Optimal Pectoral Size Training

Feb 2

Takeaway Points:

There are different strategies for training pectorals depending on if your goal is size, strength, or a combination of both.
In general, the muscles in the upper body recover more quickly, meaning that you can/should train those lifts more frequently.
The pectorals benefit from exercises that push wider ranges of motion - which is why the barbell bench press isn’t the ideal exercise for increasing pec size. Paused reps, “squeezing,” and slow, deliberate movement are key.
Inclines and variations are also important to target all of the pectoral muscle fibers. Be sure to include horizontal presses, vertical presses from below, and the incline fly.

The pecs are the classic chest musculature, which everyone loves to train - building pectoral mass means a wider chest and a stronger bench press, and is a key contributor to a solid, aesthetic physique.

That said, I see a lot of training mistakes when it comes to training the chest. I’ve also got some absolutely heretical opinions - like that the barbell bench press is NOT the best lift for developing pectoral mass. I should note that in this post, I am talking exclusively about building SIZE, and not strength - optimal training is very different for these two goals, and I’ve written about building strength elsewhere.

With that in mind, here are some of my recommendations.

Higher Than Usual Frequency

The upper body musculature tends to recover a bit more quickly compared to the lower body musculature, and can therefore tolerate a greater training frequency.

I train lower body lifts heavy, generally, twice a week, with potentially a third day for someone who recovers quickly with a given lift. For upper body lifts, however, I typically aim for 2-3x/week for a serious lifter, and potentially even as high as 4x/week.

When training with higher frequencies, it often becomes necessary to train with full body workouts, combining some of your upper body and lower body work into the same session. Thus, while many people prefer the classic upper/lower split, it’s often easier to just do full body workouts as it enables a lot more flexibility with how you structure your training week.

The Bench Press

The barbell bench press is the classic gym lift, and every gym bro loves to bench press. Unfortunately, I generally believe that it’s NOT optimal for building pectoral mass.

The reason for this is pretty simple - in general, we get better results when training through a longer range of motion. The barbell bench press, compared to other chest-focused exercises, is actually somewhat limited in its range of motion - you’re only able to go as deep as the bar touching the chest, and no further.

Compare this to other chest focused exercises - in the dip and the dumbbell bench press, you can get a lot deeper because there’s no bar in the way. Pushups are initially also limited in a similar way (you can only go so far down that your chest touches the floor), but you can get deeper by doing pushups using pushup handles or a pair of boxes used to elevate the hands.

The barbell bench press can be modified to increase the range of motion - the cambered bench press bar is a specialty barbell that has a slight U-shaped bend in the bar which can be used to bench press even deeper. However, this is a piece of specialty equipment which will be hard to find in most gyms, and therefore most lifters won’t have access to one.

When it comes to the barbell bench press, your average aesthetics-focused lifter, looking to maximize muscle mass, DOESN’T need to use the classic barbell bench press at all, and should even avoid it. Instead, you should focus on those other lifts (the dumbbell bench, the weighted dip, the deep pushup, etc.) which do enable you to train within a longer range of motion.

Maybe you’re not someone who wants to all-out maximize your size, and does want to train strength as a secondary goal, or be able to switch over to a powerlifting style of training in the future. In this case, you’d still probably want to do a traditional bench press at least 1x/week (potentially in a slightly heavier rep range) in order to keep up your strength as well as keep your body accustomed to that specific movement pattern.

Look For The Stretch

While stretch is not the primary driver of building muscle mass, the pectorals are a muscle group that really benefit from methods used to “force” yourself into the end range of motion, thus increasing the stretch you get out of the movement, and really making those muscles grow.

This can include things like pauses at the bottom of the movement, slowing down the movement slightly so that you can focus on the mind-muscle connection, and really focusing on “squeezing” the muscles at the top of the movement. For example, you can do a dumbbell bench press with a 1 second pause at the bottom of the movement, followed by a faster lift, a squeeze at the top, and a slower descent.

Another movement that really maximizes this stretch is the chest fly - this can be done in a variety of formats, including the machine fly (pec deck), dumbbell fly, and cable machine fly (which can be done at different heights to provide different stimulus).

This is a lift that I often cheated a lot when I was a beginner, and I never really got much benefit out of it as a result. But when you take it more slowly, focus on the full range of motion, and pause slightly at the point of greatest stretch, these variations can provide a really powerful stimulus for the growth of the pecs. A big lesson I had to learn was to slow it down, use less weight, and not let my ego get in the way. I was trying to focus too much on adding weight too aggressively over time.

