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.

The pectoral exercises that you pick for your chest workouts are definitely important, but how critical are they to the goal of sculpting a bigger more muscular chest?  If your goal is to build a bigger chest and gain muscle mass in the process, then the pec exercises that you choose are important to the process.  If you piece together your pectoral workout with exercises that don’t fit certain criteria, then you’ll ultimately have a hard time building up your pecs. In this article, I’m going to uncover the specific criteria that your pec exercises need to meet in order for you to stimulate some serious chest growth, as well as list a few of my favorite pectoral building exercises.

First things first.  In order to stimulate chest muscle growth, you definitely have to perform muscle building exercises that meet a few conditions. First, the pectoral exercises that you choose, need to allow you to actually target your chest muscles. If you choose pectoral exercises that place most of the emphasis on your shoulders, then your shoulders will be doing most of the work and in turn achieving the benefits of doing that work (you’ll stimulate muscle growth in your shoulders instead of chest growth). So you want to focus on movements that specifically target your pectoral muscles.  It’s ok if the pectoral exercises also incorporate your shoulders or triceps, but the main muscle group in the movement should for the most part be your pec muscles.

The second piece of criteria that the pec exercises that you choose for your chest workouts need to meet is that each of the exercise that you select need to allow you to move a fairly heavy amount of weight (this is the only way to build muscle mass).  Lifting incrementally heavier weights over a full range of motion is exactly how you stimulate muscle growth, so it only makes sense that if you’re wanting to add size to your pec muscles,  then you need to be training with heavy weights.

The third piece of criteria is something that most gym rats completely overlook.  You’ve got to actually like performing the upper body exercises that you choose!  If you hate the exercises that you put into your pectoral workouts, you’re not going to be able to hit your pectoral as hard as you’d be able to if you actually enjoyed performing the chest exercise in the first place, so make sure to stick with  a few of the chest exercises that you actually enjoy. Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to perform a few upper body exercises that you’re less than thrilled about, but try not to construct your upper body workouts around these pectoral exercises, instead find a few that you really enjoy and fit them into the workout.

Below are a few of my favorite pec exercises. After looking over this list of exercises, I can honestly say that about 95% of all of my chest workouts are composed of these highly effective pectoral exercises. Once in a long while, I’ll work in a few sets of cable crossovers, but that really about it.

9 Excellent Pectoral Exercises;DB Bench Press, Bench Press, Incline Press, Db Incline Press, Push Up, Chest Dips, Dumbbell Flyes, Decline Bench Press, DB Decline Bench Press.

If you’re one of the hundreds of guys out there who wants to sculpt out a bigger, more muscular chest, then make sure that your pectoral workouts are composed of the most effective pectoral exercises!  The majority of your pectoral  workouts should be designed around the short list of upper body exercises listed above.  If you follow no other advice than to simply make sure that your chest  workouts are designed with exercises that fit the requirements listed in this article, you will begin to build a bigger chest fast.