Written by Garett Reid | NSCA, CSCS, CISSN, M.S.E.S.S
Fact checked by Kirsten Yovino, CPT Brookbush Institute
FACT CHECKED
Lucky for you, of all the muscles on the human body, the chest muscles are the easiest to train at home. Even if you have no equipment, you can still get a good chest workout using push-ups and dips, which are two of the best muscle mass-building exercises for your pecs. Now take that a step further by adding a pair of dumbbells, and you have more than enough at-home chest exercises to choose from.
This article will show you exactly what to do to create an effective workout plan only using at-home chest exercises. We will give guidance on how to use exercises that use only your body weight as well as dumbbell exercises. Because training at home presents different challenges, we'll tell you the most effective way to train at home as well as provide training templates.
We'll cover:
- Anatomy and function of the chest muscle groups
- Special considerations for training at home to optimize muscle growth
- Tips on loading exercises with minimal equipment
- Best bodyweight exercises for a home chest workout
- Push-up progressions
- Best dumbbell exercises for a home chest workout
Anatomy And Function Of The Chest Muscles
The technical term for the chest muscles is the pectoral muscles, as in "pecs." We generally like to simplify this muscle by describing it as one muscle, but it's a muscle group that contains 4 or 5 different muscles. We're only really concerned about 3 of them for this post, so those are the ones we'll go over.
Before we go over the different muscles individually, as a whole, the pectorals are located on the anterior side of the upper body. Its primary function is to manipulate the ribs and shoulders through several motions, primarily in what's known as horizontal abduction. This is the movement involved in exercises like the incline chest fly.
Pectoralis Major:
The pectoralis major is the primary pectoral muscle. Composed of two muscle heads, the pectoralis major is a large fan-shaped muscle that begins in the middle of the chest (the broad end of the fan) and tapers toward the shoulder (the "handle" of a fan).
- Clavicular Head: Also referred to as the "upper chest”, this muscle runs from the clavicle to the shoulder. Many upper chest exercises involve flexion of the humerus, which is its primary job.
- Sternocostal Head: Also known as the "lower chest," the sternocostal head makes up the majority of muscle mass found in the pecs. It runs from the sternum to the shoulder. Lower chest exercises often include horizontal and vertical adduction, extension and internal rotation of the humerus, and depression and abduction of the scapula.
Pectoralis Minor:
Triangular shaped, the pectoralis minor is a smaller muscle that sits under the pectoralis major. Its primary job is scapular stabilization, making it a vital component in controlling the movement of your shoulder blades.
Serratus Anterior:
Located on the upper rib cage, the serratus anterior is sometimes referred to as "the rib muscle" (technically, we know). While it's obviously not on the "chest," it is generally associated with the chest muscles due to its function.
Its primary job is to pull the scapula forward to allow the shoulder to travel farther. The best example is when a boxer throws a punch. The serratus anterior pulls the scapula forward to allow longer reach.
In addition, a developed serratus anterior can greatly improve your overall aesthetics. It will make your chest muscles “pop” while also creating a shredded, jacked look. If that's not reason enough to start doing serratus anterior exercises, we don't know what is.
You can train the serratus anterior through pushups by pushing down and allowing your scapula to protract. This will pull your shoulders forward and looks similar to the cat pose in yoga. You don’t need to do this for every rep, but consider doing it the last set or last few reps. Play around and see what works.
The Best Bodyweight Exercises For Chest Workouts
Let's say you're stuck at home or traveling and need to blast your chest. However, you have no equipment, and the hotel gym sucks. What are you gonna do?
Fortunately, as we mentioned above, the chest is the easiest upper body muscle to train with no or minimal equipment. Even those who have access to the gym should pay attention to these moves, though. Yes, they're that awesome. When using bodyweight, you're going to use similar training methods as when you're working on muscular endurance. You're going to do a lot more reps with this workout than you would doing the bench press at the gym.
If you want to build your upper body strength while sculpting a muscular chest, you need to be doing these moves. Prepare to build muscle using only your body weight.
1. Standard Push-Ups:
The first bodyweight exercise for your home chest workout is your standard push-up. Simple and basic, a standard press up is a must that works the whole body.
The body mechanics of a push-up mimic the movement of a bench press exactly. If you can load a push-up to the equivalent load of a bench press, the muscle activation is almost indistinguishable, both by magnitude and order¹.
