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The top 3 most effective chest exercises

A

Admin

Administrator. Graeme
Staff member
Want to strengthen your chest? A study out of the University of Wisconsin- La Crosse set out to determine which exercises are the most effective. The researchers tested for motor-unit recruitment, firing rate, and synchronization to see which exercises led to the most muscle activation. The standard push-up didn’t fare well. The top three exercises are:

  1. The Barbell Bench Press
  2. Pec Deck Machine
  3. Bent-Forward Cable Crossovers
The full rankings and statistics can be seen in the chart below:

Although push-ups are relatively ineffective in activating your pectoral muscles, they may be the preferred exercise for someone who is interested in general fitness, a leaner look or is short on time and/or equipment.
 
Thought flys would be there instead of pek deck, buy pec deck it is.
Not suprized about DB press, never liked them, burn too much energy and stress the shoulders just to get the kunce into position.
Like the cables, they pump a decent amount of blood into the pecks and they burn real good.
My 2 cents woth.
 
I like dumbells to change the wrist angle a bit and give the shoulders a bit of a rest.
 
Unfortunately exercise selection has to take into account longevity. BB bench press and pec deck will cut short my training life significantly.
 
I'd be interested to see what weight was moved with each exercise.

The bench is an exercise you can really load up, your back is pinned against the bench the ROM is relatively short, the pecs are heavily stimulated but I don't believe it is a very good exercise.

the fly/pec deck is an exercise that stimulates the pec through a much larger ROM but the load and Tut is much less it makes sense that the load moved has to be a lot less.

the weighted dip is an exercise that is just "the upper body squat" every muscle around the shoulder is working hard including the lats.
the pecs are really working here, but at full extension the lats are also doing their fair share.

i think that is a person is having difficulty doing dips, then it's because it's indicating issues with the shoulder, and not because of the nature of the exercise but due to the weaknesses the bench press causes.
 
I would like to know what style of BB bench press they used? The variation with touching chest or not, if so how high/low, how much elbow flare, back arch will change how much the pecs are used.

My 2c, my style of bench pressing uses minimal pecs. Although floor pressing is predominantly triceps for most, I get far more "feel" in the chest doing these. And I highly rate the cable x-over for a shoulder friendly chest exercise.
 
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