Chest muscles are essential for everyday movements, like raising and lowering your arms and moving them. For a wide variety of exercises and athletic activities, it is vital to have strong chest muscles, also known as pecs. Listed below are our top 5 chest exercises to help you build strong and muscular pecs.
1. Push-ups
The push-up is widely known as one of the best chest exercises. You can do the push-up without any equipment, making it a great chest exercise. A favourable feature of this movement is that it is a compound one involving multiple muscles and joints. The chest is not the only part of the body affected, shoulders, the arms, core, and legs are all involved when doing push-ups.
There is nothing more effective than a good old-fashioned push-up for working the chest, arms, and core. It's a great way to exercise your upper body without any equipment. However, if you want to get more out of your push-ups, try the following exercise variations.
Modified push-ups : Performing the push-up on your knees gives an additional level of support to the upper body and the back. This push-up variant is suitable for beginners who lack adequate upper body strength.
Push-ups on an exercise ball : Exercise balls can add a new dimension to traditional push-ups, making them easier or challenging depending on how they are positioned. You can perform an advanced version of this exercise by propping your feet on the ball.
Adapt this move to suit your needs by resting your feet on the ball to your shins or thigh to make it easier.
Push-up with a medicine ball : This variation adds a dynamic effect to traditional push-ups by engaging the abs in a way that you won't get from conventional push-ups. This way, you can get more out of the medicine ball and your push-ups.
2. Barbell bench press
It is also worth mentioning that the bench press is another excellent chest exercise that will help build your muscles. It is essential to understand that this exercise also involves the shoulders and triceps, making this a compound movement. You may want to try this differently by using an incline bench during this exercise, which will target the upper chest area.
3. Dumbbell chest press
Performing chest presses with dumbbells instead of a barbell gives you a different chest workout because your arms have to work independently now. Also, both sides of the body are involved in this exercise, and it complements the barbell exercise nicely.
4. Chest fly with dumbbells
A chest fly works the outer part of the chest and the main chest muscles. Flies can be paired beautifully with chest presses and push-ups because the former are compound movements, whereas the latter are isolation movements.
5. Chest squeeze with a medicine ball
Chest squeezes are more subtle isometric exercises that exercise the chest and shoulder muscles. This exercise is not the most intense. However, it is excellent for warming up before other chest exercises.
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