Strengthening the Upper Chest: Two Recommended Exercises You've Never Tried
Developing a beautiful pectoral muscle is the primary goal for every man at the gym.
The pectoral muscle is a large muscle! We divide it into three parts: upper, middle, and lower. Only when these three parts receive adequate training will the chest be well-defined. Many people's upper chest is in a weak state, which results in a chest shape that appears somewhat drooping. Only a full upper chest will make our chest shape look better!
How to better target the upper chest? Besides traditional incline presses and low-angle dumbbell flyes, are there any other good exercises or methods?
You might try: T-bar chest press and reverse-grip bench press
1. T-bar Chest Press
Using a T-bar barbell for incline presses can effectively train our upper chest muscles. When performing T-bar chest presses, the hand path is not much different from 'incline bench press' because the T-bar shoulder press does not push upwards to the top of the head, the pectoralis major's upper side will participate more, and because of the absence of the seat constraint, the shoulder blades can move freely, which is more friendly to the shoulders.
You can use either one hand or both hands.
2. Reverse-Grip Bench Press
Reverse-grip bench press is a forgotten ancient art that rarely sees anyone doing it in the gym! This is mainly because the grip is very inconvenient, and there is also a risk of the barbell slipping.
However, for stimulating the upper chest, the reverse-grip bench press may be more powerful than the regular bench press.
This is due to the influence of the arrangement of fibers in the upper chest muscles, the muscles near the collarbone are mainly used to help the shoulder joint flex forward, with the reverse grip, the position where the barbell drops is usually a little lower than the regular bench press, at this time, the upper chest participates more, research shows that the reverse-grip bench press stimulates the upper chest by 25~30% more than the wide grip bench press.
You can also use dumbbells.
