---
title: 'The Best and Worst Chest Exercises Ranked by Science'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=fGm-ef-4PVk'
video_id: 'fGm-ef-4PVk'
date: 2026-07-19
duration_sec: 904
channel: 'Jeff Nippard'
---

# The Best and Worst Chest Exercises Ranked by Science

> Source: [The Best and Worst Chest Exercises Ranked by Science](https://youtube.com/watch?v=fGm-ef-4PVk)

## Summary

This video ranks 20 chest exercises from best to worst based on three criteria: deep stretch with high tension, good feel and mind-muscle connection, and progressive overload potential. The host explains his methodology and crowns one exercise as the ultimate chest builder (S tier plus) and one as the worst (F tier hell).

### Key Points

- **Ranking Criteria** [00:01] — Three boxes for a chest movement to rank highly: big stretch with high tension, feels good with smooth mind-muscle connection, and allows progressive overload by adding weight or reps.
- **Hex Press and Plate Press** [00:44] — Hex press fails because arms never stretch out, triceps take over, and no evidence for pec growth. Plate press is even worse with less overload potential. Both placed in F tier.
- **Dumbbell Pullover** [01:12] — Biomechanics show pecs activate, but the host and clients don't feel pecs during the movement. Considered a better lat exercise, placed in F tier for chest.
- **Bench Press** [01:38] — Offers high tension and easy overload, but barbell limits deep stretch compared to dumbbells. Many people have shoulder issues. Placed in A tier due to stretch limitation and common complaints.
- **Incline Bench Press** [02:32] — Same upsides as flat bench, with a study showing equal lower/mid pec growth and better upper pec growth. Very close to S tier but placed in A tier.
- **Decline Bench Press** [02:59] — Targets mid and lower pecs but has less range of motion and many people struggle with upper pec development. Placed in B tier.
- **Flat Dumbbell Press** [03:25] — Deeper stretch than barbell, feels great, good pump. But advanced lifters may max out dumbbell rack (usually 100 lbs) and handling heavy dumbbells is awkward. Placed in A tier.
- **Machine Chest Press** [04:32] — Provides deep stretch, high tension, locked-in stability, safe to push to failure, easy overload. First exercise awarded S tier.
- **Dips** [05:13] — Massive stretch on pecs, high tension, many overload methods. Some people experience shoulder pain, and the host finds them not the smoothest feel. Placed in A tier.
- **Push-ups and Variations** [05:51] — Bodyweight push-ups: easy to do anywhere but require 30+ reps to failure, not fully stretched at bottom, hard to overload. Placed in C tier. Banded push-ups: extra tension only in bottom half, placed in B tier. Deficit push-ups: fix stretch issue, can pause at bottom, placed in A tier. Plyometric push-ups: poor for tension and stretch, placed in D tier.
- **Guillotine Press** [07:26] — Barbell lowered to neck, provides huge stretch. Can cause shoulder issues for some. Placed in A tier, but with safety warning. Dumbbell version safer, placed in A tier.
- **One Arm Dumbbell Press** [09:02] — No advantage over two-arm press, harder to balance, disperses tension. Placed in D tier.
- **Smith Machine Press** [09:30] — Effective alternative to barbell press, more confidence pushing to failure. Placed in A tier.
- **Cable Crossovers** [09:57] — Big stretch, smooth tension, good feel. But standing can cause instability as weight increases. Placed in A tier.
- **Seated Cable Fly** [10:50] — Same benefits as cable crossover but more stable. Tension applied directly to pecs. Second addition to S tier.
- **Pec Deck Machine** [11:16] — Stable, big stretch, high tension. But locked movement path may not suit everyone. Placed in A tier.
- **Dumbbell Fly** [11:31] — Zero tension at top, but recent evidence shows stretch is more important. Can do partials. Not as smooth as cables. Placed in A tier.
- **Cable Press Around** [12:10] — Gets pecs fully contracted across midline. Awkward at first but great option. Placed in A tier.
- **Crossbody Standing Dumbbell Fly** [12:48] — Zero tension when stretched, triceps steal tension. Placed in F tier.
- **Floor Press** [13:15] — Limited range of motion, never fully stretches pecs. Good for triceps and lockout strength but just okay for chest. Placed in C tier.
- **Best and Worst Exercises** [13:41] — Best: machine chest press (S tier plus). Worst: plate press (F tier).

### Conclusion

The machine chest press is crowned the best chest exercise due to its deep stretch, high tension, stability, and safety for failure training. The plate press is deemed the worst due to awkwardness, lack of overload potential, and no real upside.

