Regardless of whether you simply want to shed the flab, firm up your pecs and get rid of the “man boob” look, or your goal is to pack on a ton of chest muscle, then you absolutely must be focusing on the most effective pectoral exercises on a regular basis.  While running into the gym and jumping from chest exercise to chest exercise without a decent plan can actually help you build your pecs to some degree.  However if you really want to build thick muscular pecs that you can be proud of, then you need to create your chest workouts around most effective pec exercises and ditch the longer list of crappy pectoral exercises.

No matter what body part you want to focus your attention on, I feel that you’re much better off picking with the pec exercises that allow you to train with heavy weights through a complete range of motion that incorporates muscle fibers from many different body parts. When it comes to chest training, I really like to focus on the basic chest presses that involves the muscles of the shoulder and chest at the same time.

I just feel that you get the most out of each workout training this way than you would by trying to singularly isolate each and every muscle group.  If you try to work out for chest growth by focusing on isolation movements that don’t work in your deltoids, you get to a point where you just chant get your pecs to grow because you’re training with very light weights.

Here are my choices for the best all around pectoral exercises.  Learn how to perform each of these chest exercises with correct form and start utilizing them in all of your chest workouts.  Not only will you begin to instantly feel a difference in the size and strength of your pecs, and after a few weeks of determined effort, people will start to notice your bigger, stronger chest muscles.

The Most Effective Pectoral Exercises

1.  Bar Bell Bench Press – This is the universal grandfather of all pec exercises. Stimulating muscles from your chest, delts and triceps this awesome pectoral exercise will help you gain some serious chest muscle quickly!

To perform the barbell bench press – Lie on your back on a flat bench with your butt in contact with the bench and your feet flat on the ground. Grab the bar with an overhand grip spaced just wider than shoulder width. Slowly lower the barbell in a slow and controlled manner until it’s located just below your nipples. Extend you arms upward while pushing the weight until the bar is in the starting position.

2. The Incline Press – The incline press is another timeless (and extremely effective) pec exercise that can help you get your pecs into amazing shape. The barbell incline press places and emphasis on the muscles in your chest and shoulders.

To perform the incline press: Sit on an inclined bench set to between 45 and 60 degrees. I personally like to lower the angle of the bench even lower to somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees because it allows me to train with much heavier weights than I can train with if the angle of the bench is steeper. Just give this pec exercise a try and see what works best for you..

Grab the barbell with an overhand grip that is slightly wider than shoulder width. Lower the bar in a slow and controlled manner to the top of your chest. Make sure that your back and butt are in contact with the bench during the entire movement. Press the weight up until the bar is back in the starting position. Make sure to avoid any aching in your back during this exercise.

3. Weighted Chest Dips – When performed properly weighted dips are one of the most effective chest exercises. Chest dips target your chest muscles while incorporating Your delts at the same time.  One of the really cool things about dips is that when performed properly, they allow you to really stretch out your pecs and deltoids at the bottom of the exercise, which can help to increase the range of motion of your shoulder joints.

To perform chest dips: Hang from the parallel bars with your arms fully extended and you legs curled up behind you. Bend your elbows and lower your body slowly until your chest is level with the parallel bars, then press down and lift your body back up to the starting position. In order to place more of an emphasis on your pectoralis and less on your triceps, lean forward through the complete movement.

If I had to narrow my list down to only 3 pectoral exercises to make up the bulk of my chest workouts, bench press, incline press (as well as the dumbbell equivalents) and chest dips would be the exercises I’d go with.  Not only do these basic chest exercises require little in the way of fancy equipment, but they are the most effective exercises for building a powerful muscular chest.

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In the featured segment of this episode of the gain muscle mass help podcast, I take a look at one of the most important fundamental principles of the muscle building process…progressive overload.  Lets face it…if you don’t make a point to progressively stimulate new muscle growth with each and every workout, you’re not going to be able to build as much muscle mass as you’d be able to if you were utilizing the power of progressive overload. I know that these days a lot of people are claiming that progressive overload is too “old school” and that it  just doesn’t work, but that’s just not true! progressive overload is THE underlying principle that makes the muscle building process “tick”.  Whether they refer to it as progressive overload or not, chances are any professionally designed  workout program that you’ve ever tried incorporates some form of progressive overload. After you listen to this episode of the podcast, check out these articles that cover progressive overload pretty well…

1.) Build Muscle mass Fast With Progressive Overload

2.) What is Progressive Overload?

3.) A Real Life Example of Progressive Overload In Action

4.) Progressive Overload Primer

I also talk a bit about a new “My Body Transformation” section that I recently added to the blog.  Over the years, I’ve been able to bring a lot of high quality muscle building content to all of you, but I realized that I just haven’t done a very good job of letting everyone in on exactly what I was personally doing with my own training and diet. In to the future, I plan on updating my workouts, nutrition strategy, progress and really everything related to how I’m training at the moment.

Check out the My Body Transformation section here!