And so even though I love Arnold, the Bench Fly still gets the big red X.
What's up, guys, Jeff Cavaliere, athleanx.com. So, what you see behind me is a bunch of different
chest exercises likely that you recognize because you re wither doing them right now, or you ve done
them in the past. However, today I'm going to rank them from the worst to the best so you can
be sure that you're only focusing on the ones that give you the gains that you're after. So, by the
time this video is over, you're going to want to keep some of these and others that you're going to
want to kind of just throw away. So that being said, let's start ranking them one by one.
All right, so as we work our way from the bottom up, it's important to point out that the exercises
are placed into these categories for a reason. There are some criteria that goes into selecting
where an exercise will fall. For instance, we want to make sure this is an exercise that can
actually deliver results. But we don't want it to be something that is insufficient and being
able to challenge you into cause growth. We also want to select exercises or favor those that are
multidimensional. They are good for building muscle, but they're also capable of delivering
good strength gains. We're going to favor those. We also have some exercises that are just
downright dumb. We'll get to those too, and then we have the exercises that kind of invite injury
risk. And that's something we want to avoid, especially if we have better, safer options.
And that's why we start at the bottom of the list right here with the Bench Fly. Now, look,
I understand that Arnold loved this exercise, but just because he loved the Fly and I love Arnold
doesn't mean that I have to love the Fly. Not because I want to dislike the exercise,
but more so that my physical therapy background tells me that there's reasons to dislike it.
When you perform it on a bench in this unsupported way with no safety net, you increase the risk of
damage to the anterior shoulder capsule. That is something that you don't want to damage
ever, because it's very hard to repair and restore normal mechanics after that happens.
Not to mention increased risk of pec tear that happens because of the extreme positioning of
your arms during this exercise. Again, all of this negated most of all by the fact that there
are better alternatives to this that I will cover for you later on down this list. The fact is, for
all these reasons, guys, I have to put the big red X first and foremost through the Bench Fly.
All right. So next up in the category of worst is one that might actually come as a surprise to you,
because you know how often I like to train on my feet, if at all possible. But it's the Standing
Cable Press. The issue with the Standing Cable Press is it provides more of a challenge to your
core than the muscles you re actually trying to build. And just getting into this position here
with any type of heavy weight is going to make my abs work much harder to make sure that I don't
fall backwards when I'm doing the movement. And even if I do this out of a split stance where I'm
leaning, my weight forward is still not optimal if I'm going to press the weight that's necessary to
cause that overload and growth that we're looking for. For all these reasons, guys the Standing
Cable Press is just not the best press to do when you're looking for gains in your chest.
So, a couple of big red Xs on the board behind me. We're still not out of the worst category yet.
Here we have to throw in the Incline Bench Press. Now, wait, before you riot, understand that just
like size matters, angle matters too--a lot. And when it comes to the Incline Bench Press
what angle are you setting it at, because it really matters in terms of the gains that you
see from the exercise, especially up here in the upper chest. We know that the front delt
and the upper chest fiber's share not only a close proximity to each other anatomically,
but they share some function too. Well, we know that if we were to get
completely upright, we would shift the majority of that function to the front delt, as we would
in an Overhead Press. And if we got completely horizontal, most of the work would be done
by the chest. Well, that being said, we have to find that happy medium. And once you cross 50,
55 or 60 degrees, you're actually starting to go into that realm of less work for the chest and
more for the front delts which is not why you're doing the exercise in the first place. If you
want to maximize your gains on the Incline Bench Press, we're going to choose a lower angle, we'll
cover that one later. But for now, the 60-degree Incline Bench Press has to get the big red X.
No time hasn't made it any better, it's still fucking stupid.
So, now those gladly behind us I get to break out my blue marker as we work our way up the rankings
into the Better Category. I say better, not best, because there's still some limitations here that
I think it's important for you to be aware of. And we have to start right here with the king of
all of the better exercises, it s the Pushup. And I say the basic pushup because the basic
pushup is oftentimes, as I pointed out in our major criteria in the beginning of this video,
not challenging enough. It's just simply not driving
enough of a stimulus to cause change in the size of your chest because you can do too many of them.
If you're ripping off 30, 40 or 50 repetitions per set, there are variations that are going to
provide a better challenge in the basic pushup no longer is it. Now, if you're a beginner who's
still getting challenged by this exercise, then by all means you continue to build your strength
up with it before you move on. But that being said, guys, most of us are beyond the point
now where this is where we should be focusing our efforts. So, for that reason, I got to give
it a Better listing, but not Best yet because we know there's better variations to come.
