{"id":293704,"date":"2025-11-15T18:38:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T18:38:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/293704\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T18:38:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T18:38:09","slug":"a-top-strength-coach-ranks-the-best-to-worst-chest-exercises-the-best-one-might-surprise-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/293704\/","title":{"rendered":"A top strength coach ranks the best to worst chest exercises \u2013 the best one might surprise you"},"content":{"rendered":"

When you\u2019re on a mission to build a bigger chest, we can all agree that you don\u2019t want to be wasting your time on sloppy exercises. Instead, you want to focus on the ones that deliver the most bang for your buck. That\u2019s exactly what Strength Coach and Physical Therapist, Jeff Cavaliere, breaks down in a recent Instagram post.<\/p>\n

He ranks some of the most popular chest exercises from best to worst, and you may be surprised that not only does the bench press<\/a> not come out on top, it\u2019s not even in his roundup of exercises. We know, mind-blowing!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

He uses seven tiers to categorise the exercises into different tiers \u2013 S, A, B, C, D, F \u2013 \u2018S\u2019 being the \u2018best\u2019 and \u2018F\u2019 being the \u2018worst. Although, he does write on his post: \u201cEveryone\u2019s selections may be different.\u201d<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

At the bottom of the rankings is the plate squeeze. \u201cOne plate, wrong angle, no pay-off, nothing to see here,\u201d Cavaliere says. Ouch! This is closely followed by the dumbbell flye which, may surprise you, as this was a staple in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s routine, and we can all agree he had a great chest. But for Cavaliere, he says that he\u2019s seen far too many shoulder injuries occur from it.<\/p>\n

Push-ups make it into \u2018C\u2019 tier, while the dumbbell bench press (not barbell) made it into \u2018A\u2019 tier. \u201cIt\u2019s safer on the shoulders, still easy to overload and adjustable, flat or incline, so you can target your chest development weak points.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Cavalier adds that if you want to bump the dumbbell bench press up into \u2018S\u2019 tier, you should superset it with cable cross-overs \u2013 the best combo for adding strength and mass to your chest.<\/p>\n

\u201cHeavy mechanical overload, while training all functions of the pecs in the same pairing \u2013 that\u2019s strength, plus stretch, plus squeeze, making it a worthy chest-building combo and of its place at the top of the tier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Get all the latest news, reviews, deals and buying guides on gorgeous tech, home and active products from the T3 experts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When you\u2019re on a mission to build a bigger chest, we can all agree that you don\u2019t want…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":293705,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[337,97],"class_list":{"0":"post-293704","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-fitness","9":"tag-health"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293704","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=293704"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293704\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/293705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=293704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=293704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=293704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}