A lot of people think the key to a bigger chest lies in endless sets of flat bench press. A lot of people are dead wrong, too. You cannot treat your chest (or any muscle, for that matter) as one individual muscle that only requires one specific exercise per workout. Although the bench press is the greatest all around mass builder for your chest, it is not sufficient by itself to build you the pectoral muscle you are looking for.

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If you really want huge pecs, you have to target the different parts of your chest muscles. People often do various chest exercises without understanding why they are doing them or how they each offer unique benefits, and without this understanding you are likely missing out on some serious gains. If your whole routine revolves around a flat bench (flat bench press, flat bench dumbbell press, flat bench flys), although you are doing multiple exercises, you aren’t working out your entire chest and therefore you aren’t achieving your full potential.

To train your upper chest, an area that is pretty lacking on guys who only do flat bench press and pushups, you need to use an incline bench. Incline bench press, incline dumbbell press, and incline bench flys are all great exercises that will not only help to build chest muscle, but they will specifically emphasize your upper chest. If you haven’t done these before, get ready to beat on some new muscle fibers and feel sore for a couple days, because your upper chest probably isn’t used to this amount of work.

Logically, using a decline bench will help to target your chest from a different angle, and can help to bring out your lower chest. Decline bench press, decline dumbbell press, and decline bench flys are all excellent exercises for working the lower portion of your chest.

Your hand position on a barbell will also result in different target areas of your chest. If you use a narrow grip (with your hands about 12 inches apart), you will be focusing more on your inner chest and your triceps. Narrow grip bench press is actually as great a triceps mass builder as it is for chest. Conversely, a wider grip (outside of shoulder width) will target your outer chest, which can help you to widen your pecs.

Combining these different exercises and variations of grip placement can really help you to construct a solid chest routine and maximize your muscle gains. I normally do 3 chest exercises per chest workout, one of which will target either my upper or lower chest, depending on what I want to work that particular day. It all depends on your individual strengths and weaknesses. Of course, the exercises listed above are not the only chest exercises you should do, they are only meant to serve as examples.