Jeremy Ethier (Build with Science) reviews three common chest exercises that he argues limit chest growth—the incline bench press, dumbbell fly, and pinch press—and presents more effective alternatives and technique cues. Key recommendations: use a low-incline dumbbell press (~15°) instead of high-angle inclines; perform cable or band flies with the bench more upright to maintain tension through the range; and replace pinch-press isometrics with cross-body presses (machine or cable) to provide concentric/eccentric loading. He cites a 2020 study on bench angles and references muscle activation research favoring a 45° elbow tuck for upper-chest engagement. The video also promotes his Build with Science programs and tutorials.
Questions this video answers
15°, 30°, 45°, and 60°.
About 30°.
Tucking the elbows to about 45°.
Roughly 15° (generally the first or second notch up on the bench).
In this video, I'm going to show you three common chest exercises that are slowing your gains and what you should be doing instead. I'm going to give you much more effective options than the common incline bench press, dumbbell fly, and pinch press to grow your chest. Start using the exercises we'll cover in this video and you'll be able to grow your chest faster than you ever have before. For well developed chest, you need to focus on growing the upper chest. It's what fills out your chest and gives it a proportionate look. Despite this, one of the most popular upper chest exercises, the incline bench press, may be leaving gains on the table because of the angle of the bench and the angle of your elbows. In a 2020 study, researchers said participants performed the incline bench press at 15, 30, 45 and 60 degrees and measured how active different parts of the chest and shoulder were. What they found is that activation of the upper chest was maximized at a bench angle of about 30 degrees, which is shown here. At angles higher than this, the front delts began to take over, whereas upper chest activation began to decrease. In addition to this, although reducing the bench angle from 30 degrees down to about 50 degrees, shown here, resulted in a very small decrease in activation of the upper chest, it did provide a major boost in the activation of the middle and lower parts of the chest. These results suggest that contrary to common practice, to target the upper chest, you don't need a very high bench angle at all. So where does this leave the incline bench press? Unfortunately, most incline benches are preset at too high of an angle of about 30 degrees, with some even as high as 45 degrees. So a good alternative is to use one of my personal favorites that I include in all of my built with Science programs, a low incline dumbbell press set to roughly 15 degree, which is generally the first or second notch up on the bench. We're using dumbbells instead of barbells here as well, because several muscle activation papers have found that keeping the elbows tucked to 45 as you press helps significantly increase upper chest activity. And since with dumbbells you can adjust your wrist position to whatever feels best, rather than being locked into the barbell, you're able to achieve this elbow angle without stressing your joints. As a fan of Arnold, I used to love the dumbbell fly. It wasn't until I learned more about the science behind the chest involvement during the dumbbell fly that I realized there was a better option. So the dumbbell fly seems like a great option because it really does isolate the chest but it only really works the chest at the bot arms are fully extended to your sides. But as soon as you pass this bottom position, the chest becomes less and less involved, which is less effective for overall chest growth. In fact, once you reach the top position, there's virtually no tension placed on the chest. You can hang around here all day. That being said, we still want to do some kind of fly movement for our chest. We're going to do that by making one big change to your flies that will keep constant tension on your chest and and work it through its full range of motion. Keep the bench, but move it upright and place it between two cables that are set at about the height of your chest. Grab the handles, sit between them and perform your flies there. If you don't have cables handy, you can mimic a similar setup by wrapping a band around your hands and performing the dumbbell fly like so. This will help keep a little bit of tension on the chest throughout the whole movement. Alright, by the way guys, hopefully by now you're seeing the importance of not only choosing the right exercises, but actually doing them properly as well. I know that's what makes all the differ. And that's exactly why within my Build Science programs, I've taken the time to not only carefully pick out each exercise that's included in your routine, but I've also made in depth instructional videos for how to perform each of those exercises for the most benefit. So for example, I'm just in the program right now. I'm going to pull up one of the tutorials for pull ups. As you can see, it's all the little details that we cover in these tutorials that make all the difference. And it's how thousands of our members have been able to go from stuck not seeing results to completely transforming their bodies in a matter of months. Take the quiz over at Build with Science. I hope to see you in there. But for now, let's move on to the next chest exercise. And the Instagram famous chest exercise is this squeezy pushy thing that I'm just going to call the pinch press. And it's where you either grab a plate between your hands or two dumbbells and you squeeze it together and then bring your arms out and in. Typically used to target more of the inner chest. And don't get me wrong, when you do this exercise, you will feel your chest activating quite well. But the problem here is that all the chest is doing is keeping the weight squeezed together. This type of contraction on the CH is what's called an isometric contraction which isn't very effective for building muscle. The front delts and triceps are what's actually moving the weight out and in and are benefiting more from this exercise than the chest is. So what can you do instead? Well, a good squat for this exercise is a cross body press using either a machine or a cable. This is still going to allow you to get the same strong activation and squeeze in the chest as you get with the pinch press. But by using your chest to push the weight away from you, rather than just holding the weight in place, you'll now be providing your chest with the right type of contraction to grow. To perform this exercise, as opposed to getting set up to push your arms in front of your body, you're going to get set up at a 90 degree angle so that you can push across your body one arm at a time. If you don't have a machine handy, you can do the same thing with a cable by putting a handle attachment on and pushing across your body. This can be done with the band as well. Alright, so now you've got some new chest exercises, but maybe you need help with improving your bench press form. Or maybe you need some help growing your shoulders. You can click somewhere here to view those videos. To check out my training programs, you can head to builtwithscience.com and take our free quiz to find the best plan for your body. Thanks for watching and I'll see you next time.