## Transcript

exercises for muscle growth well for a chest movement to rank highly it needs to tick three boxes one a big stretch with high tension if it doesn't offer high tension in a deep stretch I'm putting in an F tier no exceptions two
it needs to feel good it shouldn't cause pain and it should have a smooth and a nice mind muscle connection would be nice too three it needs to have a progressively overload by adding weight or reps that's not good and after
ranking 20 of the most popular movements from s for super to F for fail at the end I'll Crown one exercise as the best of the chest raising it to S tier plus and one as the most inept for the pecs sending it to F tier hell all right
let's get the worst out of the way the hex press I'm not a big fan of these your pecs because your arms never stretch out they stay tucked in the tension because your triceps will take over there's no evidence that these
they'd probably be worse for the incs in PEC fibers aren't getting as stretched here the hex press is going in F tier the plate press is basically a hex press that feels even more Awkward
with even less overload potential so it's also going in F tier the dumbbell pullover is a tricky one biomechanics tells us that the pecs do help perform triceps and when you look at the activation data the pecs do activate on
pullovers the problem is I simply don't feel my pecs when I do this movement I've ever worked with says the same and putting these on their chest day so despite some theoretical Merit I think
pullovers are a much better lat exercise than a PE exercise and for that reason right let's look at some better exercises the bench press my ranking might surprise you here it offers high tension on the pecs as long as you bring
it's very easy to overload and you can always add some weight over time as you get stronger it feels good to me although many people do complain that feel a little cranky I suspect that's because they're trying to lift more
still hear the issue commonly enough that I do count it as a slight negative so if it were just me I think I'd probably put the bench press in s tier I this exercise however it is true that the barbell won't allow the PEC to get
in quite as deep of a stretch as dumbbells do since it'll come up solid coaching experience not everyone gets as much pack activation out of the bench press as I do so for thaton reason I'm going to hesitantly drop it back to a
tier the incline bench press has all the same upsides as the flat bench press pecs now a lot of people think this means it isn't as good for the mid and lower pecs as the flat bench however a recent study found that the incline
bench press caused the same lower and mid pek growth as the flat bench did plus better upper PEC growth so it's very close to S tier but I think I'm decline bench press doesn't have any long-term research comparing pet growth
like the incline and flat bench however biomechanics tells us that a decline angle should Target the mid and lower pecs a bit more however it has two minor downsides for one in my experience more people struggle with getting their upper
pecs so if you're trying to shift the bias I would shift it toward the upper pecs for most people second the decline bench does have slightly less range of motion than both the flat and the incline press so out of the three angle
favorite I know some people swear by it and it clearly isn't effective chest Builder it's very close to being in a tier but I'm going to put it in B tier all right the flat dumbbell press this offers a deeper stretch on the pecs than
move freely past the rib cage they feel great you should get a great chest pump on these and because people are less likely to let their ego takeover on this have shoulder issues as a beginner and intermediate level lifter you should be
movement just fine by either adding reps or increasing the weight of the dumbbells however once you get decently strong you may max out the dumbbell rack at your gym which usually stops at 100 lb also once you get that strong the
can be quite awkward to handle so while S tier it's getting knocked down to a tier for those potential overloading issues in more advanced lifters the incline dumbbell press is also going in
a tier since the same basic movement with the same upsides and downside emphasis on the upper pecs and I'm putting the decline dumbbell press in B up you'll probably need someone to hand you the dumbbells and again lower pecs
rarely need any extra emphasis okay the machine chest press a good chest press machine will give a nice deep stretch on the pecs and provide high tension barbells and dumbbells you're more locked in which should help increase the
and give them massive pump machines are very easy to overload you can always add and they have the advantage of being a little safer to push to failure than free weights assuming you have a good chest press machine that takes all those
downside from a muscle building standpoint and so the machine chest press is our first exercise getting awarded to S tier all right dips let's see massive stretch on the pecs possibly the best compound exercise I'm aware of
for getting into a deep PEC stretch they offer high tension and there's many ways to apply Progressive overload you can do assisted dips and reduce the assistance weight over time or you can do body weight dips and add reps or you can slow
to week and then as you gain more strength you can use a weight belt to add external load the only downside of dips is that some people find that their much although I've never actually experienced that personally but I will
say I don't think dips have the smoothest feel so despite many upsides they are taking a slight hit in the feels good department for me and for tier instead of s tier they're definitely an exercise worth including
though okay what about push-ups body weight push-ups are nice because you can do them anywhere without any equipment however assuming you do have gym access I think there are far better options for chest growth the problem is that once
do at least 30 plus reps to get close enough to failure to maximize muscle that's fine if you're doing them as a end of workout finisher but otherwise doing all those reps can be exhausting for no added benefit you also come up
are fully stretched and they're not that easy to overload while you can have a partner add some weight to your back the weight always feels a bit unstable for but I'm still putting body weight push-ups in tier banded push-ups do add
some extra tension to the movement however almost all of that tension is bottom half of the push-up so tension still isn't being maximized while the a decent finisher though so I'll put them in B tier deficit push-ups fix the
the pecs and even though they're still a bit tricky to overload you can make the exercise more challenging by pausing for 2 to 3 seconds in the bottom I think is how you should do them deficit push-ups are going in a tier I used to
