The Three Best Exercises that Blew Up My Chest
I would venture to say that having a big chest is the aspirational goal of every man who ever decides to pick up a dumbbell. In fact, when a man decides to start a weightlifting regimen, the desire to have a big chest is probably the reason why. Pectoral development is so important that the body part even has its own day. Walk into any gym, anywhere, on any given Monday and chances are very high that all of the benches for flat and incline barbell presses and all of the chest machines will be taken. Monday is universally known as International Chest Day. Everybody hates Mondays, except it seems for those in the gym. Perhaps the coming work week is easier to cope with when you start the week by working on your chest. No other body part (at least to my knowledge) has a dedicated day of the week. Unless of course “never” counts, then that would be International Leg Day.
I remember a while back when Antonio Brown went on Instagram Live and gave himself the moniker “Mr. Big Chest.” Everyone clowned the man, but not the ambition. If it were not ironic, everybody would covet that nickname.
When I started lifting weights, all I ever did was work on my chest. Pushups, barbell and dumbbell bench presses in endless rotation. I never used to work on any other body part. This went on for years with little to no growth. Frustrated, I then went on to try just about every exercise imaginable to grow my chest. But I never saw any results, until I incorporated three specific exercises. These are now my bread-and-butter exercises, and I attribute the bulk of my chest growth to their implementation into my regular weightlifting routine.
Flat Barbell Bench Press
Everybody hates on this exercise. Watch any YouTube video, ask any personal trainer or solicit the opinion of any fitness influencer out there and chances are astronomically high that they will never recommend you do this exercise. To a man they will all tell you that this exercise is dangerous. It is. Everyone will tell you that this exercise will cause shoulder problems. It probably will. It is common knowledge that this exercise is not worth the risk. Probably true.
And yet if you examine the pectoral muscles of the people telling you these things, you will almost assuredly discover that their chest is no bigger than yours. By contrast, watch any workout video from any of the old school bodybuilders from the golden age of bodybuilding and, dollars to donuts, you will see them performing the flat barbell bench press as a routine part of their chest training. Lee Haney once said, “The flat barbell bench press is the bread-and-butter movement for mass in the chest.” For Arnold Schwarzenegger, widely considered to have had the best chest ever, the flat barbell bench press was a staple – an exercise he performed from the first year of his bodybuilding career until he retired. Chris Bumstead once said of the flat barbell bench press, “I think everything in this world is what you make of it. If you have tight muscles, bad form then anything you do can be bad. Maybe bench has a bad rap because you can move more weight and it is more stress on smaller joints…. I’ve never had a problem benching. Everyone I know with a really good chest and really good benches with good form have never had any injuries…. With good form, just suck it up and bench press.”
If a person has shoulder problems, then they should, by all means, avoid this exercise. If a person is older, experiences joint pain, or generally has had a bad experience with this particular exercise, then they should skip it. But, for me, until I incorporated the flat barbell bench press with the proper form, I never saw any chest growth.
To be fair, I have experienced shoulder pain from this exercise and in the instances when my form was off, I have sustained a variety of elbow and shoulder injuries. But when my form is on point, and I am careful to lift weights light enough to perform six to eight repetitions then I have rarely encountered any problems with this exercise.
For me, the key to maximizing chest development with this exercise while avoiding injury is to make sure I retract my scapula, keep a slight arch in my lower back and keep my shoulders pinned to the bench throughout the movement. I do not recommend this for others, but I sometimes lift my posterior slightly off of the bench during the exercise to make absolutely certain my shoulders stay pinned to the bench throughout the movement. I also make sure that my chest is always the highest point on my body when performing this exercise. This really holds true for just about any and every chest exercise I do. If I do not have a spotter, I make sure to lift weights I am comfortable lifting within a rep range that ensures that I won’t get stuck in a position where I have to dump the weight or risk major injury. Additionally, I never lower the bar so far down that it actually touches my chest. I keep the bar about an inch or two above my chest at the bottom of the eccentric portion of the movement. This does two things – it saves my shoulder, and it keeps constant tension on the pectoral muscles.
The primary benefit of the flat barbell bench press in my opinion is the fact that this exercise gives me the ability to slow down the eccentric portion of the exercise in order to maximally recruit the most muscle fibers. In my experience, the emphasis and intensity of the eccentric portion of this exercise cannot really be duplicated with any other exercise or with any machine.
