Chest Exercises For The Upper Chest

Today, I'd like to go over some basic upper chest exercises that you can do to effectively hit your mid to upper pectoral region.

I think it's important that you understand that the chest is a fairly large muscle group and should be hit from a variety of angles.

I'm sure if your reading this page now, your looking for upper chest exercises that can help you build more power and muscle to your upper chest.

The following upper chest exercises are primarily the main exercises.

However, there are a few that I've picked up along my weight training journey that I know most trainers don't know about. You'll find some exciting upper chest exercises here.

Let's take a look at the chest exercises:

The Incline Barbell Press

The Dumbbell Incline Press

The Incline Dumbbell Fly

Straight Arm Pec Deck

This variation of the pec deck will directly target your upper chest area. This was first introduced to me by a body builder friend who had a different way of doing the pec deck.

Start

Finish

Pec deck images courtesy of: Mega Pro.com

As you can see from the above images, the movement involves your arms being bent at about 90 degrees. The variation I’m proposing will hit the upper chest with a lot more emphasis. Here’s what I want you to do:

• Get situated in the pec deck position as you normally would

• Instead of bending your arms at 90 degrees, extend your arms until they are straight. The pads should be at the insides of your elbows and your hands fully extended.

• Move your arms up by about 3 to 5 inches. Doing this will have an incline effect on the movement which will stimulate the upper chest.

• To start the movement, your arms should be straight and up by about 3 to 5 inches.

• Do the movement as you normally would but when you come to the middle portion of the movement, your going to lightly clap your hands together (while keeping your hands straight). This will tighten your upper chest.

• Repeat the movement.

Constant Tension

This is a pretty simple exercise and one anyone can do. Simply pick up a 5 pound plate and place it between your hands in front of you. You should have the plate flat, in your hands. Keep your arms straight and raise them until they are just above parallel. Squeeze the plate with both hands - You should feel tension in your upper pecs. If you don't raise the plate a little higher. Squeeze for the count of 10. As you get stronger, you can try using a 10 pounds plate.