However, push-ups do have an added advantage. Take a look at the starting position of the push-up. What do you see? You are actually in an elevated plank position. The push-up is really a plank that moves up and down, meaning that in addition to an awesome chest workout, you'll also train your core.
Remember to keep your core tight and spine straight throughout the exercise. We will list more variations below, but check out these 33 push-up variations for more chest workout routine ideas.
How to do a Push-Up:
- Perform on a stable surface. Place your hands shoulder-width apart, and get into an elevated plank position with arms straight. Retract your shoulder blade slightly.
- Keep your spine neutral by remembering to tighten your core. Lower your body by flexing your elbows backward. Keep your elbows tucked, and do not let them flare.
- Lower your body until your chest touches the floor. Propel your body up until your arms are fully extended.
- To activate the serratus anterior, allow your shoulder blades to protract and push your shoulders forward. That's one rep.
2. Incline Push-Ups:
The incline push-up position has your head located higher than your feet. When you perform the push-up, your hands will reach toward your feet. Keep in mind your body won't lower in a straight line. Your feet will act as an anchor point, and the body will "swing" down. The form is slightly different from the standard press up.
How to do an Incline Push-Up:
- Find an object to elevate your upper body, and place hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart on the object.
- The start position is with arms extended and slightly forward. Lower down, so your chest touches the object. This should be slightly lower on the object compared to the standard push-up.
- Extend your arms until fully extended.
3. Decline Push-Ups:
Decline push-ups will have you positioned with your head below your feet. This puts you in a position much like incline push-ups, just upside down. As a result, decline push-ups will hit your upper chest and delts a bit more. And because you're lifting a higher percentage of your body weight, they feel significantly harder.
How to do a Decline Push-Up:
- Find an object to elevate your feet. Your arms should be slightly wider than shoulder-width apart and straight.
- Correct form will feel as if you've shifted forward. Because your feet are on an anchor point, your body won't lower in a straight line but rather swing back. Therefore, you want to have your hand positioned slightly back.
- Slowly lower your body until you can go no further. The floor will likely be at the mid-chest level or slightly higher.
4. Close-Grip Push-Ups:
When we can only have body weight, we like to include the close grip push-up as its own exercise rather than a push-up variation. This is due to its unique muscle activation.
Assuming the activation is similar to a close grip bench press, the close grip push-ups will produce more activation in the upper chest region². And if at any point you add a resistance band to your bodyweight training, you can make this move even harder following resistance band push-up variations.
How to do a Close-Grip Push-Up:
- Get in a push-up position, and bring your hands in closer so that they are slightly narrower than shoulder-width apart.
- Lower your body and guide your elbow back at around a 45-degree angle. Come down until your chest hits the ground.
- Extend your arms and propel your body back to the starting position.
5. Dips:
Dips are the pull-up of the chest. These are tremendous chest exercises, with many experts claiming they're even better than the bench press.
Ideally, you have a dip stand or some parallel bars to perform these on, but you don't need them. While many people will suggest doing them on a straight surface, like the edge of a couch, we find the most comfortable way is to bring two chairs together.
How to do Dips:
- Bring two chairs together to act like dip bars, or simply use the seat of one chair. You may need to play with the position some.
- Get in between the chairs and place your hands on the seats. Place the pad of your palms on the edge of the chair. This tends to work best and takes stress off your wrist.
- Extend your legs out straight and keep your arms locked. Let your body lower straight down. Continue as far as you can or until your upper arm is parallel with the ground.
- Push straight up and extend your arms.
Push Up Variations/Progressions
Everyone is at a different fitness level. For some, push-ups are challenging enough. For others, they're not enough.
That's why we want to provide variations to utilize. Keep in mind these are general alterations that you can apply to any of the push-up variations above.
1. Negatives:
Negatives are push-ups that only use the eccentric or "going down" phase (we've got a great article that explains the differences between concentric vs. eccentric muscle contractions). These are great for beginners who find push-ups too difficult. Increase the intensity by descending slower.
2. Wide push-ups:
You will see more muscle activation with a wider hand position. This is primarily because you are taking out the triceps. If you think about it, the movement of chest flies is similar to a really, really wide push-up.
3. Plyometric push-ups:
Home chest workouts can have power movements, like plyometric exercises. A plyometric push-up involves thrusting your body in the air at the top of the movement. Technically, a power exercise rather than progression, they're great to utilize at least a few times each week.
