Chest and legs, two body parts everyone loves to train (don’t trust a guy who doesn’t train legs). The reason why I am saying this is because you can train it with heavy weights; they are your stronger body parts. Gym bros know what I am talking about.
But most of the times your trainer commands you to perform the most traditional chest workout routine and it goes something like this—flat bench press, incline press, decline press, fly. Upper chest exercises for men are often undermined. The idea behind this particular routine is to develop the entire chest. That’s not to say, however, that you’re going to have inclusive chest growth. If you’re the one who always starts with a middle-chest movement first then you’re missing out on a lot of things. Best upper chest exercises always begin from incline.
See, when you initiate your workout your energy levels are highest, and if you target the upper and lower chest when you’re drained, reckon if which part will start to lag in the long run? Alright, so let’s get you started. I’ve enlisted 6 exercises for building upper chest, these are pretty basic in nature but the outcome is equally rewarding.
Best Upper Chest Exercises:
- Incline Barbell Press
- Incline Dumbbell Press
- Incline Cable Fly
- Incline Hammer Strength Machine
- Landmine Press
- Straight Arm Dumbell Pullover
1) Start with Incline Barbell Press
This is by far the simplest and result oriented solution in order to develop your upper chest. By regulating the sequence of exercises, you’ll discover that you’re radically stronger and can lift a tad more or do a few extra reps with a particular weight in comparison to the sessions when you trained an upper-chest move after finishing with center and lower chest. Empowering your upper chest fibers to lift more than they’re habituated to will make you push your maximum limit and set you on the highway to making gains.
Certainly, in view of the fact that you’ll now be a tad stronger on inclines, don’t be frightened to use a faintly more exigent weight. Ask any pro whose gain have always inspired you, they’ll tell you, “There’s nothing that hampers the advancement more than picking a weight you can already lift for 3 sets of 10”. If you usually perform sets of 8-10 reps with inclines, go ahead and push a set or two (post warm up) for 6-8 reps to formulate those fibers work even harder.
There are advantages to performing either a barbell or dumbbell movement in this case scenario, and both are fine choices. You may discover that the subsequent points will assist you choose which to opt for as your lead work out, but you certainly want to maneuver away from a machine exercise. Your body has to work harder and harder work associates to more muscle spur and growth with free weights.
2) Incline Dumbbell Press
Boy, oh boy. If you reckon you’ve had it on the chest day, I suggest you to go ahead and perform atleast 4 sets of Incline dumbbell press. This is the best chest exercises for mass. Don’t be afraid of muscle failure and perform as many reps as you can. It can be a substitute to… No, don’t substitute this exercise. It really targets your upper chest and can help you achieve good amount of mass.
Related Article: 5 Things you Should Never do to Build a Bigger Chest
3) Incline Cable Fly Targets your Upper Chest Suitably
Incline cable fly is effective to the core and a fine exercise for isolating the upper chest muscles. Doing this exercise with cables as a replacement for dumbbells enforces a continuous stress that directly targets the Upper Chest fiber and is one of the fine upper chest exercises for mass.
This continuous stress cannot be attained with dumbbells, for the motion curve won’t be precise, excluding the gravity. I recommend you perform this exercise subsequent to profound barbell or dumbbell Bench Press, for it is less grueling on the Central Nervous System.
Also, I would like you to keep following things in mind – Always, set the bench at around 45 degrees, steeper than this will be ineffective as it then focuses on delts rather than chest. Lessen cables in an “arc” movement; make sure to experience the chest stretch.
4) Incline Hammer Strength Machine
Incline Hammer Strength Machine allows for inclusive retrenchment of the Upper Chest. Attributable to the equipment being deliberated to only focus on the Upper Chest, this makes it an awesome exercise. It can also be helpful to people who are suffering from some sort of injuries, predominantly in the shoulder (I’ve a problem in my left shoulder and I believe it is really safe to state that this machine is functional for people like Me.) If you cannot do the Incline Dumbbell or Barbell Bench Press without over straining your shoulder, I suggest you opt for it. It will be the answer to your ‘exercises to develop upper chest’.
5) The Landmine Press
The Landmine Press is not a trendy exercise, hitherto endows the lifter with several benefits in regards to developing your upper chest. It can be executed whilst you are in the standing positing, thus bettering core contribution, and can develop core immovability and strength the abdominal muscles. You can also do it with one-arm at a time i.e. unilaterally.
Even though this is not essential all the time, it can be utilized as a tool to amplify the concentration on each side of the Chest muscles. It can also be effortlessly included into a cardiovascular trail all the way through high-reps and entailing a jump in the motion, or can be used as a force and hypertrophy exercise using lower volume.
6) Finish your Session with Straight Arm Dumbbell Pullover
Just when you’re about to end your workout session, grab a dumbbell, take a deep breath, position yourself and just tear every muscle fiber in your upper chest with pullover. The key is to keep your arms straight and bring the dumbbell to the chest slowly and steadily. I will approve 7 to 8 reps if you are going really heavy. Ask for a spotter and perform at least 5 sets and make sure this would be your last exercise of the day. Dumbbell pullover is one of the best exercises to build upper chest.
Do these exercises for building your upper chest with a standard change in sequence to keep it challenging for your body and make sure you always train all the areas of the chest with equal intensity, unless you reckon there’s a part you need to focus more, train it a tad bit harder. Amongst other hardcore ones pushups are also one of the profound exercises for upper chest at home.
I believe this article was helpful for you all, leave your comments and let me know if you’ve any inquires.
Also published on Medium.
