Thread: Looking for some good chest exercises

Originally Posted by GymRat4Life

Looking to switch up my part of this workout. I'd really like to hit the middle and top of my chest the most. I'm avoiding using any sort of bars for chest cause of my shoulder so lets see what you got, post them up!

Looking for 3-5 exercises.

1. incline db press (top of chest)
2. incline db flies (top and inner of chest)
3. flat db press (middle of chest)
4. incline cable flies (top inner chest)
5. dumbbell pullovers (upper and middle of chest, keep elbows in fixed position and pull just over slightly past chin to keep tension on pectorals, you'll feel it in tri's and even intercostals as well...should feel like you're getting stretched out when you lower dumbbell back down to a couple inches from floor)

It's also really cool to superset other exercises with these (pullups with presses, rows with flies, etc. back and chest supersetted together equals massive upper body pump).

Hope this is helpful to you..nothing groundbreaking unfortunately.

Decline incline and flat dumbell benchpress. Dumbell flyes, cable flyes, close grip barbell. Press-ups with varying distances between your hands

Originally Posted by lee111s

Decline incline and flat dumbell benchpress. Dumbell flyes, cable flyes, close grip barbell. Press-ups with varying distances between your hands

he said he wanted to avoid bars, and declines are pretty specifically geared for lower chest development. He says he is looking for exercises that are focused on middle and upper chest development so declines would be a waste of time imo.

I've been pretty prejudiced against declines as a general rule over the last 20 years though so maybe it's just me (I'll just go the rest of the way and do dips if I want to work those muscles more directly).

bench variations with dumbbells, chest fly variations, dips, weight push-up variations...

4. incline cable flies (top inner chest)

Why go to all the trouble of dragging a bench over to the cable machine?

Do 'cable claps' instead. Pulleys at head height, arms outstretched. Now 'clap' your hands at about chin height, such that when your hands are together, they are directly in between the pulleys (i.e. not like flyes where your body is in between the pulleys and your arms travel forward). When your hands are 'clapped' together, the cables should be perpendicular to your arms.

Move your hands about a meter apart and clap for however many reps you want. It's a lot like a pec dec, but you get to adjust the pulling angle so that it's slightly downward.

Interesting getting some good feedback I wouldn't have thought to try. I would like to limit doing exercises where my shoulder comes way out (like a fly) but I will if I need to, I'm just trying to let it hopefully heal up a bit. I could just go lighter on movements where my shoulder is really being extended (or my arm however you look at it). However I really want to hit the top of my chest and middle hard, I feel like my lower chest is a lot more defined then the upper (middle is okay).

Forget about the idea of "hitting the middle or top" of your chest. It's a pretty well debated topic around here whether or not you can isolate any area of fibers in the chest. Personally I don't think it's worth worrying about for the average person that's trying to develop the chest. Frankly you'd be better off just getting a good chest workout in and eat enough to build mass Barbells are good for heavier weight. It's harder to work out heavier with dumbbells or cables and nothing beats heavy pressing. I don't think most people know how to do a proper bar press and when and how to "tuck" and "rotate" and this is why people kill their shoulders plus they don't eat, which flat out doesn't help though people don't want to believe, for some reason, that inadequate intake will affect joints. I will be talking about all of this later and doing some vids hopefully.

What are your basic goals? do you want a bigger chest, or a more defined chest? Pick one and eat and lift accordingly. Eat and lift heavy and hard for size and cut when you want to "define" it or see more of your chest or the striations in the middle, etc.
Forget about trying to "shape" certain areas of the chest if that's what you mean. It's just not going to happen. Build your chest and let it's shape come out. You can't shape it no more than you can shape your abs or bicep or any other muscle.

Originally Posted by banker23

he said he wanted to avoid bars, and declines are pretty specifically geared for lower chest development. He says he is looking for exercises that are focused on middle and upper chest development so declines would be a waste of time imo.

I've been pretty prejudiced against declines as a general rule over the last 20 years though so maybe it's just me (I'll just go the rest of the way and do dips if I want to work those muscles more directly).

There's no such thing as "hitting the middle, bottom, inner, outer etc. Your chest muscle will grow from stimulation of that muscle. You can't contract one area of the muscle. Declines are not a waste of time IMO, they recruit the most muscle fibres and since I started doing them my chest development has came on leaps and bounds.

