The ideal chest workout should train the upper, middle, and lower chest, but that alone won’t guarantee maximum growth. Most common exercises like the incline press, flat bench, dips, and push-ups build the chest well, but they all miss one key function: full shoulder adduction.
In the video below, Athlean-X founder Jeff Cavaliere provides two chest workouts to maximize your chest gains.
That’s why these two chest workouts are designed to fill in those gaps. Since research shows training chest twice per week is more effective than once, we can split the focus across both workouts to fully develop every area and function of the chest.
Perfect Chest Workouts for Maximum Muscle Growth
Perfect Chest Workout 1: (Primer) Banded ER: 1-2 x 10-15 (sub max)
- This is to warm up the rotator cuff which will help keep stabilization of the shoulder joint during the rest of the workout, especially in the next exercise up.
-Make sure that this is extremely sub max effort. You do not want to be fatiguing the rotator cuff by the end of the exercise. Incline DB Bench Press: 3 x 5-8 FF
- Take this exercise to failure, which can be done safely because of the application of the dumbbells.
- Point your thumbs up and forward as you press to get a little bit extra adduction at the top end of the range of motion.
Crossovers: 3 x 10-12 + Partials
- Lean back as you cross the cables over each other. This will make the muscles of the chest the primary mover of the exercise versus the shoulders if you were leaning forward.
- Once failure is reached, continue to eek out a few more partial reps as we know that partial reps after reach failure produce more growth.
Floor Flys: 2-3 x 8-10 + Eccentric Only Reps
- Once you reach concentric failure on the floor fly, simply floor press the dumbbells up and try to control the eccentric lowering of the floor fly. Repeat this process until you’ve reach eccentric failure.
Deficit 1.5 Rep Ladder Pushups: 1 x Failure
- On the bottom end of the 1.5 rep pushup, you will be holding in the stretch position for an ascending ladder. Rep 1 = 1 second hold, rep 2 = 2 second hold, etc.
- Exploring stretch tension is a good way to increase hypertrophy, especially if it’s not something you do currently
Dips: 1 x Failure
- Similar to the crossovers, once you reach failure, continue to rep out more partial repetitions to continue taking the set beyond failure.
Watch the video for the second perfect chest workout as it will round out the training you will need to do to completely hit the chest muscles over the course of the week. You will be targeting the chest with the second chest workout only a few days later to get in your total weekly volume of 12-24 sets.
Learn More: Jeff Cavaliere Shares The BEST and WORST Cardio Exercises for Fat Loss
