The bench press is a key exercise if you want to build your chest, but it goes much deeper than that. Bench press itself can be broken down into many different exercises, all of which work different parts of your chest, or work out your chest in different ways. I’ll give you a personal example.
*This article is all about the bench press. If you have any other bench related questions feel free to leave a question in the FAQ section
No Chest for Years
I have been a fitness freak for 19 years. For the first 15 years, I had no chest because I was doing it wrong. I was seeing results with other exercises for other body parts, but not with chest. In fact, about 10 years into my daily workout routine, I mentioned to a co-worker that I had been hitting the gym every day after work. He looked straight at my chest and said, “It’s not working.” I laughed, but inside, it hurt a little. At least it was a wake-up call. The only problem is that I still didn’t know what I was doing.
I was only doing barbell flat bench when working out my chest. I always straight to that bench on chest day because it’s what everyone else was doing. This was leading to a broader upper body, but it wasn’t developing my pecs. Eventually, I learned to add incline bench for upper chest and decline chest for lower chest. I got broader, but once again, my pecs weren’t developing outward like I wanted. I tried drop-sets, super-sets, and more. At one point, I even quit the gym so I could focus solely on push-ups for three years. I was averaging 300 push-ups per day. This maintained a broad frame and it was increasing my muscle endurance, but it was doing nothing for my muscle strength and pecs. I felt lost and didn’t know what the heck to do until I ran into the right person at the gym.
The Importance of Squeezers
It was a random conversation a few months after I joined a new gym (my current gym). When talking about chest exercise for pec growth, he casually said, “Well, yeah, you’re always going to get pec growth from squeezers, not presses.”
This sent my mind for a spin. It meant I had been doing it all wrong for 15 years! Doing all those presses and push-ups wasn’t a complete waste of time because it led to a broader upper body, but I didn’t learn until that day that squeezers were the key to building your pecs. And it's the first time I thought to myself, wait a second, is the bench press the best chest exercise?
Let me fast forward a minute. Prior to exiting the gym a few weeks ago, I stopped one of the trainers I’m friendly with and said, “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” He said, “Sure.” I followed up with, “I want to make sure my work in here is paying off, so if you look at me, what would you say are my two strongest areas?” He immediately answered, “Biceps and chest.”
Even though he put chest second, I never would have thought chest would be mentioned if I asked someone that question. Do you know how awesome that feels?
My timing must have been good because around the same time that someone told me squeezers were the key to chest, someone else at the gym has said: “You simply can’t have a great physique without a chest.” That’s when I knew I needed to his the squeezers hard, and I did, but without negating presses and push-ups from my workouts.
Effective Chest Workouts
What I’m about to write might be met with resistance, but I’m simply telling you what works for me. Now when I do chest, I split it into two different workouts. One day, I do presses. The next day, I do squeezers. This allows me to focus on each area. If I were to do both on the same day, I would be spreading myself too thin. On press day, I do flat, incline, and decline. Every week, I alternate between barbells and dumbbells so I continue to keep my muscles guessing. Your muscles build for three reasons: increased weight, increased reps, and shocking the system.
Movements to focus on
When I do squeezers, I do dumbbell flyes, cable flyes, the pec deck, and dips. The dumbbell flyes are great because you’re recruiting smaller muscles as well as the larger ones and you have a wide range of motion. The tricky part is form. It’s easy to engage your biceps too much. That said, it’s still going to help.
- if this isn't enough, click here for a list of other assistance movements you may like
Cable Flyes
The cable flyes are where I try to go beast-mode. Most people use the same setting and increase the weight after a few months. I keep the weight the same for the first half of the workout and change the settings for each set. So, if the cable system has 10 settings, I start on 10, take a short break, then change the setting to 9, and so on. Going up is harder, so I reduce the weight for the bottom five settings. By taking this approach, it has allowed me to go from 55 lbs. on the top five settings six months ago to now doing 90 lbs. on the top five settings. I’m not a big guy; I’m only 170 lbs. and lean muscle. That is an astronomical gain for a guy my size, especially without any supplements. The reason for the gain is because I’m shocking my system by changing the settings. Also, by changing the settings, I’m working out different areas of my chest, which adds definition. Actually, it’s one of the greatest keys to chest definition.
Pec Deck
The pec deck is where I go to rep-out until failure or to isolate so one side of my chest doesn’t get bigger than the other. You can also stand up facing the pec deck and put your palms above the handles, then squeeze. This is another way to shock your chest muscles.
Dips
As far as dips go, if you want to engage your chest, then you need to make sure you’re doing it correctly. Otherwise, you will be getting more triceps than chest. That’s not a bad thing, but the focus here is on chest. In order to engage the chest with dips, grip the bars further out and almost at their edge. Make sure your feet are behind your body and slightly crossed, and lean forward. This is a great exercise to do toward the end of your workout. I actually do these after cardio because it allows my body to go from catabolic back to anabolic prior to leaving the gym.
Push-Ups
Let’s not forget push-ups. You’re never going to get the same results with push-ups only as you would with weights and push-ups, but push-ups are hugely important because they will build your pecs and increase your muscle endurance, and the latter can mean one more rep when you’re trying to lift heavy weight, which can lead to a bigger chest.
There are many different variations of push-ups you can do, but if you really want to engage your chest then the two best are wide-grip for outer chest and waist push-ups for a focus on the pecs. For waist push-ups, place your hands as close to your waist as possible. When you perform the exercise, almost all of the tension will be on your pecs. It truly is beastly. Get to the point where you can do at least 50 of these and you will surely see results.
Conclusion
So … is the bench press the best chest exercise? Answer: Only when it’s combined with the other chest exercises mentioned above. If you incorporate the chest the exercises above into your chest workout, you're likely to get ripped.