STOP USING THE BENCH PRESS! 3 Better Exercises for Building a Perfect Chest | BOXROX (2024)

Troy Adashun explains why you need to stop using the bench press and add these better exercises for building a perfect chest.

3 Better Exercises for Building a Perfect Chest

“If you want to get a bigger chest it’s all about choosing the best chest exercises that put peak activation on every section of your chest.”

Source: CrossFit Games / Depositphotos

“This chest workout is with a cable machine only, and I show you 3 chest exercises that will target every section of your chest. The real gold nugget in this video however is the form explanation of these chest exercises and how you can achieve “peak activation” to further enhance your chest hypertrophy and get a big chest fast!”

“I’ve made a ton of chest workout videos on this channel. But if I had to only use one machine for the rest of my life to build an aesthetic chest, I would probably choose these cable chest exercises because of the targeted activation that you can place on your pecs from the specific angles.”

“Adduction is one of the main ways we are able to target our chest, and these moves all incorporate some adduction paired with peak contraction at the top of each rep!”

“Try these 3 cable chest exercises and make sure to screenshot the balloon method chest workout at the end of the video so you can maximize the 3 science backed ways we all build muscle! Also, a ton of you ask for inner chest exercises, outer chest exercises, upper chest exercises, lower chest exercises, etc. Don’t overcomplicate your chest training, you can hit every section of your chest with just these 3 cable chest exercises!”

Komodo Chest Flyes

Firstly, set up the cable machine with the cables at a slightly high to low angle.

When you perform the movement, cross your hands in front of your body and squeeze your chest muscles as hard as you can to achieve peak activation. Do this for at least a second with every rep.

You can find deeper instructions on how to achieve this in the video below.

Low Flyes

Here we target the lower chest and the movement mimics dips, so you will get a huge chest pump.

Think about “punching downwards” whilst aiming at the floor. You are not at an incline as you are in the previous Komodo Chest Flyes.

Tense your muscles as tightly as you can at the top of the movement.

Again, shoot for 3 sets of 30 reps and a final killer of 8-10 reps with heavier weights.

Wolverine Low Cable Fly

This will target the upper chest.

Aim for 3 sets of 30 with a final set of 8-10 reps.

Video – 3 Better Exercises for Building a Perfect Chest

Learn More

How to Increase Chest Size and Strength

Best Way to Train the Chest for Hypertrophy (Muscle Mass)

3 Hacks for a Bigger Chest

Upper Chest Exercises Ranked (Best to Worst)

9 Best Dumbbell Chest Exercises

Chest Muscles

The chest muscles are a group of large, flat muscles that make up the middle area of the chest. The muscle fibres in these muscles run from front to back and from top to bottom.

The pectoralis major is the primary muscle that makes up this region and it’s responsible for generating most of the force behind pushing movements like push-ups and bench presses.

Pectoralis Major

The pectoralis major is a muscle of the anterior chest wall. It is the largest and most superficial of the three pectoral muscles, and its origin is from both clavicles (collarbones). The pectoralis major inserts into both bones of your upper arm, known as humeri.

Source: Snoridge CrossFit

The middle section of this muscle controls expansion movements such as lifting weights or performing push-ups. It also helps lift your shoulders up toward your ears when you raise your arms in front of you. In fact, when you think about it, just about any time we lift something heavy—whether it be groceries or our kids—we’re using this muscle!

Pectoralis Minor

This is a small muscle that attaches to the ribs and helps to pull them together. It’s an important muscle for posture, so it’s important to strengthen it. You can do this by doing pushups for example.

Serratus Anterior

The Serratus Anterior is a muscle that lies on the side of your rib cage. Like several other muscles, it attaches to a variety of bones in order to facilitate its movements. The Serratus Anterior attaches to the lower eight ribs and the thoracic spine (the area between your neck and upper back).

This muscle helps with shoulder protraction, scapular protraction and upward rotation. In other words, when you perform any movement involving these three actions—such as throwing a ball or swinging a bat—you use your serratus anterior muscles.

What is Adduction?

Adduction is the movement of a structure towards the midline of the body. Many muscles in your upper and lower body can perform adduction. The obliques are responsible for adducting your upper and lower body.

What is Abduction?

Abduction is the act of moving a limb away from the midline of the body.

It’s the opposite movement to adduction, which is moving a limb towards the midline of your body.

Conclusion – 3 Better Exercises for Building a Perfect Chest

If you want to make your chest muscles stronger, you should try doing different types of flyes as you see in the video above.