4. Elevate a hand:
Elevating a hand will create a great range of motion for that hand. This requires it to work harder.
5. Favor a hand:
Instead of coming down in a straight line, you can lower the body down to one hand; this will increase the load on that chest muscle. This is the push-up variation of a dumbbell bench press.
6. Raise one leg:
Raising one leg will throw the body up. This will increase the percentage of body weight that's placed on the arms and chest.
The Best Dumbbell Chest Exercises For Chest Workouts
If you're lucky to have a set of dumbbells lying around your house, you're in luck. Having some weights opens up the opportunity for you to do quite a few more effective chest exercises and further improve your body composition.
For these moves, if you have a flat bench, by all means, use it. If you don't, you can use something similar (like perhaps a bench that goes with your kitchen table), or you can simply do them on the floor. Versatility is the name of the game here.
Remember, your workout will still have some bodyweight exercises from above, as nothing beats push-ups and dips. Using these dumbbell chest exercises is just a little bonus.
1. Dumbbell Floor Chest Press:
The dumbbell floor press is great for strength and building muscle. Traditionally, it's used as an accessory to the barbell chest press and is used extensively in powerlifting programs.
The floor press is performed in the same manner as a chest press, except it's executed laying on the floor. It also follows the same motion as a chest press, except the range of motion will be significantly shorter due to the floor.
Because the elbows do not stretch behind the back, this movement is a bit more triceps oriented. That's fine, as you'll also be using full ROM with push-ups.
Traditionally these are performed with a heavy load (<5 reps). Since you likely don't have that luxury, you'll make do with what you have. We will discuss special considerations for at-home chest exercises below.
One way to elevate the difficulty of this move is to turn it into a glute bridge dumbbell press. More posterior chain activation will have your chest and glute muscles burning!
How to do a Dumbbell Floor Chest Press:
- Lay down on the ground. You can have knees bent or legs straight. Hold two dumbbells with an overhand grip.
- Starting position will have your arms extended above and dumbbells touching. Slowly lower the dumbbells while tucking your elbows at a 45-degree angle.
- Come down until the back of your arms rests on the floor. Pause for a split second, and then extend your arms back to the start position.
2. Dumbbell Triceps Press:
This is another pressing exercise you can do on the floor. The dumbbell triceps press consists of performing a chest press by pulling your elbows in closer to the body and using a neutral grip.
This will place more focus on the triceps (hence the name), but it's a great movement to strengthen all your upper body pressing muscles.
How to do a Dumbbell Triceps Press:
- Lay on the ground holding two dumbbells with a neutral grip.
- Begin with arms extended overhead. Lower the dumbbells by bringing your elbows down next to your body.
- Once your upper arms are flush with the ground, extend your arms to the starting position.
3. Dumbbell Squeeze Press:
An insane finisher, this will make all your muscle fibers scream. You can perform this standing up or laying down.
To perform the dumbbell squeeze press, you will place your hands on both sides of the dumbbell with palms facing in. You then squeeze your hands together as if you're trying to crush the dumbbell.
Isometric exercises like this one use horizontal abduction to destroy the chest muscles. We like to use these at the end of our chest workouts to ensure our muscles are fatigued. If you have a bench, feel free to use it. Otherwise, the floor works just as well!
How to do a Dumbbell Squeeze Press:
- Place your hands on both ends of a single dumbbell with palms facing each other.
- Squeeze together as hard as you can. Perform a pushing motion.
- The squeeze is the most important part, with the "pushing" altering the position of muscle fibers.
4. Dumbbell Pull-Over:
This classic bodybuilding exercise can also be performed in your home chest workout! The floor version is performed in the same manner as when performed in the gym or on a bench.
How to do a Dumbell Pull Over:
- Lay on a bench or the ground, and hold the dumbbell with your hands forming a diamond shape on the weight.
- Extend your arms straight up. You can allow a slight bend in your elbows as your arms go back to allow the movement.
- Allow the dumbbell to lower back behind your head until your elbows are level with your ears. The dumbbell should be a good distance from your head. Think about the muscle stretch.
- Hold briefly then contract your chest, bringing it back to the starting position.
5. Dumbbell Chest Flys:
The dumbbell chest fly is one of the most effective dumbbell chest exercises as it mimics the main function of the chest: horizontal abduction. While this is usually performed on a flat bench if you don't have one simply perform it on the ground.