I agree with declines they give more of a chance to rotate but they suck if you're just doing shoulder ups like other presses. They are just more a bitch to do...but hey what can ya do.

Flat Bench
Incline Bench
Weighted Dips
Decline Bench


^^^Those are all classic mass builders for the pecs.

Plyometric push ups
One arm incline bd chest press
One arm cable high to low flys
Barbell to the neck bench press (keep elbows high, bring bar to neck)

Originally Posted by ThreeGigs

Why go to all the trouble of dragging a bench over to the cable machine?

Do 'cable claps' instead. Pulleys at head height, arms outstretched. Now 'clap' your hands at about chin height, such that when your hands are together, they are directly in between the pulleys (i.e. not like flyes where your body is in between the pulleys and your arms travel forward). When your hands are 'clapped' together, the cables should be perpendicular to your arms.

Move your hands about a meter apart and clap for however many reps you want. It's a lot like a pec dec, but you get to adjust the pulling angle so that it's slightly downward.

I agree with you I don't use a bench I put one foot behind, one foot forward and lean forward so my hands come together between my eyes and some fixed point in the ceiling. You can do it with the adjustable freemotion cable machine or standard cable towers with adjustable pulleys just lowering them down to the floor so you are pulling in an upward arc.

No bench required, however, if you're pullin around 100 pounds on each side probably would be advisable. Most people aren't that strong on any fly movement though and even fewer on an incline fly.

Originally Posted by lee111s

There's no such thing as "hitting the middle, bottom, inner, outer etc. Your chest muscle will grow from stimulation of that muscle. You can't contract one area of the muscle. Declines are not a waste of time IMO, they recruit the most muscle fibres and since I started doing them my chest development has came on leaps and bounds.

I won't argue with your personal experience, and Yes, any chest exercise is going to hit the full chest, but different exercises "focus" on different parts of the chest. Decline press is lower chest all day long.

In Joe Weider's Ultimate Bodybuilding (a highly recommended book to purchase), it states:

"For example, presses (with barbell, dumbbells, or machine) and flyes performed on an incline bench will isolate stress on the upper pecs. The same movements done on a decline bench isolate stress on the lower and outer pectorals. And to place maximum stress on the inner pecs, you can do pec-deck flyes and narrow-grip bench presses. The accumulation of movements performed from a variety of angles will ultimately give you perfect pectoral development."


Arnold's encyclopedia concurs with Joe's along with pretty much any bodybuilding reference you can find. I challenge anyone to find an authoritative source that lists declines as a specific upper or middle pectoral development exercise.

The OP is specifically asking for exercises that "focus" on upper and mid chest. Decline doesn't. We most certainly can and should focus on different parts of our muscles if they are lagging. To say you can't or that it's not possible is just not true.
Sorry for all the different fonts...couldn't get them to match.

The URL for the website that references the weider excerpt is here.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/pecs.htm

Bad shoulder prevents you from doing benching with a BB? Same here and what I've found is that I actually get more chest development from supersetting pec-dec (focusing on the contracted position) with Smith machine bench (incline and flat).
Right now I've been doing these exercises: Pec-dec supersetted with flat DB press. Then cable crossovers supersetted with Smith inclines. On alternate chest workouts, I'll switch the order of these supersets. (And I'm not doing a true, no-rest-between-exercises superset, just alternating exercises.) Sometimes I'll do bodyweight dips at the end for a good pump.

Originally Posted by lee111s

There's no such thing as "hitting the middle, bottom, inner, outer etc. Your chest muscle will grow from stimulation of that muscle. You can't contract one area of the muscle. Declines are not a waste of time IMO, they recruit the most muscle fibres and since I started doing them my chest development has came on leaps and bounds.

That's like saying there's no isolation exercises for biceps, triceps, traps, etc.

Originally Posted by GymRat4Life

That's like saying there's no isolation exercises for biceps, triceps, traps, etc.

No, it's like saying there's no isolation exercise for upper, mid, and lower bicep.

Originally Posted by GymRat4Life

That's like saying there's no isolation exercises for biceps, triceps, traps, etc.

no....its not like that