Incline And Variation

In general, we can divide chest-focused exercises into a few major variation types, and a lifter should focus on hitting all these types in order to maximize development across all muscle fibers.

These variations include the horizontal press, the vertical press (from below), the incline, the decline, and the fly.

The horizontal press includes flat bench press variations as well as the chest press machine - you’re pushing a weight horizontally away from the torso. The vertical press from below would include the dip and variations thereof. The incline and decline would be represented by the incline and decline bench press (and machine variations of these lifts). The fly, as mentioned above, is represented by the cable, machine, or dumbbell variations of the fly.

With a good combination of these different variations, we can effectively target all muscle fibers. However, there are some considerations.

The decline bench press and decline chest press are not typically a very popular exercise. They don’t feel very good, and can be a very awkward movement. The decline chest press tends to cause an effect where it pushes the lifter up on the back stabilizing pad over time, encouraging bad form and an unstable movement. The decline bench press is harder to setup, and doesn’t feel like it does much of anything different. In general, the decline variations are skipped because they provide a similar enough effect to the traditional flat bench/horizontal press that they’re considered safe to skip.

The fly is also a very versatile movement - with a cable machine, you can do incline and decline variations of the fly as well. In this case, you can potentially avoid needing to do an incline press, for example, if you want to kill two birds with one stone and do an incline fly instead.

This leaves us with - horizontal press, vertical from below, incline press, and the fly - or simply the horizontal, vertical from below, and the incline fly.

Set/Rep Schemes

Different variations necessitate the use of different set and rep schemes. The bench press, chest press machine, and variations thereof, tend to make good strength movements, and can tolerate very well if you add a lot of weight and aim for higher intensities. Thus, it can work well in rep ranges from say, 1-15 or so per challenging set.

The dip also tolerates heavy weight up to a certain point - I find that if you add too much weight via a dip belt, it can become painful on the wrists to support the weight, in addition to very awkward to move around and maneuver yourself into position with that much weight. So, while you can do higher intensities/lower rep ranges, you’ll typically do better with something like 5-15 reps per challenging set.

The fly is a lift that quickly falls apart in form if done too heavy, and requires slower reps, more control, and a good stretch to get the maximum effect out of. For this reason, I typically recommend lighter rep ranges - something like 10-20 reps per set works better.

A Sample Training Program

Given the above rules, what are some examples of an ideal training program for optimizing your pectoral development? Here are a few variations:

3x/week - Strength and Size

Day 1 - Paused Flat Bench Press 3x3-6 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 2 - Weighted Dips 3x5-10 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 3 - Incline Cable Fly 3x10-20 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure

3x/week - Size Only

Day 1 - Paused DB Bench Press 3x5-10 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 2 - Weighted Dips 3x5-10 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 3 - Incline Cable Fly 3x10-20 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure

4x/week - Strength and Size

Day 1 - Paused Flat Bench Press 3x3-6 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 2 - Weighted Dips 3x10-15 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 3 - Incline Bench Press 3x5-10 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 4 - Cable Fly 3x10-20 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure

4x/week - Size Only

Day 1 - Paused DB Bench Press 3x5-10 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 2 - Weighted Dips 3x10-15 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 3 - Incline Bench Press 3x5-10 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure
Day 4 - Cable Fly 3x10-20 followed by some lighter accessory work to failure

In all these cases, lighter accessory work could consist of things like drop sets, or working with other lighter exercises like pushups or flyes (on days not already using a fly as your primary lift), or chest-focused machine exercises. You can also do arm work like tricep or bicep exercises, though these will naturally be less directly applicable to building pectoral mass.

These plans should naturally be combined with other work being performed for other major movements - I’m planning on doing a series on other major movements similar to this one, so be on the lookout for those posts in the future!

About Adam Fisher

Adam is an experienced fitness coach and blogger who's been blogging and coaching since 2012, and lifting since 2006. He's written for numerous major health publications, including Personal Trainer Development Center, T-Nation, Bodybuilding.com, Fitocracy, and Juggernaut Training Systems.

During that time he has coached hundreds of individuals of all levels of fitness, including competitive powerlifters and older exercisers regaining the strength to walk up a flight of stairs. His own training revolves around bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which he’s competed.

Adam writes about fitness, health, science, philosophy, personal finance, self-improvement, productivity, the good life, and everything else that interests him. When he's not writing or lifting, he's usually hanging out with his cats or feeding his video game addiction.

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