Train Upper Chest: The Best Exercises

An effective chest muscle workout requires specific and targeted exercises that train your entire chest area, which we divide into the upper, middle, and lower areas of the muscle.

The "Upper Chest Muscle" refers to the large pectoral muscle (Latin: Musculus Pectoralis Major), whose strengthening ensures a particularly wide and full, visibly trained chest. With the exercises from this article, you train this upper chest area specifically, even though other areas of the chest muscles are always involved.

Before you start your chest muscle building training, it's important to warm up well. After warming up, you can start with light exercises for the upper chest area. Then you increase the level of difficulty from simple to medium to high.

The Best Exercises
For a perfect upper pectoral muscle, the following exercises are recommended:

- Decline Push-ups
- Incline Dumbbell Press
- Incline Machine Bench Press
- Incline Bench Flies
- Incline Cable Flies

Here's how to perform these exercises correctly and what to pay attention to:

Decline Push-ups

With decline push-ups, you can specifically train your upper chest without any extra equipment. This variant of push-ups is a bit more challenging than the classic execution, so you should be comfortable with regular push-ups.

The exercise is as follows: place your toes on a higher position e.g., on a chair at home, a bench in the park, or a flat bench in the gym. Get into the push-up position, making sure your arms are about shoulder-width apart. Now slowly lower your chest by bending your elbows.

Then simultaneously press the chest back up until your arms are almost fully extended. If you feel too much strain on your wrists, you can also perform this exercise on your fists.

Incline Dumbbell Press

For this exercise, sit with a dumbbell in each hand on an incline bench. The angle you set on the bench is up to you. Ideal for training the large pectoral muscle is a low angle of 30 degrees.

To train the entire upper chest area, you should work with an angle of 45 degrees. Sit on the bench with your feet firmly on the ground. In the starting position, your elbows point outwards and forearms point upwards. The dumbbell should align with your upper arms.

When exhaling, now extend your arms upwards. Stop the movement when your arms are extended and before the dumbbells touch each other. Then lower the dumbbells slowly back to the starting position while inhaling. Ensure that your forearms point straight up during the entire exercise and your head lies on the inclined part of the bench.

Incline Barbell Bench Press

Moving on to the classic chest muscle building exercise. As with the dumbbell exercise, you determine the angle of the bench yourself, as there is no general statement about it. But surely you will feel the upper chest muscles in the exercise somewhere between 30 and 50 degrees.

The steeper the angle, the more the load of the chest muscles shifts to the upper chest. Plant your feet firmly on the ground and grab the barbell bar, which is above you, with a slightly more than shoulder-width grip. To prevent injuries, always keep your wrists under the bar.

Tense your abdominal muscles and lift the bar from the rack upwards, positioning the bar over your upper pectoral muscle. Lower the barbell slowly again until it touches your chest, then lift it back up to the rack. Make sure you inhale during the downward movement of the barbell.

Incline Machine Bench Press

A third variant of the incline bench press is the execution on a machine. This exercise is ideal for beginners in chest muscle building training. The angle of the incline bench is to be chosen between 45 and 60 degrees. For the starting position, sit on the machine, slide your buttocks all the way back on the seat cushion, press your back against the cushion of the bench, and plant your feet firmly on the ground.

Now grab the handles in overhand grip with your hands and tense your abdominal muscles. Then slowly press the handles upwards at an angle. Again, pay attention to your breathing and hold the tension for a moment. Then move the handles back to the starting position.

Incline Cable Flies

This exercise is also excellent for strengthening your upper chest. The exercise is as follows: Lie on an incline bench (you determine the angle yourself as always) and grab the hand loops of the cables on your left and right.

The weight hanging on the cables can be varied individually depending on your training level. Start light and gradually increase. Pull the hand loops up to the middle of your chest area. Make sure your arms are not fully extended to truly transfer the tension to the upper chest.

Stop the movement when your arms point straight up. Your hands should not touch each other to maintain the force. You can repeat this several times, gradually increasing the weights.