be able to do weighted immediately, they provide an insane stretch if your legs are elevated to the same level as the rings. The instability might also cause increased strength¹, however that isn’t for certain. What is for sure is that it will train your chest and shoulders to remain more stable during movement. This will help your bench press, which in turn will help your chest grow even more. The weighted ring pushup is an incredible variation and should be done instead of the bench press if you get seriously bored of it. Nothing is better for chest gains than consistency, so you should enjoy your time at the gym.

Overall, you will have to figure out what works best for you, however the criteria mentioned at the start of the article are an excellent way to judge any exercise.

For guides how to perform each exercise, reffer to the resources page.

1. https://www.ergo-log.com/push-ups-using-bosu-t-bow-more-effective.html ↩︎