# how to build upper chest?



## UlsterRugby (Nov 16, 2014)

My upper chest is seriously lagging behind. Any tips on building the upper chest?

I currently train chest followed by bicpes for chest its

Flat db or bench

decline bench

flys

high cable

middle cable

low cable

all reps 12,10,8,6 increasing the weight each set


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## 31205 (Jan 16, 2013)

Incline everything. Presses flyes. Cables. f**k flat and decline off for a while.


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## Pabloslabs (Feb 19, 2015)

sen said:


> Incline everything. Presses flyes. Cables. f**k flat and decline off for a while.


 And lift heavy ass weights with good form. Sounds obvious but when I learned to do this properly, helped a great deal. Gym I train at has a few ceiling mirrors over a couple of benchs which helps with the form piece on the inclines.

Would actually sack the cables too if looking to build mass

Edit - Add to that - focus on really contracting the pecs on the press and fly movements and use the mind to contract the whole pec. Instead of mindlessly lifting the weight which almost always results in the delts taking most of the trauma. Again, almost a cliche but damn boy, shiz works!


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## UlsterRugby (Nov 16, 2014)

Pabloslabs said:


> And lift heavy ass weights with good form. Sounds obvious but when I learned to do this properly, helped a great deal. Gym I train at has a few ceiling mirrors over a couple of benchs which helps with the form piece on the inclines.
> 
> Would actually sack the cables too if looking to build mass
> 
> Edit - Add to that - focus on really contracting the pecs on the press and fly movements and use the mind to contract the whole pec. Instead of mindlessly lifting the weight which almost always results in the delts taking most of the trauma. Again, almost a cliche but damn boy, shiz works!


 I lift heavy enough I finish on 50kg dumbells for 6. Maybe I should change to 5x5 or 4x6 or 3x8?

I will look at doing all incline for presses and flys. should i incline db or barbell?


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## Pabloslabs (Feb 19, 2015)

UlsterRugby said:


> I lift heavy enough I finish on 50kg dumbells for 6. Maybe I should change to 5x5 or 4x6 or 3x8?
> 
> I will look at doing all incline for presses and flys. should i incline db or barbell?


 50kg for 6 ain't bad at all and should be enuf to build a decent chest..but just check that form. Also have a play around with tempo, forced reps, less resting between sets - anything that will up the ante and tax you in a new way.

Whatever you feel more comfortable with - for me, On DBs I get better pec recruitment but only cos my form is better vs press. 50kgs might be a little tricky to get into position.


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## Acidreflux (Mar 3, 2015)

Shorten your range of movement so you concentrate the exercise on the area your trying to target, this will shorten muscle fibres giving your chest a more pronounced appearance.


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## alchemystical (Jan 16, 2013)

Drop your weights, you are trying to lift more than you can so your shoulders are overcompensating and taking the stress off your upper pecs.

Get rid of the cables and decline presses. Concentrate on close grip flat bench and incline dumbells with a pec squeeze at the top of each rep followed by pec deck.


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## UlsterRugby (Nov 16, 2014)

Pabloslabs said:


> 50kg for 6 ain't bad at all and should be enuf to build a decent chest..but just check that form. Also have a play around with tempo, forced reps, less resting between sets - anything that will up the ante and tax you in a new way.
> 
> Whatever you feel more comfortable with - for me, On DBs I get better pec recruitment but only cos my form is better vs press. 50kgs might be a little tricky to get into position.


 I think I will drop the weight and focus more on squeezing the weight, what rep and set range would you recommend?

i think dumbells are better also. I can throw the 50's into position no problem. Would love to try more but my gym only as 50kg as 4x6 on 50 is no problem


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## dmull86 (Sep 28, 2014)

UlsterRugby said:


> My upper chest is seriously lagging behind. Any tips on building the upper chest?
> 
> I currently train chest followed by bicpes for chest its
> 
> ...


 Incline dumbell chest press with a good squeeze at the top is helping me. Weighted decline pushups give me a good pump. But if your doing 50kg dumbells your probably past the push up stage.


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## TITO (Nov 11, 2008)

Once I learnt to do the breakdance move called the worm, my upper pecs grew dramatically


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## Mogadishu (Aug 29, 2014)

I still believe its a myth and your chest can only get bigger or smaller not be "shaped" just like all muscles.

More incline more delts less chest and vice versa.


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## AestheticManlet (Jun 12, 2012)

I just flat bench, chest is probably my best part.


