Best Upper Chest Exercises for Strong & Powerful Pecs

Bench press and cable machine exercises are among the best ones to target the upper chest muscles.

But it’s important to understand that your posture, body position, and the position of your hands can significantly influence the outcome.

See, there are multiple pectoral muscles, and the upper ones are smaller and less defined [1].

That means that the bigger lower chest muscles will naturally do more work and become bigger.

What you need to do is make adjustments to your upper chest exercises so that they force the upper muscles to engage more.

I’ll get to some of the best options for doing this shortly, but an example would be an incline bench press.

By pushing a barbell or set of dumbbells slightly upwards, the movement forces the upper pecs and shoulders to take more of the weight.

And there are many more options.

Another great way to work on your upper pecs is with a dumbbell press exercise. As a personal fitness coach, I know that a lot of people don’t feel 100% comfortable with a barbell.

And if you don’t have a spotter while working out at home, then an incline bench press with dumbbells is safer.

Set your bench up at a 30% angle, sit down, and hold a dumbbell in each hand, resting them on your thighs. Lean back and bring the dumbbells up above your head.

Keep your hands close together, palms facing away from you, and then lower the weight down to your chest and then push them back up.

Cable Crossover

For this upper chest workout, you’ll head to the cable pulley machine and set up a handle on each side at about chest height.

Spread your arms like wings and grab onto each handle with your elbows slightly bent.

Keep the bend in your elbows and bring your hands forward and slightly up above your head. Then slowly release the cables back to the starting point.

You should clearly feel this in your upper chest, with some added strain in your upper arm and shoulder muscles.

Related: Best Cable Crossover Machines (2023 Upd.) For Home Gyms

Now, you’ll head back to a flat bench.

Pick a slightly lower weight than you used for the dumbbell bench press, and hold the dumbbells above your chest with straight arms and palms facing away from you.

Lower the dumbbells down above your head, then bring them around your body with straight arms until they touch your thighs.

Now, bring them back to the starting position. You can also do this in reverse as you go through your sets.

Read More: How To Do Around the World Exercises

Kneeling Squeeze Press

You can either use a landmine bar or a regular Olympic bar with weight plates attached to just one end.

The starting position is kneeling on the ground and holding the end of the bar with both hands in front of your chest.

Then slowly push the bar up above your head and lower it back down again.

You’ll find these upper chest exercises work very well for people with limited shoulder joint range of motion [2].

This is going to be similar to the crossover upper chest exercises above, but with a slight twist.

You’ll set up a preferred cable machine so that the handles are low, below hip height.

Grip the handles with both hands and then pull them out in front of you and upwards while keeping your arms straight.

This will fully engage your clavicular head, and it will also work wonders to increase your range of motion in the shoulder joints.

I’d also suggest holding the strain at the top of the movement for about a second before slowly releasing it back to the starting position.

Decline Push-Ups

A regular push-up will engage your upper arm, shoulder, back, and chest muscles. But most of the strain will go to the lower chest muscles.

The way you can adjust this exercise is by getting into a plank position with your feet raised on a flat or incline bench.

As you lower your body, more of the strain will shift towards your upper pecs.

Also Read: Decline Push-Up 101 Guide

This is a slightly tougher variation on the decline push-ups, and you’ll need to build up quite a bit of strength to do this upper chest exercise.

What you do is get into a downward dog yoga pose with your buttocks high up and your legs and arms straight.

Now bend your elbows and lower your body down until your head is about half an inch off the ground.

Then push back up again until you're in the starting position.

You’ll feel these upper chest exercises in your pecs and shoulders at the same time.

Overhead Press

Some people also like to refer to overhead press as the military press, and it’s completely different from the regular barbell bench press.

I recommend that you do this standing up for better balance. Lift a barbell up to your chest with palms facing away and rest the bar close to your upper chest and collar bones. 

Now slowly push the bar up over your head and look up to avoid making contact with your chin. Then lower the bar back down and repeat for your ideal number of reps.

You should instantly feel this in your upper pecs as well as your shoulders.

This exercise is great with dumbbells and resistance bands, and you’ll find that it adds a lot of strain to your upper chest muscles and shoulders.

Stand with a dumbbell in each hand, holding them in front of you with your palms facing your thighs.

While keeping your arms straight, slowly raise both weights up in front of you until you reach shoulder height.

Then lower them back down again to the starting point. It’s a great isolation option for your upper-body chest training days.

If you’re using bands, then I recommend making sure you have tension right from the start of the movement.

Dumbbell Pullover

For this exercise, you want to head back to your flat workout bench.

Set yourself up as if you’re going to do a dumbbell bench press with the weight straight above your chest and your palms pointing towards your feet.

Then lower the dumbbells down over your head while keeping your arms perfectly straight. Hold them at the low point for a second, and then pull them back up.

This will give you highly targeted tension in your upper body muscles, specifically your pecs.

Yes, you can do upper chest workouts at home.

While you’ll need barbells, dumbbells, and possibly a cable pulley machine for some of the above exercises, there are some that you can do with good home gym resistance bands.

What you need to keep in mind is that you want to use whatever tools allow you to create as much tension on the muscles as possible so that you feel the burn after about six or seven reps.

As long as you achieve that, you’ll see some great results.