There is a reason the flat barbell bench press has survived as long as it has. It is simply the best exercise for developing mass in the chest. Is it dangerous? It certainly can be with bad form and when the ego gets in the way of actual progress. But, when done safely and properly, this is in my opinion the most effective exercise for building the chest.
Dumbbell Chest Fly
For maximum muscle growth, it is important to both stretch and contract the target muscle. Dumbbell chest flys do an excellent job of accomplishing this. At the bottom of the movement, the weight of the dumbbells maximally stretches the pectoral muscle, and the concentric portion of the movement contracts it. By alternately stretching and contracting the pectoral muscle with this exercise, I saw a tremendous amount of muscle growth in a relatively short period of time. If I could attribute my chest development to any single exercise it would be this one.
Arnold Schwarzenegger said of the dumbbell chest fly, “I mean, to me, the [dumbbell chest fly] was an exercise that gave me the full pectoral muscle development because I went all the way out and almost hitting the ground. I was a big believer in expanding the chest as much as possible and giving that stretch because remember with muscles the important thing always is to get the stretch and to get the flex. And so, to me, that going all the way out with the dumbbells as far as you can to get that stretch, and then to come in and then to have the dumbbells touch and then flex like you’re doing the most muscular on top and then going out again…. Those are the kinds of exercises to me that were like, you could not replace them with any machine. This was it.”
It is important to remember that the pectoral muscle is primarily responsible for controlling arm movement – to aid in moving a person’s shoulders and pulling their arms across the front of their bodies. The dumbbell chest fly is a perfect exercise to tax this primary function of the pectoral muscle. By focusing on pulling my elbows together at the top of the movement I always feel a greater contraction in my pectoral muscle with this exercise than with any other.
Is this a dangerous exercise? Like every form of strenuous physical activity, it can be if done improperly or with too much weight. This exercise can be really hard on the shoulder joint and the risk of injury can be fairly high if the exercise is done without proper form. In the instances when I lifted too heavy or had bad form or engaged in the exercise at a pace that was unsafe, I experienced shoulder pain and even injury. Consequently, I make sure to use a manageable weight and perform the exercise slowly to maximize both the stretch and the contraction and to avoid injury.
Many people substitute this exercise with cables or with the pec deck machine. That’s fine. But, for me, those variations never allow me to experience the full stretch of the pectoral muscle. Consequently, those machines eliminate half of the exercise and arguably the half that matters the most.
Dips
Mike Mentzer once called the dip the single greatest upper body exercise. He equated the effectiveness of the dip for the upper body with that of the squat for the lower body. He commented that the dip is the greatest shoulder exercise, the most effective triceps exercise and a virtually indispensable exercise for overall chest development. Dorian Yates once opined that the decline barbell bench press is the single best exercise for the development of the pectoral muscle due to the angle created by the decline bench. The decline barbell bench press and the dip are very similar movements in terms of the angle created by the movement to attack the target muscle.
What makes the dip so beneficial is that it allows for a deep stretch of the chest muscle during the negative portion of the movement and an intense contraction of the entire pectoral muscle – the lower, the middle and the upper portions of the chest – during the positive portion of the exercise. Moreover, this movement tends to be a much safer exercise than the flat barbell bench press, especially when one endeavors to train to failure. You don’t need a spotter, and you never have to worry that you will get stuck and have to dump the weights lest they fall on your chest. You can also progressively overload the pectoral muscle with relative ease with this exercise by continuously adding weight to the movement over time utilizing a dip belt.
Additionally, the way you know that the dip stresses every part of the pectoral muscle is the fact that the soreness the following day is nothing like the soreness you experience with just about any other chest exercise. There is a soreness you experience on the day after an intense dip session that is unique, and the pain settles in a deep part of your chest that no other exercise seems to be able to reach.
I often used to wonder how gymnasts, prison inmates and CrossFit athletes had such massive chests. Especially prison inmates considering the fact that they lack the proper equipment and never have access to the proper nutrition. I have come to discover it is because they are constantly doing dips or their functional equivalents during their training sessions or during their recreation time in the yard or while performing their routines at various athletic events and competitions.
Once I incorporated weighted dips as a routine part of my chest training, I saw significant growth as well as overall development that contributed not just to functional strength, but also to a more aesthetically pleasing look. Everyone wants that square, barrel-like chest and dips do a fantastic job of developing out the lower portions of the pectoral muscle to create that three-dimensional look. The dip also develops the shoulders and the triceps and creates that tapered look in the upper body that all men strive to achieve. The dip is truly one of those indispensable exercises for the upper body in general and the chest in particular.