If you need to increase the difficulty, concentrate on the mind-muscle connection. Make sure you go nice and slow with this move, as it decreases your risk of shoulder injuries and helps fatigue your chest.
How to do a Dumbbell Chest Fly:
- Lay on the ground holding the dumbbells with a neutral grip. Starting position will have your arms fully extended over your body.
- Allow your arms to lower out to the sides with elbows slightly bent. Lower until your arms touch the ground.
- Lift your arms back up until they are directly overhead again. It's important to keep your elbows slightly bent the whole time.
6. Dumbbell Push-Ups:
Dumbbell push-ups are another great variation of the classic exercise. Instead of placing your hands on the ground to perform a push-up, you hold two dumbbells.
As your hands are elevated, it allows your body to travel farther down. Even though this only results in perhaps an extra inch or two of movement, it allows your shoulders to extend just a bit further, which causes an extra stretch in the muscle fibers. If you have shoulder pain, proceed cautiously with this move as it places a bit more stress on the shoulder joints.
More stretch plus more distance equals you building more muscle.
How to do Dumbbell Push-Ups:
- Place the dumbbells on the ground, shoulder-width apart, and your hands on the dumbbells in a comfortable position, somewhere between an overhand and neutral grip.
- Place your palms on the grip, so your arm bone is holding the weight and not your wrists. Lower your chest to the floor, keeping your body in a straight line.
- Slowly return to the starting position.
Special Considerations For At-Home Chest Workouts
The main similarity home chest workouts will have with a gym-based workout is the frequency. As far as how often to train, you will train your chest twice a week just like at the gym. This seems to be the optimal frequency that allows the most training while allowing adequate rest.
Other than that, home chest workouts will be a bit different than traditional chest workouts at the gym. While the basic principles of progressive overload still apply, how you get there is much different.
In a gym workout, you have a plethora of machines and free weights to choose from as well as a ton of weight. This makes loading your muscles very easy. This isn't the case when you're training at home.
Even if you do have dumbbells, you probably don't have an entire set. More often than not, people training at home will be working with light weights or very light weights.
Using RPE For Your At-Home Chest Workout
In this case, you will be using what's known as RPE, or the rate of perceived exertion for most exercises. This is a method that uses a scale to judge how hard an exercise is.
We like using a scale of 1-10. For example, an RPE 8 is similar to working at 80% max intensity. It's hard, perhaps a bit uncomfortable, but you can manage.
The reason this is important for us is because we have no means to continuously load an exercise. By being sure to always bring your exercises close to failure, you know you will gradually improve. However, you should still monitor gradual progress.
Therefore, we will ask you to perform exercises with 3 sets of RPE 8. This means you bring each set to an RPE 8. We mainly want to emphasize you will be training to almost failure while pushing yourself to do more every week rather than hitting a prescribed number.
Perform More Reps Than Normal
When considering rep ranges for hypertrophy and strength, prepare to perform more reps than normal. The chest muscles are extremely strong. Many guys using a set of 40-pound dumbbells will likely be performing 15 to 20 plus reps on the floor press.
If you find this is you, don't worry too much about it. Bring your sets to failure, or close to, and you'll be fine. However, you should also get creative and try to find ways of loading these exercises or making them more difficult.
We will discuss some methods after we lay out the workout.
Best At Home Chest Workout: Bodyweight & Dumbbell Plans
Whether you're planning to use your body weight or have dumbbells you want to put to good use, the programs below prove you can get an effective workout at home - no gym membership required.
At Home Bodyweight Chest Workout
Now it's time to start training. You have all the exercises and know what to do, so let's talk workout logistics. This workout is simple but is the best chest workout you can do with bodyweight-only exercises.
You'll notice that you are doing a lot of push-ups. To maximize their effectiveness, concentrate on how each variation is different and how it's supposed to hit the muscle differently. You will perform this same session twice a week. Add in the plyometric push-up every 2 to 4 workouts, and if you want to make this plan even more challenging, you can take the last set of each exercise to failure.
Bodyweight Chest Workout Plan:
|
Exercise |
Sets |
RPE |
|
Decline Push-Ups |
4 |
8 |
|
Close Grip Push-Ups |
4 |
8 |
|
Dips |
4 |
8 |
|
Standard Push-Ups |
4 |
8 |
|
Incline Push-Ups |
4 |
8 |
At-Home Dumbbell Chest Workout:
You can include both of these workouts each week, but make sure they’re not on back-to-back days. For the exercises that you’ll do until failure, take a 30-second rest between each set. For Workout B, you can add in the plyometric push-up once every 2 to 4 workouts.
