The 5 Best Upper Chest Exercises (Dumbbell, Barbell & Machine)

The best upper chest exercises are the incline bench press, incline fly, landmine press, chest press machine, and feet-raised push-ups. If you have dumbbells, do an incline dumbbell bench press and incline fly. If you have a barbell, do the incline bench press. If you’re training at a full gym, try the chest press machine.

The research on upper chest exercises is pretty shaky—I’ll cover it in a moment—but pressing on an incline is almost certainly the best way to emphasize your upper chest. The most popular example of that is the incline bench press. Bodybuilders swear by it. Most experts agree with them.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the pros and cons of each exercise, along with a tutorial video showing you how to do them.

The Upper Chest Muscles

Your upper chest is the part of your chest that connects to your collarbones. It’s the smallest part of your chest, but building it bigger looks great and helps you press more weight.

Most of the muscle fibres in your chest connect to your sternum and ribs. Those are the muscles you train with push-ups, dips, and bench presses. Those exercises train your upper chest, too, just not very well. Your upper chest prefers exercises with a bit of upward motion—ones that bring your arms closer to your collarbones.

The Iffy Upper Chest Research

There aren’t very many studies looking at the upper chest. Most of those studies are muscle activation (EMG) studies, which aren’t very good at determining which exercises are better for building muscle.

For example, muscles show the highest levels of activation when contracted, but you stimulate more muscle growth when they’re stretched. That means if an exercise is hardest near the bottom of the range of motion (like an incline bench press), it might show lower muscle activity but be better for building muscle.

Still, most EMG research points towards the incline bench press being better (study, study). Since most chest exercises are hardest when the pecs are stretched, I think we can probably trust these studies, especially because they line up with bodybuilding tradition and expert opinion (including ours).

There’s also one study comparing upper chest growth from the incline bench press against the flat bench press (study). The results are strange, but they show that the incline bench press is about twice as good for your upper chest as the flat bench press. That lines up with what we’d expect from the EMG research:

The weird part is that participants increased their upper chest size by 62% in eight weeks. That’s 4–10 times more muscle growth than you’d expect. Greg Nuckols pointed this out when reviewing the study for MASS. The study isn’t suspicious in any other way, so I’m not sure if we should throw out the results, but it’s definitely weird.

The Best Upper Chest Exercises

The Incline Bench Press

The incline bench press is the most famous upper chest exercise, and deservedly so. It works your upper chest, mid-chest, front delts, and triceps. It seems that a shallow incline of about 30 degrees is best for your upper chest. A higher incline shifts more emphasis to your front delts (study).

The incline barbell bench press is a little bit better for your triceps. The barbell holds the weights together, allowing your triceps to flex without throwing the weight off to the sides. The downside is that it’s more difficult to set up.

The incline dumbbell bench press might be slightly better for stubborn upper chests. If your chest isn’t activating very well with a barbell, switching to dumbbells can sometimes help because your upper chest will need to fight to keep the weights from falling off to the sides.

The Incline Dumbbell Fly

The incline dumbbell fly is an isolation exercise for your upper chest. It takes your triceps out of the equation so that you can focus purely on your upper chest. It’s a little bit harder at the bottom of the range of motion, too, which is good for building muscle.

Some people prefer the low-to-high cable fly. Cables are better for keeping constant tension on your muscles (which probably doesn’t matter) but aren’t as good for working your muscles at the bottom (which matters a great deal). I think the dumbbell fly might be ever-so-slightly better, but the difference is surely small, so use whichever variation you prefer.

The Landmine Press

The landmine press is sort of like an overhead press combined with an incline bench press. You’re pressing the weight at an incline, which is perfect for your upper chest, while your shoulder blades are free to move, which is great for your serratus anterior (underneath your armpits). The serratus anterior is almost as big as your lats, so it’s a cool muscle to bulk up. It’s also important for building a strong, healthy shoulder joint.

The downside of the landmine press is that it’s inconvenient to set up. Some gyms have landmine stations. You could get a landmine sleeve for your home gym. You could even stick a tennis ball on the end of your barbell. But it can be a hassle.

Feet-Raised Push-Ups

If you want a bodyweight exercise, doing push-ups with your feet raised trains your upper chest while letting your shoulder blades move freely. That’s great for building muscle in your serratus anterior and fantastic for the health of your shoulder joint. I don’t have a tutorial video specifically for feet-raised push-ups, but I show them here, in this video on push-up progressions and dips:

You’ll notice that I also raise my hands on dumbbells. That extends the range of motion, allowing you to work your upper chest under a deeper range of motion.

The Chest Press Machine

Most gyms have an exercise machine that lets you press weight at an incline, similar to an incline bench press. These machines are usually super easy to set up, feel great, and work your chest under a deep stretch. The best ones look something like this: