While the bench press is rightly thought of as the greatest chest exercise, the humble push-up is safer, more accessible, and doesn’t require expensive equipment or a gym membership. This article will take a look at push-ups for upper chest development, helping you to master this incredible exercise.
Best Push-Ups for Upper Chest Development
In this article, we will be taking a look at five of the best push-ups for upper chest development. For each exercise, we will discuss how to perform it, what muscles are worked, and how each exercise targets the upper chest.
Decline Push-Ups
The decline push-up is a great variation of the standard push-up. It’s an easy way to increase the resistance, and it can also place more emphasis on the upper chest and deltoids.
What is the Decline Push-Up?
The decline push-up is a regular push-up where the feet are placed on a raised surface. This places your body at an angle and therefore places more emphasis on the upper chest and the deltoids. The higher you place your feet, the larger the angle and the more emphasis you place on those muscles.
How to Perform the Decline Push-Up?
Muscles Worked: Deltoids, Pectorals, Triceps
- Place your hands shoulder-width apart, flat on the ground
- Place your feet on a raised platform (bench, box, chair, set of weight plates)
- Lower your chest down to the ground, pausing just before your chest touches it
- Use your chest and arms to drive back upwards
How the Decline Push-Up Works the Upper Chest
While a normal push-up will work the upper chest, a decline push-up places more emphasis on the upper part of the pectoral muscle as well as the deltoids. It’s very similar to an incline bench press in this regard.
Pike Push-Ups
Pike push-ups are very similar to decline push-ups in the way that they place more emphasis on the deltoids and upper pectorals. Again, this is down to the angle created.
What is the Pike Push-Up?
The pike push-up is very similar to a regular push-up. Your feet are on the floor, as are your hands. The main difference is that your hips are raised up so that your body looks like a triangle, rather than having your hips flat like you would for a regular push-up.
How to Perform the Pike Push-Up?
Muscles Worked: Deltoids, Pectorals, Triceps
- Place your hands shoulder-width apart, flat on the ground and place your feet flat on the ground too
- Walk your feet forwards while raising your hips into the air until you are shaped like a triangle
- Lower your chest and shoulders down until they are almost touching the ground
- Pause, then rise back up
How the Pike Push-Up Works the Upper Chest
Like the decline push-up, the pike push-up places more emphasis on your shoulders and upper chest by changing the angle at which you are pressing.
Stability Ball Decline Push-Ups
This decline push-up variation is very difficult due to the instability of the ball that you place your feet on. If you have weak abdominal muscles, then this exercise may be too challenging.
What is the Stability Ball Decline Push-Up?
This is a variation on the decline push-up, where you place your feet on a stability ball to create the raised angle. The fact that the ball can move around makes the exercise a lot harder and places a lot of emphasis on your abdominal muscles as well as your upper chest and shoulders.
How to Perform the Stability Ball Decline Push-Up?
Muscles Worked: Deltoids, Pectorals, Triceps, Abdominals
- Place your hands shoulder-width apart, flat on the ground
- Place your feet on a stability ball
- Lower your chest down to the ground, pausing just before your chest touches it
- Use your chest and arms to drive back upwards
How the Stability Ball Decline Push-Up Works the Upper Chest
The stability ball decline push-up works the upper chest in the exact same way that the traditional decline push-up works the upper chest. By creating an angle that places more emphasis on the shoulders and upper chest.
Feet on Wall Push-Up
This exercise requires a lot of mobility and isn’t one that you should do if you have had a shoulder injury in the past. But as a push-up variation, it is a lot of fun to perform!
What is the Feet on Wall Push-up?
The name of this exercise is fairly self-explanatory. Instead of placing your feet on a chair, box, or bench. You instead place your feet high up on a wall. The angle created by this exercise is usually quite extreme, but obviously, you can change that by moving where your feet are placed.
How to Perform the Feet on Wall Push-Up?
Muscles Worked: Deltoids, Pectorals, Triceps
- Place your hands shoulder-width apart, flat on the ground
- Bring your feet up along the wall until you have reached your desired angle
- Lower your chest and shoulders down to the ground
- Pause, and then drive back up again.
How the Feet on Wall Push-Up Works the Upper Chest
The feet on wall push-up creates an extreme angle that is very favourable to the upper chest and deltoid muscles.
Flexed Trunk Push-ups
The flexed trunk push-up is very similar to the pike push-up, and the two are often confused. But they are different, and the flexed trunk variation is a little easier and more accessible while still hitting that upper chest.
What is the Flexed Trunk Push-Up?
It is the pike push-up but with your hips a little lower. Instead of raising your hips up to create a triangle, you just raise them up slightly to place a little more emphasis on your upper chest.
How to Perform Flexed Trunk Push-Ups?
Muscles Worked: Deltoids, Pectorals, Triceps
- Place your hands shoulder-width apart, flat on the ground
- With your feet flat on the ground, raise your hips up slightly and bring your feet forwards
- Lower your chest and shoulders towards the ground
- Pause, and then rise back up again
How the Flexed Trunk Push-Up Works the Upper Chest
It works the upper chest in a similar way to the pike push-up, by creating an angle that places more emphasis on your upper chest and deltoids than a regular push-up. It’s just slightly less extreme.
Upper Chest Anatomy
The pectoral muscles are often confused by gym goers as three separate muscles (upper, middle, and lower). In fact, the pectoral muscle is just one large fan-shaped muscle. However, the muscle is made up of three parts (heads). These are:
- The clavicular head
- The sternocostal head
- The abdominal head
The clavicular part is what is often referred to as the upper chest or upper pec. It travels from your clavicle (collar bone) down and across your chest to under your deltoid (shoulder) muscle. It is directly beside your sternocostal head which travels from your sternum (breast bone) across your chest, also finishing beneath your deltoid.
The lower part of your pec, the abdominal head, starts around where your upper six-pack is, and again travels across your chest to finish under your deltoid.
As you can imagine, these three heads all have fibres in different positions. The clavicular head has fibres that travel in a downwards diagonal. The sternocostal head has fibres that travel in a more horizontal line. While the abdominal head has fibres that travel in an upwards diagonal.
When you perform a pushing movement, all three heads will be activated, there is no exercise that completely isolates the upper pecs (for example). But different movements can place more emphasis on different heads.
The decline push-up, like the incline bench press, places more emphasis on the clavicular head while still working the other two heads. That’s why the decline push-up is described as an upper chest exercise.
Wrapping It Up
So, there you have it, five excellent push-up variations that target the upper chest to varying degrees. Keep in mind that each exercise is also going to place a lot of emphasis on the deltoids, so try not to overload your training programs with shoulder exercises before performing your push-ups or they will be too fatigued for optimal results.