Chest Workouts & Exercises for your Upper Body

Fitness

Take Your Push-Ups to the Next Level With the Archer Push-Up

By Elizabeth Millard; November 6, 2024

Push-up variations abound, from modifying by elevating your hands to dialing up the challenge by adding plank jacks. One particularly valuable (and quite challenging) variation...

Fitness

How to Master the One-Arm Push-Up

By Jenessa Connor, CPT; September 16, 2024

Dropping into a set of one-arm push-ups sends a few different messages, the first of which is that you have upper-body strength for days. Secondly, you’re...

Fitness

Maximize Your Upper-Body Gains With a Push Day Workout

By Jenessa Connor, CPT; September 11, 2024

Adding structure to your fitness routine can make your workouts more purposeful and efficient, minimize the risk of injury, and yield even better results. One simple...

Fitness

Diamond Push-Ups: Instructions, Progressions, and Tips

By Andrew Heffernan CSCS, GCFP; May 1, 2024

As bodyweight exercises go, it’s hard to find fault with the push-up. It’s convenient, challenging, functional, and it builds muscle without beating up your joints. Among...

Fitness

How to Do the Triceps Dips Exercise

By Jordan Burchette; March 15, 2024

There aren’t many bodyweight movements that mobilize as much upper-body muscle as the triceps dip exercise. Spanning two joints and four major muscles, classic bar dips...

Fitness

Build a Superheroic Upper Body With These Bodyweight Chest Exercises

By Lauren Bedosky; March 7, 2024

To develop a killer physique and a strong, functional upper body, it’s important to train your chest. Your pecs play a role in everyday tasks,...

Fitness

Build a Bigger, Stronger Chest With These Resistance Band Exercises

By Jenessa Connor, CPT; March 8, 2024

When you hear “resistance band workout,” a set of jacked pectoral muscles may not be the first image that comes to mind. But resistance band...

Fitness

Skip the Gym — Work Your Chest and Triceps at Home With These 7 Moves

By Jenessa Connor, CPT; March 7, 2024

You can get a great chest and triceps workout at home without weights — take it from Robert Herbst, a 19-time World Champion powerlifter and member of the...

Fitness

Don’t Do Knee Push-Ups — Try These Modifications Instead

By Jenessa Connor, CPT; April 25, 2024

We should all be doing push-ups. They’re effective, functional, and may even be an indicator of heart health. But if you struggle with the full...

Fitness

Push-Ups Getting Stale? Try These 17 Variations

By Lauren Bedosky; November 3, 2023

If you want to hit loads of muscles in a single rep, you can’t do much better than a standard push-up. But the base move...

Fitness

How to Do the Push-Up to Side Plank

By Lauren Bedosky; March 20, 2023

The push-up to side plank is a true full-body exercise. This move takes the push-up, which is already a crazy-effective full-body strength move on its own,...

Fitness

Add Variety to Your Routine, Try Medicine Ball Push-Ups

By Lauren Bedosky; March 22, 2023

If you only use medicine balls for throws, slams, and weighted crunches, it may be time to expand your thinking. Why not add them to...

Fitness

How to Master the Plank Push-Up (Plank Up Down)

By Andrew Heffernan CSCS, GCFP; March 17, 2023

It’s hard to think of a better exercise than the push-up. You can do it virtually anywhere. You can make it harder or easier with a simple...

Fitness

8 of the Best Moves to Train Your Chest and Abs

By Stepfanie Romine; March 6, 2024

Looking to change up your chest-day routine? Try targeting other muscles in your torso too. “If you’re training your chest, your abs will usually be...

Fitness

How to Do the Dumbbell Chest Fly for Peak Pec Development

By Andrew Heffernan CSCS, GCFP; November 15, 2024

To many fitness pros, building powerful, heaving chest muscles begins and ends with pressing movements: the bench press; the push-up; the incline bench press. But if you’ve benched...

Fitness

Chest Anatomy: Marvel at All the Things Your Pec Muscles Do!

By Lauren Bedosky; December 5, 2024

Strong, developed chest muscles (a.k.a. pecs) are the centerpiece of a fit physique. Not only do they look impressive, but they also make life in...

Fitness

How Many Push-Ups Should You Do a Day to Build Muscle?

By Lauren Bedosky; July 22, 2024

Generally, strength-training objectives fall into a handful of major buckets: strength, power, endurance, and hypertrophy (muscle building). So determining something like how many push-ups you should do...

Fitness

Hate Push-Ups? Try These 6 Alternative Moves

By Jenessa Connor, CPT; April 5, 2024

The push-up is one of those classic exercises that seem to appear in almost every workout — and with good reason. It’s a highly functional movement that...