Jeff Cavaliere is breaking down chest training so that you can optimize your workout and build the most muscle possible. In his latest endeavor, shared via YouTube on September 17, 2024, Cavaliere rated the best movements for chest growth and revealed which ones you should reject in your routine.
Boasting over 13.9 million subscribers on his ATHLEAN-X YouTube channel, Cavaliere is by far one of the most trusted voices in the fitness industry. He has decades of experience lifting weights and has developed a keen eye for proper form and technique.
Having served as the head physical therapist and assistant strength coach to the New York Mets baseball team, Cavaliere’s methods are proven at the highest level in athletics, making his insight into exercise selection valuable in a community fraught with misconceptions.
“Today we’re going to rate a bunch of different chest exercises many of which you are either doing right now or having watched another ranked video, are deciding whether or not to include them in your chest workout. We’re going to do it one of two ways, if I like the exercise, we’re going to rep it, if I don’t like the exercise, we’re going to reject it.”
Fitness Coach Jeff Cavaliere Reveals Which Chest Exercises to Keep or Reject for Optimal Results
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Quick Breakdown
Below, you can find a brief overview of his findings as well as his thoughts on 14 of the most popular chest movements.
- Pec Deck – Include
- Flat Bench Press – Include
- Crossover V-Variation – Reject
- Incline Bench Press – Include
- Underhand Bench Press – Include
- Decline Bench Press – Include
- Pushups – Include
- Guillotine Press – Reject
- Cable Crossover – Include
- Static Press – Include
- Bench Fly – Reject
- Upper Chest Pullover – Include
- 3D Crossover – Include
- Weighted Dips – Include
Pec Deck – Include
“If you have access to the machine at the gym is going to give you at least access to an adduction-based exercise. You know how important I think that is to complement your heavy pressing. That being said, mounting and dismounting the machine is probably my bigger concern as long as you get that right you’re off to the right start.”
“Though it’s not my favorite way to adduct and overload adduction, I will say it’s good exercise for me, and I’m going to rep it.”
Flat Bench Press – Include
“Of course, I’m going to have to rep this exercise. Obviously, it provides the greatest amount of overload. I do prefer to do it as a dumbbell bench press rather than a barbell bench press mostly due to my orthopedic issues in my shoulders.”
“I also like to have the touch point of that outer lower portion of my chest that I can more easily hit with the dumbbells. There’s no way around it though guys if you want to get a bigger stronger chest, the best overload exercise option for you is going to be the flat bench press.”
Crossover V-Variation – Reject
“Everything I just said about good adduction-based exercises, that’s the opposite. We don’t want to do it like this because there’s actually no resistance of adduction at all,” explains Cavaliere.
Incline Bench Press – Include
“We’re going to rep it again but to determine whether or not it’s incline or flat, maybe for you, you have to ask yourself do you have a very developed upper chest or not, most of us don’t so if I had to choose between the two it’s going to be that one.”
“It’s going to have a lot more range of motion requirements,” he adds. “If you have any type of shoulder issues, you’re likely going to find the dumbbell variations a lot more comfortable than any barbell variation.”
Underhand Bench Press – Include
“If you take an underhand grip and press it like you see me doing here, you’re actually getting good upper chest stimulation. You’re actually going from the sort of low to high position which is a requirement to hit those upper chest fibers.”
Decline Bench Press – Include
“The decline bench press like I said before, is going to be the lowest demand on you in terms of range of motion of the shoulders. So whoever does have problems orthopedically with their shoulders and they’re looking for an on-ramp to be able to start pressing again, start decline. It also happens to be the variation of the bench press that allows people who don’t have a really good time feeling their chest to start to feel it.”
Pushups – Include
“Rep it but not too much. What I mean by that is I feel like the pushup has become such a staple exercise but a lot of times it’s a crutch exercise for those that want it to be their main chest exercise.
You need to have a better way to load the exercise and that’s where I think you need to opt for a more difficult version of the exercise. As a blanket statement, I always say if you can do more than 30 reps of a pushup than opt for a more difficult version of the pushup (adding weight).”
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Guillotine Press – Reject
“It’s not just an issue of whether it should be done with dumbbells or barbells however, I will say right off the bat, I wouldn’t do it with a barbell. If you’re going to do the exercise do it with dumbbells.
It’s not necessarily about the flared elbow position that some will refer to, for me, it’s about the touch point. You can have a higher touch point but still have the elbows angled downwards a little bit.”
Cable Crossover – Include
“This exercise saved my chest development for a period of time when my shoulder was complete trash. Why do I love this? It’s an adduction-based exercise, again, for me, we can get on our feet when we do the exercise, but most importantly, it’s versatile as all hell. You have the opportunity to change the angle with one quick adjustment on the stack.”
Static Press – Include
“It actually allowed me to bench press again, doing dumbbell bench presses despite the discomfort I had. It takes advantage of the fact that you can bench press a lot more slowly and in control.”
Bench Fly – Reject
“I think there’s better alternatives many of which we covered already. The main focus of the bench fly is going to be the stretch and also the adduction exercise. There’s better adduction exercises.”
Upper Chest Pullover – Include
“This can be tweaked to be able to get the upper chest depending upon how you do it. You want to make sure as you’re watching me do here is that you’re squeezing your arms together. So you’re trying to almost touch your biceps as you pull that dumbbell forward and you don’t want to bring the dumbbell so far forward on this,” Jeff Cavaliere said.
3D Crossover – Include
“You can see there’s a little bit more body English going into this. I’m okay with that. The idea is that I can load the exercise up much more heavily so I can get a better eccentric overload, I can get that loaded stretch at the bottom but because I can move my torso in space and rotate through space I can almost give with it.”
“This exercise gives me that chance to get all the adduction benefits that we talked about but again, in a way that I can actually load it up probably a lot more safely and heavily than I ever could than one of those lying down bench flys.”
Weighted Dips – Include
“Another good high-capacity overload-type exercise but it does come with a couple of warnings and the warnings are you better have first a baseline level of strength to do a weighted version of the exercise.
You got to be able to do around 15 or so maybe up to 20 somewhere in that range of a bodyweight dip, good repetitions, good form, before you should start worrying about even adding additional weight.”
Of the 14 exercises discussed, Jeff Cavaliere only rejected three movements: the crossover v-variation, guillotine press, and bench flys. And this wasn’t the first instance in which he explained how to properly execute chest training. He recently offered form cues and body positioning tips for cable crossovers.
There’s a plethora of options out there to get the job done when it comes to building the chest. Feel free to include some of Jeff Cavaliere’s favorite exercises in your next workout!
RELATED: Jeff Cavaliere Breaks Down Navy SEAL David Goggins’ Workout Routines: How Effective Are They?
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