Some Great Chest Exercises

Want a bigger chest? How about the chest of an NFL player? 

Heck, just look at the men at the 2015 NFL Combine happening now: these guys can bench 225 pounds for dozens of repetitions — even the little guys! Stand next to a pro football player and you’ll think, “Damn, that is one jacked dude.” The NFL Combine Workout is one of the most intense you can find.

The biggest mistake guys make when trying to build a barrel chest is thinking like a bodybuilder and isolating each muscle. If you’re small, it just won’t give you enough stimulus for real gains. Worse, isolating just your pecs with machines can cause injuries at your shoulder joint because of the unnatural movement patterns. 

Instead, size comes from strength and a lot of it. Throw away the dinky isolation exercises and replace them with heavy movements that blast your chest muscles and stimulate more hormonal production for real growth. 

Here are some great chest exercises ever....

Kneeling Cable Press

You might be humbled the first time you try this exercise and start flopping all over the place. 

By getting on one knee and pushing away from a cable machine, you’ll learn how to activate your core, brace properly, and develop stability as you push. This is going to transfer to everything else you do. 

Get on one knee and set a cable handle to chest height. Face away from the machine and grab the handle with the same side that has the foot behind you. Squeeze your shoulder blades together, squeeze the glute on your trailing leg, brace your core, and push the cable straight ahead. 

Dumbbell Flye

I admit the dumbbell flye is a type of isolation exercise — but it still targets your shoulders, biceps, and grip. 

Lie on a flat or inclined bench with your chest up, shoulders squeezed together, and feet flat on the ground. Keep your elbows slightly bent and maintain that elbow angle as you open your arms, squeeze your chest, and bring your arms together.

Dips

Dips are a phenomenal bodyweight exercise to develop massive strength in your chest, shoulders, and triceps.. Once it gets easy, add a weight belt and tack on the plates. 

Get on a dip bar, keep your chest out, and lower yourself until your elbows make a 90-degree angle. At the bottom, drive back up. To keep pressure off your neck, look at a spot on the ground a few feet in front of you. 

Pushup with Overhead Reach

This exercise is so unique that it deserves its own mention. It’s kind of like doing a single-arm pushup while developing strength and stability in your other arm and blasting your core — oh, and it’s hard as hell too.

Place one palm on a slideboard or Valslide. From the pushup position, descend into a pushup while simultaneously reaching forward with the hand on the sliding surface. When you’re at the bottom of the pushup, your sliding arm should be locked out.

Pushup

The pushup is the best chest exercise ever. While you can load the bench press and push hundreds of pounds like pro football players, the pushup build strength, size, and function. 

It builds not only your pecs, but it also strengthens your shoulders, your shoulder stabilizers, your core, and your grip. 

Even if you bench 300lb, you still need to do the pushup. Throw on a weighted vest, put your feet on a box, throw some weight plates on your back, or lay some chains if it’s not hard enough. 

Trust me, all that extra weight will be enough. 

Get in a pushup position with your hands about shoulder-width apart. Keep your lower back flat and don’t let your hips sag. Lower yourself and keep your elbows close to your body as you descend.