By choosing the right pectoral exercises, you can throw together some extremely effective pectoral workouts that will ultimately force your chest to explode.  If your goal is to build a big muscular chest, then the upper body exercises that you choose are vital to the process.  If you piece together your chest workout with exercises that don’t fit certain criteria, then you really won't be able to build your chest up quickly. In this article, I’m going to uncover the specific criteria that your chest exercises need to meet in order for you to stimulate some serious upper body growth, as well as list a few of my favorite pectoral building exercises.

Lets get on to one of the first things that I like to teach people about building their chest muscles up.  In order to stimulate upper body muscle growth, you absolutely need to perform muscle building exercises that meet certain conditions. First, the chest exercises that you choose, need to allow you to actually target your pectoral muscles. If you choose upper body exercises that place most of the emphasis on your shoulders, then your shoulders will be doing most of the work and in turn achieving the benefits of doing that work (you’ll stimulate muscle growth in your shoulders instead of chest growth). So you want to focus on movements that specifically target your chest muscles.  It’s ok if the chest exercises also incorporate your shoulders or triceps, but the main muscle group in the movement should definitely be your pectoral muscles.

The next piece of criteria that the pectoral exercises that you choose for your upper body workouts need to meet is that each of the exercise that you select need to allow you to move a fairly heavy amount of weight.  Lifting incrementally heavier weights over a full range of motion is precisely how you stimulate muscle growth, so it only makes sense that if you’re wanting to add size to your upper body muscles,  then you need to be training with heavy weights.

The next piece of criteria is something that most people completely overlook.  You’ve got to actually enjoy performing the pec exercises that you pick!  If you hate the exercises that you put into your upper body workouts, you’re not going to be able to hit your upper body as hard as you’d be able to if you really enjoyed performing the upper body exercise in the first place, so make sure to stick with  a few of the chest exercises that you actually enjoy. Sometimes you’ve got no choice but to perform a few chest exercises that you don't really like, but try not to build your pectoral workouts around these pectoral exercises, instead find a few that you really like and slip them into the workout.

Listed below are a few of my favorite upper body exercises ( in no particular order). After looking over this list of exercises, I can honestly say that approximately 95% of all of my pectoral workouts are composed of these highly effective pectoral exercises. Once in a long while, I’ll work in a few sets of cable crossovers, but that really about it.

The Best Pectoral Exercises

1. DB Bench Press
2. Bench Press
3. Incline Press
4. DB Incline Press
5. Push Up
6. Chest Dips
7. Dumbbell Flyes
8. Decline Bench Press
9. DB Decline Bench Press

If you’re one of the hundreds of guys out there who really wants to build a bigger, more muscular chest, then make sure that your pec workouts are composed of the most effective pectoral exercises!  The majority of your chest  workouts should be created around the short list of chest exercises listed above.  If you follow no other advice than to simply make sure that your upper body  workouts are designed with exercises that fit the criteria outlined in this article, you'll begin to build a bigger chest in no time at all.

Regardless of whether you simply want to ditch the flab, firm up your pecs and loose the "man boob" look, or your goal is to build a massive eye catching chest, then you really need to be focusing on the most effective pectoral exercises on a regular basis.  While running into the gym and jumping from chest exercise to chest exercise without a decent plan can actually help you build your pecs to some degree.  If you really want to build a big strong chest that you can be proud of, then you need to plan your upper body workouts around a short list of the top chest exercises and ditch the laundry list of just plain ineffective chest exercises.

Regardless of what body part you want to focus your attention on, I think that  you are much better suited picking with the pec exercises that allow you to train with heavier weights through a range of motion that incorporates muscle fibers from many different body parts. When it comes to chest training, I prefer to stick with the fundamental chest presses that involves the muscles of the shoulder and chest at the same time, and sometimes even the lats.

I really think that you get more bang for you buck hitting the gym this way than you would by trying to singularly isolate each muscle fiber.  If you try to lift for chest growth by focusing on isolation movements that don't incorporate your deltoids, you reach a point where while you are isolating the pectoral muscles, you aren’t training with a heavy enough weight to stimulate real muscle growth.

Below are my choices for the best all around pectoral exercises.  Learn how to perform each of these pec exercises with proper form and start using them in your pectoral workouts.  Not only will you begin to instantly feel a difference in the size and strength of your pecs, and after a few weeks of determined effort, everyone will begin to take notice of your bigger, stronger chest muscles.

My Top 3 Favorite Pectoral Exercises

1.  The Bench Press - This is the universal "granddaddy" of all pec exercises. Including muscles from your chest, delts and tri's this "old school" chest exercise can help you gain some serious chest muscle quickly!

To perform the bar bell bench press - Lie on your back on a flat bench with your butt in contact with the bench and your feet flat on the ground. Grip the bar with an overhand grip spaced just wider than shoulder width. Lower the barbell in a controlled and slow manner until it's located just below the lower portion of your pectoralis. Extend you arms upward while pushing the weight until the bar is in the initial position.

2. Barbell Incline Press - The barbell incline press is another classic (and very effective) pec exercise that can help you whip your chest into incredible shape. The barbell incline press works the muscles in your chest and shoulders.

To perform the incline press: Sit on an inclined bench set to between 45 and 60 degrees. I personally like to lower the angle of the bench even lower to somewhere between 35 and 40 degrees because it allows me to train with much heavier weights than I can train with if the angle of the bench is steeper. Just give this pec exercise a try and see what works best for you..

Wrap your thumbs around the bar with an overhand grip that is slightly wider than shoulder width. Lower the bar in a slow and controlled manner to the top of your chest. Make sure that your back and butt are in contact with the bench during the entire exercise. Press the weight up until the bar is back in the starting position. Make sure to avoid any aching in your back during this exercise.

3. Weighted Dips - When performed correctly weighted dips are one of the most effective chest exercises. Weighted dips target your chest muscles while incorporating your deltoids at the same time.  One of the unique things about weighted dips is that when performed correctly, dips allow you to really stretch out your chest and shoulder muscles at the bottom of the exercise, which can help to increase the range of motion of your shoulder joints.

To perform chest dips: Hang from the parallel bars with your arms fully extended and you legs curled up behind you. Bend your elbows and lower your body slowly until your chest is level with the parallel bars, then press down and lift your body back up to the starting position. In order to place more of an emphasis on your pectoralis and less on your triceps, lean forward through the complete movement.

If I had to narrow my list down to only 3 pectoral exercises to make up the bulk of my chest workouts, incline press, bench press (as well as the dumbbell equivalents) and chest dips would be the ones I'd go with.  Not only do these basic chest exercises require little in the way of fancy equipment, but they are the most effective exercises for building a powerful muscular chest.