Chest Exercises

When it comes to chest exercises, there are many good options out there. Here is a list of five tried-and-true chest exercises sure to give you the boost in strength and size you're looking for.

The chest muscles are considerably more complex than, for example, biceps or calves in that they can work in multiple directions. Therefore, these chest exercises all target slightly different parts of the muscle.

The most popular choice among chest exercises, the classic bench press continues to reign supreme for a very simple reason: it works. Lie down on a bench with your back flat and feet firmly on the ground. Grab the barbell so that your elbows are directly underneath the hands. Bring down the barbell to the lower portion of your chest, make a smooth but distinct turn and press it up. However, easy as this sounds, you'll see plenty of people who perform this incorrectly. They bounce the bar off the chest, bring the bar down to their chins putting undue stress on the shoulders, arch their backs, or just use more weight than they can handle so that their training partner has to do a set of upright rows for every set of bench presses they do. Bottom line: check the ego at the door and focus on good form.

Chest and triceps tend to work together in most chest exercises, and dips is a great "transition" exercise in that it hits both muscle groups about the same (you can adjust this quite a bit simply by thinking about which muscles to use and lean a few degrees backward or forward). More importantly, this is one of the most effective chest exercises for targeting the lower-most part of the pectorals. To do free-form dips, grab a pair of dip bars or the backs of two sturdy chairs, bend your knees and find a good balance on your hands. Then slowly bend your elbows until your upper arms are parallel to the floor, at which point you make the turn and push yourself back up to the starting position.

The military press targets the other end of the spectrum, splitting the effort between anterior deltoids and upper pecs. Set a bench to almost-upright, about 20 degrees off, and sit with your back flat against the pad and your feet on the floor. If you use dumbbells, bring them up to your shoulders making sure to keep your elbows straight under your hands as you press up to the top position. If you use a barbell, let it rest against your upper chest in the bottom position; in either scenario, it is important that you don't arch your back.

This is not so much a power movement as one using full contraction. Grab the upper-pulley handles so that you resemble a big T, then take one big step forward with your left leg so you get a good backwards/upwards stretch in your entire pec region. Bend your elbows slightly, then slowly pull the handles until your upper arms are crossing each other. Give it a last squeeze and slowly return to the top position. For balance, make sure to alternate which forearm goes above the other, just like you should alternate right/left foot forward between sets. Again, this is not a power movement so go easy on the weight; the most important thing here is to feel the muscle working the whole way without putting extra stress on the shoulders.

Finally, there are myriad chest machines out there, ranging from awful to awesome. However, it's worth it to investigate the iso-lateral options at your gym, since many chest exercises use fixed bars and thus enable you to let one side overpower the other. With an iso-lateral machine, each side works independently of the other, decreasing the risk of uneven development (which in turn can lay the groundwork for later injuries). Most plate-loaded, leverage-based chest machines are iso-lateral and generally work well, so that's a good place to start looking, even though there are some good cable-based versions that work well, too. Good luck!

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