So, since Betters are all about improvement, let's go back to those flys again, because I
wouldn't leave you hanging, I wanted to give you an improved version of it or a safer version of
it. And for that, we have to look at the Floor Fly. I'm a much bigger fan of this exercise
because it gives us a chance to have resisted adduction, but we get a chance to do it in a
safer setting with the floor acting as the safety net protecting that anterior shoulder because we
don't have those extreme ranges of motion at the bottom. Now, some would argue you don't get the
same amount of stretch, but I don't even know if that's the real benefit of the Fly anyway.
Beyond that, we do get to increase the weight that we use on a Floor Fly
versus the weight that we can handle to ensure that safety on a Bench Fly. And for that, we can
create more overload with this in an eccentric manner, which is going to give us an opportunity
for more growth. For all these reasons, the Better version of the fly is definitely the Floor Fly.
And wrapping up our better category here is an often-overlooked exercise that I believe
deserves a second look, and it's the Underhand Dumbbell Bench Press. And the best thing about
this exercise is it provides those that don't have access to an incline bench to still work their
upper chest, especially better than that 60-degree incline dumbbell bench press. EMG studies have
actually shown superior activation of those chest fibers during the underhand version rather than
too high of an incline press. That being said, it doesn't come without its limitations.
Namely the fact that you're not going to be able to load this exercise as much and that's mostly
due to the fact that there's a lack of stability at the bottom for some. You have to have enough
shoulder external rotation to be able to get your body in the right position with your elbows tucked
at your sides and your hands, elbows in line to support the dumbbells, to be able to drive them
up and that low to high dumbbell path to get that good upper chest activation. And if you don't have
that or you're simply looking to load the exercise as heavy as possible, then this one might not be
the one for you. But it still deserves its Better recognition and that's why we're going to put it
right here at the end of the Better category. And now we continue our way up the chart from the
worst to the best chest exercises. And we land here squarely in the Even Better Still category,
meaning better than what we just did, but not quite in the best yet. But I have to start here
with that variation of the pushup that I promised you before. This is called the Twisting Pushup.
And the main thing we're getting here is this additional relative adduction that small but
incredibly important addition to the basic pushup that will take whatever repetition you can do of
the basic pushup and bring it dramatically downwards. But at the same time increase
the effectiveness of it and that's really all that matters. No matter what count you can do
of your regular pushup right now, I promise you, less pushups here, but more from it. For
that reason, we give the Twisting Pushup the first in the Even Better Still Category.
And speaking of adduction, our next exercise and are Even Better Still Category is one that
focuses on that adduction function of the chest better than the things we showed you already,
including even the Floor Fly and it s the Cable Crossover. So, the thing about the Cable Crossover
is that it not only gives us a chance to get more production because you're getting our hands
slightly across midline, but it also gives us the chance to have peak tension. We tend to lose it in
either version of the dumbbell fly floor or bench. But the limitation here comes in the same thing
that we dealt with the Standing Cable Press. I believe the Cable Crossover is an exercise that
we can load up much heavier than we traditionally do. But as we do, we can see we have the same
stability demands and the demands placed on the core to keep us in this upright position
that might limit the amount of weight that we can use. If we limit the amount of weight we limit,
the amount of overload, and by limiting the amount of overload, we limit the amount
of growth. For that reason, guys, the Cable Crossover is my induction exercise of choice,
at least for now when we're talking about the Better Still exercises. More on that to come.
Next up, the Better Still Category is another variation of a bench press, it s actually one of
my favorites when your goal is mostly hypertrophy and a little bit less than a focus on strength.
It s the Lying Cable Bench Press. And what this does is it provides
you with a better strength curve, with more resistance throughout the entire strength curve
on the bench press because of the use of the cables. If I set the cables out wide,
the line of resistance is the cable itself. So, you can see that it maintains its perpendicularity
throughout a greater range of motion than, let's say, on a typical bench press. So,
at the top of the exercise, when I've reached my peak contraction in my chest, I actually still
have a lot of tension here that I wouldn't have with a typical barbell or dumbbell.
That being said, the difficulty still lies in the fact that I have to get this into position
to do a heavy weight. But again, when it comes to placing tension on the chest,
this is one of the best. I'm going to place it here in this category for that reason.
And concluded or Better Still Category is one of those chest exercises that people sometimes don't
even realize works the chest and it's the Dumbbell Upper Chest Pullover. And I'm careful to add the
designation of upper chest to make sure people understand that there's a way to perform this
to favor the upper chest rather than the lats. We know the typical dumbbell pull
over works the last because we're driving it with our elbows in this flare position.
However, if you do the opposite of that, you bring your elbows as tight together as possible.
