We Tested 16 Chest Exercises, These Are Best For Growth

this is Betty a 12 000 EMG machine who is going to help us determine what the best chest exercises actually are how does this all work I'll explain in a minute but here's a hint [Music] let's talk about why I bought a 12 000 piece of equipment in the first place I remember the first time I watched Crazy Stupid Love and saw Ryan Gosling's ripped muscular body on screen and I thought to myself damn I would feel incredible if I looked like that Play It's like a Photoshop so at 15 years old weighing in at a frail 120 pounds I decided to dive head first into the gym but almost instantly I became confused and overwhelmed with what to do everyone had a different opinion on how to train and what to eat I tried it all and while I saw some results I just wasn't satisfied until one day during my studies in University I accidentally came across a 2010 study titled the mechanisms of muscle hypertrophy and their application to resistance training this paper dove into the science behind what made muscles grow and how to apply that science to your training I was fascinated I felt like I stumbled upon a gold Mark I started reading more studies and applying these methods to my own training and my results skyrocketed I taught these methods to my friends and my family and the same effect happened there finally a source of truth I could actually trust that's when I went all in to pursue a career in Fitness learning from the experts and dissecting the research in a way that the average Joe could understand to apply however I wanted to go a step further I want to not only communicate research and spread the truth to the world but I want to be a part of that research process which brings me back to Betty she's what's known as an EMG machine just don't tell her that she likes to feel human EMG stands for electromyography and it's a way of measuring the electrical activity produced by muscles when they contract researchers use this to assess how well different exercises are at activating our muscles but there's a problem I haven't used this machine since back in University and I want to make sure I run this experiment as best as possible so that we and you can actually trust the data so I called up a few colleagues of mine and they led me to John a master's student specializing in EMG who taught me everything I needed to know finally Betty and I were ready for our first test run foreign stick this on all right it's a moment of truth boom so you see this green that is my bicep after getting the hang of her it was time to prep the experiment and think about all the variables we had to control first off subjects everyone's bodies are slightly different and the more subjects in a study the more reliable the data so although it would triple the work I wanted at least three subjects in total luckily we had Alex and Raza eager to give it a go Raza is more of a beginner so it's going to be interesting to see how his results compare to me and Alex next we had to figure out how much weight we'd be using on each chest exercise to ensure that they were equally as challenging so a week before the test date we all spent a whole day in our gym and figured out our estimated one rep max this is the maximum amount of weight we could lift on each exercise on test day we'd use 70 of this weight for each exercise however we couldn't really do this with push-ups since you're forced to use your own body weight which led to some really interesting results that I'll share later on finally the wager this is Raza and this is Alex one of our daily science coaches Bethany over here is going to help us determine which chest exercises are best at activating the upper the middle and the lower chest now before we reveal the results each of us is going to write down on a piece of paper which we think the top two exercises are going to be for each region the person who gets the least exercises correct well they're gonna have to face the Wrath foreign body-sized Canadian Tundra death trap guaranteed to shrink whatever manhood you have left here's a list of all the chest exercises we'll be testing but before we test there's just a few more final things we need to get done first to make sure the sensors thick we needed a clean shave thanks to my half Filipino jeans and Alex is beating a me's background we were ready to go Roz on the other hand needed some work hello how'd it feel next Electro placement we put sensors on the upper middle and lower portions of the chest but we also put one on the front delts to see if any exercises let the shoulders to take over rather than the chest and finally before we could go into the first exercise we had to take a crucial measurement to make sure we could standardize the data it's what's called NVC or maximum voluntary contraction this represents the maximum activation your muscle can reach but this value will be slightly different for everyone so by gathering this value before we start testing the exercises where able to then accurately compare the chest exercises we do against each of our own maximal values to see how well the exercise works for our individual chest muscles getting this value wasn't easy [Music] with that out of the way we're ready to test we're sticking to a similar design as EMG research papers use by doing one set of five Reps for each exercise and then taking at least a five minute rest before moving on to the next one forum is also extremely important to activate the right muscles in the first place so I closely monitored and tweaked form if needed in fact this is raza's chest activation using his original form and this is his chest activation using our corrected science-based form for the flat dumbbell press there was a 150 boost in this chest activation it's these little details that make all the difference and is what we teach you how to do in our brand new 2.0 online fitness programs over at builtwithscience.com after this video if you had their intake or analysis quiz it'll determine which of our step-by-step programs are best for you and your body anyways all was going well until we realized something damn okay so I just realized that one of the most popular exercises on the list is the pec deck machine and it's the one exercise that we don't have at the built with science gym so I'm gonna call the nearest gym and we're gonna see if they don't mind if we run a little bit of a science experiment I called but there was no answer so we decided to just show up yeah hi um yeah I'm not sure how entirely to explain this are you able to come to the front for a second and we're testing a bunch of different machines and the only one we didn't have was a pectec machine all of you guys think this song here room let's go [Music] figure out which exercise gives the best reading exactly my chest exercises yeah [Music] is that good they're good with that out of the way we managed to finish up the rest of the exercises all right guys it has been a long day over eight hours of testing I'm gonna get some sleep and then I'm gonna process the data and then it's gonna be time to reveal the winners but first I want you to comment down below what you think the top two exercises will be for the upper chest the middle chest and the lower chest and let's see if any of you guys will be the one summoned to the ice plunge good night