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## UlsterRugby (Nov 16, 2014)

Im going to drop the weight and squeeze the pecs

swap decline for incline

do flys on incline

shorten the rom keeping tension on the muscles so not lock out the elbows?

and stick to 3x8-12?


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## alchemystical (Jan 16, 2013)

Mogadishu said:


> I still believe its a myth and your chest can only get bigger or smaller not be "shaped" just like all muscles.
> 
> More incline more delts less chest and vice versa.












Depending upon emphasis and what elements are bought into play you can create a dramatically different appearance of your pecs depending upon how you train them. Don't believe me? Go and do decline only for the next 6 months and update this thread with your results. Delts only come into it if you are lifting more than you should, don't have a good mind/muscle connection and are using sloppy form.


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## Mogadishu (Aug 29, 2014)

alchemystical said:


> Depending upon emphasis and what elements are bought into play you can create a dramatically different appearance of your pecs depending upon how you train them. Don't believe me? Go and do decline only for the next 6 months and update this thread with your results. Delts only come into it if you are lifting more than you should, don't have a good mind/muscle connection and are using sloppy form.


 You're incorrect and delt involvement depends on your angle not weight.


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## Tinytom (Sep 16, 2005)

Heres a link to my Chest playlist with some different exercises.

Its correct that an improper angle will affect delt involvement but even at flat bench if you dont arc your back slighty to push your chest to the front and retract your delts slightly you will push through your delts. This is the main issue I see with clients when addressing chest form. The band press I've featured below is an excellent way of deloading your shoulders at the bottom of the press movement so you can fully push through your chest.

You'll also notice an exercise which is very high angle flyes, this targets the pec minor more than the major and runs via the clavicular head. But you have to be very careful that you dont engage your delts. Part of client work involves getting clients to practice activating their chest via low weighted cables.


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## alchemystical (Jan 16, 2013)

Mogadishu said:


> You're incorrect and delt involvement depends on your angle not weight.


 I would've assumed that much is obvious seeing as this is in the advanced bodybuilding section. To stress the clavicular head you need to hit that sweet spot in weight which is actually a lot less that you'd expect to be lifting, seeing as most folks like to pound it out as heavy as they can on incline (same as flat usually) they miss this muscle group out and end up throwing more emphasis on their delts which come into play to help grant the leverage required to punt the weight up.


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## 31205 (Jan 16, 2013)

UlsterRugby said:


> Im going to drop the weight and squeeze the pecs
> 
> swap decline for incline
> 
> ...


 If your chest is growing but top isn't, you're obviously training chest correctly, you just need to add incline movements and keep everything else the same. surely?


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## Mogadishu (Aug 29, 2014)

alchemystical said:


> I would've assumed that much is obvious seeing as this is in the advanced bodybuilding section. To stress the clavicular head you need to hit that sweet spot in weight which is actually a lot less that you'd expect to be lifting, seeing as most folks like to pound it out as heavy as they can on incline (same as flat usually) they miss this muscle group out and end up throwing more emphasis on their delts which come into play to help grant the leverage required to punt the weight up.


 http://www.daveywaveyfitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Effects-of-Variations-of-the-Bench-Press-Exercise-on-the-EMG-Activity-of-Five-Shoulder-Muscles.pdf

"there was no significant difference in activation of the upper pectoral portion during either the incline or decline bench press.

Variations of decline and flat is the best approach and scientific studies confirms this.

Long story short : Everything above flat will be less effective for your chest.


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## alchemystical (Jan 16, 2013)

Mogadishu said:


> http://www.daveywaveyfitness.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Effects-of-Variations-of-the-Bench-Press-Exercise-on-the-EMG-Activity-of-Five-Shoulder-Muscles.pdf
> 
> "there was no significant difference in activation of the upper pectoral portion during either the incline or decline bench press.
> 
> ...


 To engage in further conversation would be a waste of both of our resources so lets just leave it at that, eh? I've said what I know works and those that are reading can take it or leave it.

Food for thought though, if what your touted references held were true then the OP wouldn't have had to make this thread in the first place, would he?


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## 2004mark (Oct 26, 2013)

Mogadishu said:


> I still believe its a myth and your chest can only get bigger or smaller not be "shaped" just like all muscles.
> 
> More incline more delts less chest and vice versa.


 I'm inclined to agree 

People have different shaped chests because that's simply the way you're built... waste of time trying to change things, that even if you can, it'll be so slight it's just not worth it.

If you could change the way muscles look there wouldn't be a professional bodybuilder out there without monster peaks on their biceps and overly pronounced tear dropped shaped quads... but there are. Just gotta make the best of what you've got.

