What are the best chest exercises?

NFH

Bit fed up with the standard flat bench press for the chest. Looking for well defined pecks (i.e square with a good line of definition across the top of the abs), not to bothered about strength and power etc. Any suggestions, cheers.

celestial

Incline bench press, decline bench press. Use dumbbells instead of barbells, or vice versa, to press. There are also about a million varieties of push-ups that you can do - swiss ball, elevated, with one foot on top of the other, etc etc. Look em up on the net. The bench, push-ups and free weights are all you need really. Forget machines in any case.

Laslo

Dips are vitally important for your chest.

rubadub

I now only do dips and flyes and many pushup variant on gymnastic rings, they bring a whole lot more muscles into play.

Degsy

I allways finish my chest with machine flyes,i find they help to knacker me more thouroughly and complete the burning feeling.

bond2008

hey guys
They have actually researched the most effective exercises on the site http://www.teenbodybuilding.com/mark4.htm
For Chest, most result-oriented effective exercises are :
Decline dumbbell bench press - 93%
Incline dumbbell press - 91%
Decline bench press - 89%
Flat dumbbell bench press - 87%
Flat barbell bench press - 85%

Colm_OReilly

It's amazing what a poorly designed study, coupled with second hand information can conclude.

bond2008

Oops..Poorly designed study? share your further thoughts on this so we all will know atleast how poor its.

kmick

Jump up and down with your hands by your sides repeating

I must
I must
I must improve my bust

That is all.

rubadub

bond2008 wrote: »

Oops..Poorly designed study? share your further thoughts on this so we all will know atleast how poor its.

There is very little info there. It give the top 5 for chest, dips is not there, so how do we even know it was tested or considered?

It says dumbell is better than barbell- is this for a given weight? e.g. I could probably bench 70kg on a barbell for 10 reps, and 70kg on a dumbell for 8 reps. So if I want 10 reps I have to lower the weight on the dumbbell and hence it could then appear less effective.


Also in the beginning they just come out and try and blind people with psuedoscience, trying to say EMG is the definitive way to say which is best. I do not know much about EMG but I am involved with many measurement systems and it is part of my job to point out or discover/evaluate flaws in them. Many people will have a device calibrated to give an estimate output while the input is not that related at all. So you get people tracking their progress by looking at how much gravitional pull their mass causes a spring to flex which gives a reading on a dial (weighing scale). They consider less gravitational force as a good indicator of fat loss, yet it is not always the case.

Some people have no idea of the science behind measurement systems and just blindly go along with it. This includes medical professionals too, some member here who had low bodyfat and high muscle was pronounced obese by their doctor since their BMI was high. This doctor is an ignorant idiot just following his little graph as gospel, with no clue what it really means.

bond2008

yeah. i got what you say. As far as i researched & know, Dumbbells are a lot effective as it works on isolation. Again, with Dumbbells, yes. yes. you got to stick with weights (lesser than you use n barbells) but still its gonna isolate your chest muscles whereas more wts with barbells dont work on isolation. so Isolation must be considered, i guess.
I am even lost when it comes to this debate

Laslo

It's definitely a flawed survey. How are they comparing barbell presses with dumbbell presses anyway? They both have a different effect on the chest and should both be used for the overall chest workout. Do the results below mean that a flat dumbbell press is less effective than an incline dumbbell press for the lower part of the chest? Is it measuring its effectiveness in terms of strength or muscle shaping?

Why aren't dips in there? You can virtually cut decline presses out of your routine if you substitute them for dips... and too much of the almighty, 93% effective decline dumbbell press will give you titties!

Hanley

bond2008 wrote: »

yeah. i got what you say. As far as i researched & know, Dumbbells are a lot effective as it works on isolation. Again, with Dumbbells, yes. yes. you got to stick with weights (lesser than you use n barbells) but still its gonna isolate your chest muscles whereas more wts with barbells dont work on isolation. so Isolation must be considered, i guess.
I am even lost when it comes to this debate

Why would one want to or attempt to isolate only their chest on a pressing movement?

bond2008

I think if someone is doing chest exericse, why not to isolate chest to see more effective results?
I read in so many articles dumbbells are better than bar bells for isolation. But anyone can clarify or debate it.

celestial

bond2008 wrote: »

I think if someone is doing chest exericse, why not to isolate chest to see more effective results?
I read in so many articles dumbbells are better than bar bells for isolation. But anyone can clarify or debate it.

who would want to isolate chest - work on your chest should be part of shoulder and arm development - you don't want skinny arms to go with your big chest do you?!!

Laslo

bond2008 wrote: »

I read in so many articles dumbbells are better than bar bells for isolation. But anyone can clarify or debate it.

No, it's the other way around in fact! Barbell presses isolate the chest - more so if you use a smith machine. Dumbbell presses actually allow for a wider, freer range of motion and are better for the overall shape of the chest.

Superdub2

Laslo wrote: »

No, it's the other way around in fact! Barbell presses isolate the chest - more so if you use a smith machine. Dumbbell presses actually allow for a wider, freer range of motion and are better for the overall shape of the chest.

i think when he suggests DB's are better for isolation he isnt saying solely for chest and DB's are definitely better for isolation exercises than BB and that applies to all body parts

t-ha

Colm_OReilly wrote: »

It's amazing what a poorly designed study, coupled with second hand information can conclude.

Word. Also, whatever happened to the concept of variety being important? And where are the cable-flies?? I don't do cable flies anymore since I'm teh functional now, but if I wanted big aul titties I know I'd have them in there somewhere.