do a lot of plyometric push-ups in my early powerlifting days to build up press but I've fallen out of love with them s they're just not great for maximizing tension on the negative or in the stretch and even though there is
training I'd rather use an explosive Tempo on a weight loaded exercise like the bench press if bodybuilding is the goal I'm going to put these in D tier as a chest Builder speaking of less conventional exercises the guillotine
press is basically a normal flat bench press except you shrug your shoulders up flare your elbows out and lower the barbell down to your neck a lot of exercise causing shoulder issues but
strong rationale to support that you can listen to Dr Mike if you don't believe Guillotine style where they take a higher position on the chest and they huge stretch in the pecs their shoulders feel amazing no problem correct answer
below the nipple line actually on their abdomen and they will tuck their elbows on the way down if that is what hits your peex the most and it makes your and safe beautiful right answer what I don't
want you guys to get caught up in is people on the internet who say this is bad because biomechanics I don't know where the they say that because if you go out here notice my pecs are getting more stretched as I pull out
people especially those with pre-existing shoulder issues flaring the elbows might hurt so in that case I just wouldn't bother with these however Gill than any of the other barbell presses we've discussed and it also has a cool
history in lifting culture I am a fan and I would put it in a tier however dropping the bar on your neck would be lights out I'm going to go ahead and put potential Hazard risk is worth any
it that said if you modify the exercise to do the same basic movement with dumbbells it suddenly becomes much safer and in that case I am going to put these or F tier for those of you who get shoulder pain from it but in my
flare their elbows without issue just start light and build up your tolerance variations I guess I'll cover the one arm dumbbell press I still see this quite a bit at the gym but doing one arm at a time has no Advantage because each
dumbbell press anyway so doing them one arm at a time just makes it harder to keep your balance which disperses tension away from the PCS maybe a bit tier the Smith machine gets a lot of hate for some reason but studies
consistently show that it is effective at building muscle across a variety of alternative to the standard bench press with all the same upsides plus I find I'm more confident pushing the Smith machine press closer to failure these
are going in a tier along with the other barbell presses and the incline Smith except with a little more upper peack emphasis so they're also going in a tier okay so far we've been discussing only compound chest exercises presses dips
and push-up variations that will smash the pecs but also Target the front delts and triceps sometimes you want to isolate the pecs and for that we've got a bunch of PEC fly variations there's Cable Crossovers seated cable PEC flies
the pec deck machine and dumbbell flies let's start with Cable Crossovers these do provide a big stretch on the pecs with nice smooth and even tension throughout the range of motion they feel good to me and usually give me a solid
conducive to Progressive overload as pressing movements simply because you can't go as heavy but you can still add a rep here and there and focus on the only downside to these is that by doing them standing you may find that
especially as you get stronger which can make it less stable you can correct for downward so while it's close to being perfect it's not the most stable fly variation and for that reason I'm putting it in a tier the seated PEC fly
has all the same upsides as the cable crossover but by sitting down you get rid of the balancing component and increase the stability of the exercise tension coming from the cables is being applied directly to the pecs this is my
moment and so I'm going to make it my second addition to S tier the PC Tech Machine shares many of the same benefits as you're also seated so it's nice and stable and you'll be able to get a big stretch on your pecs with high tension I
as the cables do the machine locks you into a very specific movement path to move a bit more freely this means you may not be able to find that perfect this is a pretty subjective one but I'm going to put the pec deck machine in a
tier all right the dumbbell fly now a couple years ago I probably would have put this one in c-tier because you get literally zero tension at the top of the range of motion when the pecs are most contracted however recent evidence has
shown that the contraction is most likely not as important as the stretch is for muscle growth and so I've opened the dumbbell fly back up as a viable into partials so I just cut out the top half of the movement alt together where
don't think they're quite as smooth as cable flies and so they're losing one point in the feelsgood department I'm putting dumbbell flies in a tier okay let's finish off with three less common exercises one that I hate one that I
love and one that's just okay the cable press around is probably the only exercise we've covered so far that gets the PEC fully contracted that's because the Press around is a rare exercise where you press the cable across your
midline so I do like to include it periodically for this reason because convincing to me I still think including some short length biased work isn't a bad idea until we get more evidence some people do find the movement to be a bit
awkward at first but once you get the hang of it it really is a great option I love the Press around and it's going in a tier the crossbody standing dumbbell fly is another exercise where you extend your arm across your body to get the
upper pecs fully contracted but unlike the cable press around the dumbbell offers literally zero tension when the PEC is stretched this is also basically will steal a lot of the tension from the pecs even if you squeeze them at the top
doing dumbbell flies lying down makes a lot more sense biomechanically and so these are going in F tier the floor press is mainly used for developing exercise that I include in a lot of my strength and power building programs as
I think it's great for smashing the triceps and improving lockout strength that said The Limited range of motion makes it a less than ideal candid it for chest hypertrophy as you never get the pecs fully stretched so even though I do
love it for strength it's just okay for pet growth and I'm going to leave it in C tier now if I had to Crown just one exercise as the best of the best I'd this is a broad category and some machines are certainly better than
others but if you can find one that feels good at your gym I definitely the regular boxes and you can safely push it to failure and if I had to pick one exercise as the worst of the worst it probably be the plate press this is
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already and I'll see you guys all here in the next one