buddy [Music] it's time so before I present the winners it's important to be mindful of the limitations of this little experiment with several variables and just three subjects it's hard to detect any statistical differences that said I did average the data across the three of us and I found some really interesting findings that actually aligns with a lot of other research out there let's start with the upper chest generally exercise is done on an incline bench will better Target the upper chest so it's no surprise that the top two exercises were both incline dumbbell presses just at different bench angles so we tested 15 degrees 30 degrees and 45 degrees but for all three of us as soon as the bench incline reached 45 degrees the upper chest activation began to decrease and the shoulders started to take over something that I've actually seen in past EMG studies as well as a result the lower inclines of 15 and 30 degrees which is usually just one to two notches up from the bottom position those came out on top 15 degrees actually work best for me so I'm going to be sticking with that whereas 30 degrees work best for Raza and Alex I'd highly suggest that you try out both angles and just see what feels best for you there is however one more upper chest exercise I want to highlight it's called The Pinch press a popular Instagram influencer exercise that I thought would be fun to throw in and test this ended up being by far Roz's top upper chest exercise and scored quite well overall from me as well but I wouldn't recommend it which brings me to one of the limitations of Betty I'm sorry baby don't take it personally although when exercise May activate a muscle really well it doesn't necessarily mean it's the best option to grow that muscle in the case of the pinch press the chest is activating really hard to keep the weight squeezed together this type of contraction on the chest is what's called an isometric contraction which unfortunately just isn't very effective for building muscle it's like trying to grow your legs with wall sits instead of squats luckily the pinch press is the only High activation but low muscle the potential exercise in the less digestive okay so now the middle chest the first winner is actually a not very well known exercise but it's something we use in our built with science programs and it's a favorite of a few popular bodybuilders such as John Meadows it's the decline dumbbell press but not the typical version that you see at the gym here we use just a very slight elevation by placing a weight plate underneath the front of the bench usually this helps favor the lower chest a little bit more but to my surprise it did an excellent job of activating the mid chest for all three of us the other winner was an exercise with a very stable setup and one that provides constant tension to the chest throughout the whole range of motion the seated cable flyer and in this case we put the cable handles at chest height which seem to be the perfect setting for the middle chest before we move to the lower chest winners I just want to highlight one more exercise push-ups why do a push-ups scored extremely poorly for both me and Alex but for Raza because they were more challenge you for him to do another one let's go it actually ranked the highest for his middle chest so while it can be a great exercise and just as effective as something like the bench press for beginners they will become less effective as you get stronger and need more of a challenge last but not least the lower chest here I expected high to low cable flies to wind because the tension from the cable aligns well with the lower chest fibers while it did end up scoring well seated cable flies came out on top which might be because it's a more stable setup with the tension from the cable still aligning quite well with the lower chest so both are great options but I would be interested to see if activation would change at all if I place the sensors a little bit more on the outer chest the area where I personally feel high to low cable thighs work in the most the other winner was once again the decline dumbbell press suggesting that the very slight decline aligns the Press very well with both the middle and the lower chest fibers of the chest for those of you who want to take a deeper look into the results I'll leave a link in the description box down below to where you can view all the data the Moment of Truth we got changed and gathered ground for the verdict at this point I still have no idea who is going in is it the master coach the beginner or my worst fear me the results are in Jeremy you got four correct Alex you got four correct oh four and Raza for you to avoid the dreaded ice plunge you need to get at least four correct you got three which means they're going to nice full plunge house [Music] foreign [Music] [Applause] seeing Raza take his ice plunge like an absolute champ inspired me to jump in but as I sat there freezing in the rain I started getting a little emotional after hitting a hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube I found it built with science which stemmed from a bigger Vision I always had in mind to build a legacy that would last long after I'm gone and be much greater and larger than myself a legacy that would bring a more scientific and research-backed approach to Fitness and weed out the BS and Bro Science that plagues the industry this little science experiment was a big step towards realizing that for the first time ever rather than just observing the science I'm in a way kind of actually doing the science I'm excited for where this leads and I appreciate you joining me on this journey thank you for everything you helped us yeah how do you feel about that huh how do you feel about that about about what everything the shooting and stuff honestly it was like a huge step and a huge step forward and I'll name my vision but like also in just trying to make my videos a lot more entertaining like stepping aside in my comfort zone and trying to do something different you know and like bringing the team in like it was so much more fun instead of just having me in it to have like other characters and people like Raza and to show you guys who else is behind the scenes who else is doing full of science because it's not just me like I can't do everything so I have these incredible people with me you know we've tested chest and we're testing shoulders next there's a pole up on our site where you can vote on the exercises that you think will come out on top winners get a free built with science program and all entries get a discount code you can vote over at builtwithscience.com vote I'll also leave a link in the description box down below good luck and I'll see you next time

Channel: Jeremy Ethier

Views: 2,780,944

Keywords: best chest exercises for growth, chest exercises, exercises for a bigger chest, upper chest exercises, lower chest exercises, how to get a bigger chest, how to grow chest, chest workout at gym, best chest exercises with dumbbells, chest workout, exercises for chest, best chest workout, chest workout for mass, builtwithscience, jeremyethier, bench press, dumbbell press, best chest exercises, chest workouts, chest fly, dumbbell fly, barbell bench press, dumbbell bench press

Id: wh-KKiOXY34

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 15 2022