Chest muscles and exercises

The chest (pectorals) muscles are made up of two major muscles - the pectoralis minor and pectoralis major (clavicular head and sternal head).

To effectively train and develop the pectorals you should aim to exercise the muscle group through a wide range of motion using a variety of exercises, including preses, dips and flyes.

Pectoral muscles

The pectoralis muscles are made up of the muscles below:

• Clavicular head *
• Sternal head *
• Pectoralis minor

* The clavicular head and the sternal head together are referred to as the pectoralis major.

Pectoral exercises

The list of exercises below link to full descriptions of how to perform chest exercises.

• Assisted chest dips
• Weighted chest dips
• Machine chest dips
• Barbell bench press
• Guillotine bench press
• Decline bench press
• Machine bench press
• Dumbbell bench press
• Dumbbell pullover
• Standing cable fly
• Laying cable fly
• Low cable fly
• Dumbbell fly
• Incline dumbbell fly
• Decline dumbbell fly
• Pec deck

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