Stop Doing These Chest Exercises. Do These Moves Instead. | The Don't List | Men's Health Muscle
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00:00When it comes to building superhero pecs, we're always chasing efficient exercises that let us get
00:05a deep stretch on our chest muscles and also get really active strong contractions. And Instagram
00:10seems to promise us a bunch of these moves. And it also promises moves that'll hit our inner chest,
00:14our outer chest, our lower chest, all the things like that. The only thing is very often these
00:20exercises aren't doing what they say because we're not going to get that deep stretch or we're not
00:24going to get that deep contraction. And very often, even if they do offer that, they're offering it
00:29with too much risk. So let's run through a couple moves that just aren't worth your time and give
00:33you a couple better chest moves that you can do instead so you can hit all your chest goals.
00:37Probably the dumbest move I have ever seen on Instagram is something called the prayer press.
00:41And if you have to pray to get a big chest, you're just not getting it done. So the problem with the
00:45prayer chest, the idea of the prayer press, is that we're going to attack our inner chest by
00:50keeping constant tension on our pecs as we move two very, very light plates in and out. Now the
00:57problem with this overall is that the prime muscles that are actually facing resistance
01:01aren't really our pecs in the first place. It's more like we're attacking our shoulders and biceps,
01:05so that's just not working. Instead of doing prayer presses, if we want that really deep
01:10chest contraction, let's go to a basic dumbbell press, but let's blend that dumbbell press with
01:15some resistance bands so that we do a band-resistant dumbbell press. By doing this, we're going to get
01:20that deep stretch at the bottom of our dumbbell press, but then as we drive up, we have to squeeze
01:25against that bandage resistance. That's going to give you what you really want when you're talking
01:29about stretch and full contraption. A variation of the prayer press that is also a complete waste
01:33of your time is something called the hex press. Now with this press, we are getting a little bit
01:38of a tweak in that we are lying on a bench as we do this and pressing the bells upwards. So to some
01:44extent, we're finally starting to load our chest. The problem with this is we're focused so much on
01:49pressing our dumbbells together, and we're over-focusing on that so that in theory, we get
01:54to really squeeze our chest as we do our reps. But depending on your anatomy, the stretch is going
01:59to be limited. You're not going to be able to get deep into the press, and you've got a little bit
02:03of shoulder risk of internal rotation, so it's just not worth it. The move here, go back to that band-
02:09resisted dumbbell press. We're going to get that deep contraction of our chest, and we're going to
02:13get to squeeze at the top of the rep. So that's a much better move than the hex press in the first
02:17place. One of the most ego-stroking moves in the gym is the decline bench press. The benefit of the
02:23decline press in theory is that you're going to hit your lower chest, and you're also going to be
02:27able to go incredibly heavy because we are working through a smaller range of motion. The thing is,
02:32we aren't actually really attacking our lower chest when we hit that press. We're still hitting the
02:37meaty part of our chest, which is fine. There's no downside to that, but there is a downside to the
02:42decline press, and that is on every single rep, there's a little bit of shoulder risk of slipping
02:47into internal rotation on top of the fact that we're just not really going to get that full range
02:52of motion. If you really, really want to do that decline angle press, what I'm going to recommend
02:57to you is to do a glute bridge floor press instead. We're going to work in a safer range of motion here
03:03because the ground is going to stop our press, so there is no shoulder risk, but we still get that
03:08good squeeze and contraction at the top of every rep, and very often you can work this with dumbbells
03:12so you're going to get a much deeper contraction as you finish off your reps. The dumbbell fly is a
03:18classic chest exercise that you're going to see in just about every gym. Every guy has done it,
03:22but here's the thing. Is it the best way to really get a good stretch and to really do that fly
03:26motion with our chest? No. Now, there are two reasons why. The first of which is, one, we're
03:33running a little bit of shoulder risk when we do this. Yes, in theory, it gives us a nice deep
03:37stretch and we're actually loading that stretch when we're in the fly. The problem is, especially
03:41if you are a newbie in the gym, it's very, very easy to confuse stretching our chest with aggravating
03:47our shoulders and the upper part of our biceps tendon, so it's just not worth that risk, especially
03:52because we have other moves that we can go to. The other big problem with the dumbbell fly is at the
03:57top when we want that maximum chest squeeze so we can really focus on completing our rep. There is
04:03no tension, so that's why the dumbbell fly is just not the best way for us to go through that fly
04:08motion. Instead, we're going to go to a back-supported cable fly. This takes a little bit of setup, but by
04:13taking the time to get that setup, you're going to get a much more optimal contraction. We get a
04:18safer stretch on our pecs and we can make sure that stretch is really centralized in our pecs,
04:22and then we get that great squeeze at the top. It is the complete dumbbell fly that you need to
04:27really build your chest. Those are the moves you want to avoid in terms of training your chest. If
04:31you stick with our moves instead, you're going to see a lot more growth and you're going to get
04:34the muscle gains that you actually want without wasting any time.