Workout A:
|
Exercise |
Sets |
RPE |
|
Decline Push-Ups |
3 |
8 |
|
Close Grip Push-Ups |
3 |
8 |
|
Dips |
3 |
8 |
|
Dumbbell Triceps Press |
3 |
8 |
|
Dumbbell Chest Flys |
3 |
8 |
|
Standard Push-Up |
2 |
Until failure |
|
Squeeze Press |
2 |
Until failure |
Workout B:
|
Exercise |
Sets |
RPE |
|
Decline Push-Ups |
3 |
8 |
|
Close Grip Push-Ups |
3 |
8 |
|
Dips |
3 |
8 |
|
Floor Bench Press |
3 |
8 |
|
Dumbbell Pull Overs |
3 |
8 |
|
Incline Push-Ups |
2-3 |
Until failure |
|
Squeeze Press-Ups |
2-3 |
Until failure |
How To Progress On Home Workouts
Making gains on any type of workout will always rely on progressive overload. What differs is how one applies it.
Above, we talked about how you will be using RPE with these movements and probably doing more reps. Remember that you still want to see those numbers go upward.
The problem with only adding reps is you will get to a point in which all you're accomplishing is improving your muscle endurance. Therefore you’ll also want to play with the variations listed above. In addition, you can use these methods below to alter the stimulus.
1. Alter The Exercise Order:
The traditional method for planning exercise order has you perform the heaviest or "biggest" exercise first. This includes your main compound lifts.
From there, you will perform smaller accessory movements that are usually "smaller" compound movements. Lastly, you train the smallest isolation exercises.
Keep in mind the load's decrease as well. The reasoning is that you want the muscles to be fresh for the big exercises so that they can lift the most weight. For example, a traditional chest workout might look like this:
- Bench Press: 3 sets by 5 reps
- Incline Dumbbell Press: 3 sets by 8 reps
- Dips: 3 sets by 8-10 reps
- Chest Flys: 3 sets by 10-12 reps
Again, because you're limited on loading abilities, it may be wise to perform "smaller" exercises first to fatigue the muscle fibers. Then when you get to the bigger movements, the weight will feel heavier. Or you could alternate.
Your workout could look like this:
- Chest Flys
- Push Ups
- Dumbbell Pullovers
- Dumbbell Bench Press
Instead of doing push-ups and then chest flys, do the chest flys first to fatigue the pecs and then do push-ups. The same went with the dumbbell pullovers and dumbbell press. Again, mess around and see what seems to create a more intense workout.
2. Play With Super Sets And Shorter Rest Periods:
Another tool you can use to increase the intensity with minimal loads is to use supersets or shorten rest periods.
For example, if you are unable to sufficiently load the push-up, perform some chest flys first. This doesn't mean you have to go to failure on the fly, rather, use them just enough to fatigue your chest to make the standard push-ups more difficult.
You could even do a set of 10 chest flyers before every set of pushups and then still do 3 sets of the chest fly later on.
At Home Chest Workout Summary
Home chest workouts can bring about some unique challenges but nothing you can't overcome. A frequent concern often revolves around having to perform the same exercises, especially with bodyweight chest exercises.
While true, even the best gym-based workouts, like ones that include cable chest exercises, use the same foundational movements. The key with home chest workouts is to find a way to increase the intensity with minimal weight.
And if you can do that, this at-home chest workout is just as capable of building muscle mass and increasing strength as any other plan. Oh, and don't forget your chest stretches!
Looking for a great chest workout to do at the gym? Check out our Ultimate Chest Day Workout Routine!
References:
- Calatayud J, Borreani S, Colado JC, Martin F, Tella V, Andersen LL. Bench Press and Push-up at Comparable Levels of Muscle Activity Results in Similar Strength Gains. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 2015;29(1):246-253. doi:10.1519/jsc.0000000000000589
- Barnett C, Kippers V, Turner P. Effects of Variations of the Bench Press Exercise on the EMG Activity of Five Shoulder Muscles. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 1995;9(4):222-227. doi:10.1519/00124278-199511000-00003
Garett Reid
Author