My benching has been massively biased towards declines for over 5 years and my upper chest isn't any more pathetic than the rest of it... which by rights it should be if you believe all this decline = lower incline = upper rubbish.


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## 195645855 (Jun 26, 2015)

As has been mentioned, you cannot change the shape of a muscle. It grows as it grows and shrinks as it shrinks. You can't specifically build your upper chest.


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## iamyou (Oct 29, 2012)

When I hit my upper chest hard with flys and presses it's going to be hurting like a mofo the following day (the upper part only). If you break more fibers down in the upper area it's going to grow more, right?


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## anaboliclove (Oct 9, 2010)

I agree with @sen obvs hit incline movements primarily rather than flat


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## Bmc11 (Jan 15, 2013)

Try finishing the workout with a reverse grip bench press.


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## Chris XIII (Jan 30, 2012)

Bmc11 said:


> Try finishing the workout with a reverse grip bench press.


 This interests me as my upper chest is slacking too although I thought it was genetic Ive put on some through incline presses & flyes.

Does this work well? how about reverse grip dumbbell press on an incline. I see quite a lot of people in the gym doing rotations in their dumbbell bench press i'm guessing they are doing the same.


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## Bmc11 (Jan 15, 2013)

Rotations with the dumbbells is something I've never tried. I would imagine reverse grip Dumbbells would be quite awkward. The barbell is a bit more stable. Some people like doing it on a flat bench some with a small incline. I think variety is best so try them both.


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## Mogadishu (Aug 29, 2014)

alchemystical said:


> Food for thought though, if what your touted references held were true then the OP wouldn't have had to make this thread in the first place, would he?


 If everyone had a PhD in anatomy then these kind of threads wouldn't exist. That's the beauty to share and educate each other. Funny that the majority rant on cable-crossover as being a "shape" exercise when its more or less one of the most effective ways to stimulate the chest.


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## 19072 (Aug 11, 2010)

I would focus on Incline work IMO.


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## Tinytom (Sep 16, 2005)

This is a good read. Most recent study showing more upper chest activity in incline but previous studies not.

On the subject of EGM measurements, thats fine to show which exercise stimulates more fibres but if that was the case then you would only do Hip Thrusts for glute development and even Bret Contreras doesnt advocate one exercise only for glutes. Variation and adaption to different stimuli generates other pathways to muscle growth, its not always about which exercises gives the most EGM stimuli. Even powerlifters do cables and dips to build their chest power for more overall development. I have a world champion powerlifter in my gym and he does incline DB presses as an addition to his training to fully fatigue the whole chest

Personally flat bench for me isnt one I can go super heavy as my shoulders take a lot of strain and this doesnt happen in the incline position hence why I always use an incline movement on heavy bench.

'Targeting' the pec minor itself isnt possibe but variation of the exercises to recruit other muscle fibres to full chest exhaustion is a reasonable strategy. Just doing flat bench all the time as thats the most EGM stimulus is a flawed approach IMO. With heavy bench its possible that your triceps may give out before you've exhausted your chest and therefore a cable option may be preferable to isolating chest, this is something I do with clients quite regularly and as a result their bench improves.

http://exrx.net/Kinesiology/BenchPress.html

Trebbs (2010) found that the clavicular head of the Pectoralis Major (upper chest) was most active at a 44º incline, over the 0º (flat bench), and incline bench presses of 28º, and 56º. In contrast, Barnett (1995) reported that the clavicular head of the Pectoralis Major was no more active during the Smith Incline Bench Press than the flat Smith Bench Press, however it was less active in the Smith Decline Bench Press. Glass (1997) reported no significant differences in clavicular head of the Pectoralis Major between Barbell Incline and Decline Bench Press.


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## barksie (Nov 23, 2014)

alchemystical said:


> Drop your weights, you are trying to lift more than you can so your shoulders are overcompensating and taking the stress off your upper pecs.
> 
> Get rid of the cables and decline presses. Concentrate on close grip flat bench and incline dumbells with a pec squeeze at the top of each rep followed by pec deck.


 this,

weight does not have to be heavy, its all about form, started a new hardcore gym, and owner is showing me difference between lifting lighter with correct form and heavy with sh1t form, lighter with correct form is a no contest the difference is amazing, think i been wasting the past year flinging weights about with crap form


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## theBEAST2002 (Oct 16, 2011)

Lots of Incline Bench Press. High frequency, lots of sets and progressive overload.


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