You can quickly shift the focus to the upper chest because it's got all the components of a great
upper chest contraction. Our arms are elevated up over our head, remembering that we go from this
low to high position to get those upper chest fibrous activated. And we have the squeezing,
the abduction of the elbows as close together that really lights us up. Throw a dumbbell on
our hand. We get the overload we're looking for and that's the reason why I don't want
you to overlook this exercise any longer. And so, some tough contenders left on the board.
We move into our Almost Best Category, and I get to break out my green marker and we start right
here with the Dip. And for me, the dip is the best version of a pushup. If you think about it, the
dip is essentially a suspended pushup, especially if you angle your body more forward to favor the
chest rather than staying upright in favor of your triceps. That being said, the opportunity
here to load this exercise is going to be much easier than we have in a pushup. I could strap
a weight around my waist and do a weighted dip and continue to provide the progressive overload.
We need to drive both the strength and the size gains that this exercise provides.
Not to mention I could do a couple of other unique things, like adding a small twist,
which would be similar to the twisting pushup to get just that little bit of extra adduction,
which will bring that rep count down for the effectiveness of the exercise up. For all these
reasons, the dip is going to get my first in the Almost Best Category, and it belongs there.
So, if you haven't caught on by now, you know that I like adduction and we want to try to
get into the chest exercises we perform if we want to see the best gains from it. And that's
why I got to go back to it once again with my best option here and this is the Heavy 1-Arm Crossover.
And how is this different from the crossover? Well, in a very important way. Number one,
much more stability. Instead of having to move both arms at one time, which let's say you have
80 pounds in each hand, you're not going to be able to stabilize the total 160 as well
as you can't the 80 one arm at a time. Which is going to eliminate those balance limitations and
allow your core to take a back seat to the muscle you're actually trying to build.
And what I like to do here, as I mentioned, is go heavy because you have the opportunity to do that.
Stop doing this exercise as a 30 rep burn out at the end of your chest workout. Instead,
prioritize it as one of those great ways to get adduction. Not just adduction,
but full adduction across midline better than in any other exercise we performed so far. This is
going to be my adduction exercise of choice for those reasons, it is going to belong firmly up
here at the top and my Almost Best Category. And concluding now our Almost Best Category and
giving those that are still hyperventilating after looking at the thumbnail a reason to
breathe easy. We have the Incline Bench Press up here at the top. The reason, though,
is we're putting it at that 30-to-45-degree angle, not the steeper angle that we talked about before,
Because as I said, the angle matters. It's been found that the perfect angle to engage the upper
chest without over activating the front delts is going to be this 30-to-45-degree angle. Now,
whether or not your bench goes to the specific degree doesn't really matter.
Just try to go on the shallower side versus steeper, when the upper chest fibers you're
looking to really engage is the chest that you're trying to grow rather than your shoulders. This
is my choice right here firmly at the top. And so, then with any list ranking, the best chest
exercises from worst to first, there can only be one first. There can only be one best and it s
the one that s been staring at you the whole time, right here dead smack in the middle,
The Barbell or the Dumbbell Bench Press. And I'm giving you the option. Why? Because I just want to
make sure that you're doing one of them. And the reason why we put this at the top of this list
is because it gives us the best opportunity to do the one thing that we know can continue to drive
both strength and hypertrophy and that is overload his movement. The Barbell or the Dumbbell Bench,
it's something you can easily continue to up the weight on, which is going to continue
to progressively keep those gains coming. Now, look, the choice between the two exercises is
going to be up to you. Some may find the dumbbells are going to give you a little bit more adduction
at the top because you can move your hands closer towards each other. And others are going to find
that's a little bit easier on the shoulders to do the dumbbells versus the barbells. Others who are
looking to just prioritize strength are likely going to choose the barbell variation because it
gives you that extra 20% bump in your total. The fact is this gets the top spot when we re looking
at the best chest exercises for strength, size and growth of your chest. Or wait, maybe not.
And so, since the goal of this video is to give you the best possible information I
could. You're going to have to allow you to bend the rules just a little bit. You see,
because the best chess exercise is actually not chess exercise at all. It's a combination of
exercises from the Bench Press down into that Heavy 1-Arm Crossover. Realizing that you're
going to get that all important adduction, the only missing element from the back bench press
to create the perfect complement and take the best exercise and make it the greatest of all time.
And so with that, guys, hopefully you now know which of the chess exercises you should be doing
and which of the chess exercises maybe you want to ditch. The key is understanding why we pick
what we pick, because the size of the selection matters. As always, we put the science into all
we do here. All of our programs available over at Athleanx.com. If you found the video helpful, make
sure that your comments and the thumbs up below. Tell me what other things you want me to cover
in the ranked series, and I'll do that for you in the future videos. And speaking of future videos,
if you haven't already done so, make sure you click subscribe and turn on your notifications,
so you never miss one when I point out. All right guys, I ll see you soon.