Exercises You Should Do To Strengthen Your Chest

Strong, chiseled chest muscles are more than just aesthetically pleasing. They're important for everyday activities, too. The chest muscles, called the pectorals, or "pecs" for short, are the main "push" muscles of the body. They help you push a shopping cart, push a heavy door open, or push a lawnmower. They also contribute to good posture when balanced with strong upper back muscles, and can improve the ease of respiration. For women, building chest muscle can give the breasts a little natural lift. 

When you're trying to strengthen your chest muscles, there's no need to get fancy. The pushup is a standby exercise that requires no equipment and no gym membership — and there are countless ways to modify pushups to make them easier or more challenging. There are many other effective chest exercises to work into your routine that can offer variety and work the muscles in different ways. Here are a few to choose from to get you started. 

Once you've got the basic pushup technique down and you can do a set of 10 or 12 without breaking form, you are ready for more advanced pushup variations. Orienting your body in different ways during the exercise can slightly change the stress on certain muscles. They'll all still target the chest, but one variation might work the inner or outer chest more than another. 

Elevating your feet will make pushups more challenging. You can use a step, a weight bench, or another sturdy object. The higher the feet are, the more difficult it will be. Changing your hand width also makes it harder. You can take a narrow stance, moving your hands closer together beneath your chest. This will target your triceps more. You can also move your hands farther apart for a greater challenge. Next, try staggering your hands — one forward of your shoulders and one back.

Plyometric pushups involve lifting your hands off the ground in an explosive movement. This develops power in your upper body and chest. To do it, start with the downward phase of a regular pushup. On the upward phase, press powerfully so that you can get the momentum to lift your hands off the ground at the top of the move. Quickly clap your hands together, then land with your hands underneath your shoulders and go into your next pushup. 

With all of these variations, be sure to maintain proper form with your back straight and core engaged. 

Free weights differ from machines in that they offer less support for the body. As a result, your body has to do a bit more work to stay stable. Small stabilizer muscles throughout your arms and chest are activated, and your core has to do more work. This is good for developing more comprehensive strength, but you typically will not be able to lift as much as you can with a machine, at least in the beginning. 

Choose your weight and sit down on a weight bench. Slowly lower your back to the bench and bring the dumbbells to your shoulders with your elbows wide. Press your lower back into the bench and keep contact throughout the lift. Contract your core muscles. Start to press the weights above your chest and straighten your arms. The weights should stay at shoulder width or slightly narrower. When your arms are straight, slowly reverse the move, bringing the weights back to the starting position. 

You can also do a bench press with a barbell, although it's a good idea for beginners to get used to dumbbells before using a barbell. Whenever you are lifting heavy weights with dumbbells or a barbell, you should be sure to have a spotter to reduce the risk of injury.

So far, we've only discussed compound exercises in this list — exercises that work more than one muscle group at a time. Cable crossovers are an isolation exercise, meaning they only target the chest. Many bodybuilders include this exercise in their program because it helps add definition. 

Start by setting the weights in your cable machine and position the handles at the highest setting. Grab the handles, move to the center, and open your arms out to either side. Take a step or two forward so that you feel a stretch across your chest. This is a good starting point. Many people like to take a split stance for this exercise, with one foot forward and one foot back, because it provides added stability. Keep your arms rigid with a slight bend in your elbow. Contract your core muscles as you start to draw your hands towards each other. Rather than meeting in the middle, allow one hand to pass over the other, so your forearms are crossed. Then, reverse the move, returning to your starting position with control. Next rep, cross the other hand on top. 

You can play with the positioning of the handles to change the exercise. Putting the handles at the lowest setting will turn the move into a low pulley cable crossover. This targets the upper chest in a similar way as the incline bench press. 

Chest dips are an intermediate to advanced exercise requiring you to have enough strength to lift and lower your bodyweight with just your arms. The exercise targets the chest muscles, as well as the shoulders, triceps, and abs. Chest dips target the lower pecs in a way similar to the decline bench press. To do them, you'll need a specific piece of equipment called a dip machine. Parallel bars can also be used. 

Step up into the dip station and grasp the bars. Lift your feet off the step and let them hang straight down. Contract your core and glute muscles. Start to bend your elbows to lower yourself in a slow and controlled motion until your forearms are close to parallel with the floor. Then press through the hands to lift the body back up to the starting position. 

You can change the target of the exercise with your body positioning. Leaning forward and flaring the elbows out will put more emphasis on the chest, while staying more vertical and keeping the elbows tucked in will place more stress on the triceps. 

Stability balls are any of a variety of inflated spheres or domes. Although they're called stability balls, the benefit is that they create a more unstable surface that makes exercises more challenging. The unstable surface causes your core muscles and stabilizer muscles throughout your body to have to work harder to keep you balanced. 

Doing pushups on a stability ball is an intermediate to advanced move. The easiest ball for this exercise is a Bosu ball, or half dome with a flat surface. Place your hands shoulder-width apart on the ball and, keeping your core muscles tight, lower your chest to the ball, then push back up. A large stability ball will be less stable but still relatively easy, since your upper body is elevated higher off the ground.

More challenging variations include the decline pushup, with your feet resting on the ball and your hands on the floor or on another stability ball. You can also choose a small stability ball to do close-grip pushups that emphasize the triceps, or you can do the exercise with one hand on a small stability ball and one hand on the ground. Plyometric pushups on a half dome, where you explode off the ball on the upward movement and clap your hands beneath your chest, are also an option.

The stability ball squeeze is an isometric exercise, which involves muscle engagement without actually moving the muscles. It's a static contraction, similar to the plank exercise. Doing isometric exercises as part of your chest workout can help you improve muscle strength and growth. It also works small stabilizer muscles throughout the upper body.

To do this exercise, take a small stability ball and hold it between your hands in front of your chest. Lift your elbows up and out to the sides. Apply equal pressure to the ball with both hands and squeeze as you contract your chest muscles. Hold the contraction and continue to squeeze for 20 seconds. As you get stronger, you can hold the contraction for longer. 

You can also do this exercise with a medium or large stability ball. Simply hold it between your forearms and squeeze as if you're doing a chest fly.