I only have a flat bench and feel like my upper and lower chest isn't being worked enough, are there any good exercises that dont require an incline or decline bench that i could do to work these areas? At the moment my chest workout is flat dumbell press, flat flys, press ups and flat bench.

Jake,

There is a way to train upper chest with just a flat bench but you need to be EXTREMELY careful when doing it. What you do is you set yourself up on the bench as if you were doing a standard bench press but instead of bringing the bar down across your chest you bring it down across your throat. Your arms will be at full 90 degree angles to your body and shoulders will be stretched to the max. This is why this exercise is dangerous. You need to go more for lighter weight and really control the motion and squeeze at the top. If you try to push the amount of weight too high or you don't do these in a slow controlled manner, you risk a pec tear, shoulder tear, strained elbows, or a throat injury if you drop the weight.

Another option is to do push ups but instead of putting your hands next to your body you put them out past your head. You still press like a push up but you do it more like a dive bomber push up.

The lower portion of your pecs is easier and can be hit with dips. Scott has a video that shows you how to do a dip to focus more on the chest than the triceps. Dips can be done between two chairs if needed.

John

You could also do push ups with your feet elevated on your bench to target your upper chest.

You can do a reverse grip bench as well that will activate the upper pecs more. Bring the bb down to your chest, hold and 1 hand at a time reverse your grip so that your palms face you. It is usually recc to have a spotter with this bench especially if you use a thumbless grip but you can wrap your thumb around like most. Keep your elbows about 45 degrees closer to your body as well.

Lower chest will be covered by the bench press. As for the upper chest, you have the alternatives the guys above offered you plus one I m gonna give you.

- Decline pushups. Good alternative but not the best for overloading the muscle.
- Guillotine press. Excellent upper chest builder, but extremely tough on the AC joint.
- Reverse bench press. Excellent upper chest builder, but can be unsafe without a spotter.

- Barbell Overhead Standing Press. This is known as a shoulder exercise but it actually heavily recruits the upper chest if you use a full range of motion.

Kostas

Thanks for all the replys, gonna use these in my workout!