Chest workouts have long been a favorite among bodybuilders and other weight lifters. However, many lifters go about things a bit wrong. The often focus the majority, if not all of their attention on exercises that work primarily the lower chest muscles. Neglecting the upper chest prevents you from getting that thick, full look to your chest and upper body. Here is the most effective upper chest workout that will allow you to build up this body part to its fullest potential.
1. Incline Barbell Bench Press
The first exercise in your upper chest workout is the one for which you will be able to stress your upper pecs with the most weight possible. Gaining strength at the incline bench will give your upper chest that thick, "shelf" look that you often see on very developed bodybuilders.
The best form to use for this movement is to bring the bar straight down to around your upper chest. Do not treat the bar as you would in a flat bench press, where you bring the bar down on a slightly curvy path. Doing this for the incline will probably hurt your shoulders and inhibit the weights you can use.
Since this is your first movement, you should really go all out on the weight. Work up with as many warm-up sets as you need to a set of 4-6 reps. This should be to all-out failure, so you need to get a spotter to make sure you don't hurt yourself.
2. Incline Dumbbell Press
Dumbbell presses are often good for working the chest because they place more stress on that muscle group than do barbell presses. Since you're working primarily upper chest with this workout, use the incline variation of the dumbbell press.
You should essentially the same form for the incline dumbbell press as you did the incline barbell press. Bring the dumbbells down in a straight line towards your upper chest, and drive them back up to the top when you reach your chest.
You should use slightly higher reps for this movement than you did with the barbell. After warm-ups, perform 1-2 sets of anywhere from 8-12 reps. If you've worked truly hard at these first two exercises, your upper chest should be very fatigued at this point.
3. Flat Machine Press
Though this is an upper chest workout, you still need to get some work in for your lower chest. You should be too fatigued to use more free weights at this point, so head on over to your favorite machine press.
For this movement, you can really use any rep range that you want. You don't have to worry about balancing weights or getting anything into position, so you might be able to still use heavy loads this late in the workout. Personally, I would do 2-3 hard sets of 12-15 reps.
4. Cable Crossovers
To finish off your upper chest workout, use the cable station to do some crossovers. You can do dumbbell flyes if you really like them better, but cables tend to work better for this type of movement. The purpose of this exercise is really just to get a good pump going in your chest.
You can do these in a specific way to target the upper chest. Set up the cables at about the level of your head (not too high), and use your chest to bring the handles straight in front of you at arms' length. Do several sets until your chest is pumped and fatigued.
5. Stretching
Finish the workout by aggressively stretching your chest. This will facilitate recovery for your chest muscles. It will also stretch the fascia that surround the muscles, allowing new tissue to grow in more quickly.
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