so if the name alone wasn't enough to scare you away the guillotine presses in a good upper chest exercise and actually not even a good chest exercise and therefore it deserves the bigger x what's up guys jeff cavaliere athletenext.com what you see behind me is a bunch of different chest exercises these focus on the upper chest that's right we're focusing on the upper chest exercises to complement by popular demand our chest exercises ranked video that you guys found so helpful what i'm going to do here though is like i did in the past i'm going to show these exercises and rank them from the worst to the best so that you're left with only the ones that are capable of producing the best gains and maybe allow you to throw some of them away for good so that being said let's start breaking them down one by one and so with all of our exercise ranking videos it's important that we lay out some criteria on how we're selecting and ranking them in the first place so we're all talking about the same thing and we're talking about the upper chest you better be able to effectively hit the upper chest and we know that if we follow the fibers as i always talk about from low and away to up and in right with some adduction component ideally we're going to be targeting those upper clavicular fibers of the chest the best however we also want to make sure that we're favoring those exercises that give us the opportunity to progressively overload right add more weight at every opportunity to increase both the size and the strength but when we're talking about size there are some exercises that also do an effective job of creating muscle growth through focused tension and much lighter loads and those are going to get consideration too also guys as always on this channel we have to make sure the exercise is safe so not just being able to do it once or twice to maybe impress your friends but to do it for the rest of your life and ease of access to the equipment that's required to do the exercises is also a consideration so that being said it's time to demonstrate the exercises and because jesse's the one that brought this topic up in the first place i'm gonna let him do the work this time all right so let's kick this off the way we always do in the worst category because we're gonna work our way up to the top you know and on a high note but here guys we have to start at the bottom of the barrel and i mean really truly at the bottom of the barrel with the instagram chest swipe workouts you know the ones i'm talking about the ones with the guys that are juiced to the gills usually over oiled and also giving out bad chest training advice you see guys no matter how flashy the exercise may be if it's ineffective then it's going to fail every single time and so even though these might be helping you to boost your light count on an individual post what's happening is it's truly revealing your lack of professional training knowledge and therefore allowing your integrity to sink in the opposite direction so with that guys while they may help you to waste some time in between sets i'm asking you to put a big red x in this whole entire group of exercises so maybe even told that the point that the bar makes contact on your chest is indicative of the portion of your chest that you're training on a bench press decline bench press the lower portion of your chest regular bench press the middle portion of your chest incline bench press the upper portion of your chest guillotine press all the way up high in your chest meaning it's going to do a really effective job of training the upper chest that's where things get a little bit exaggerated here guys because this exercise is not only a bad exercise and not because it's just performed on a flat bench i'll actually show you an exercise later on that is performed on a flat bench that does a really good job of hitting the upper chest it's simply the fact that this exercise completely disregards the health of the shoulders on the person performing it what i'm saying here is it's not good when you place your elbows this far out to the side and have that high of a target point you are placing an inordinate amount of stress on your rotator cuff tendons not to mention the potential slippage of the bar at any point during this exercise is gonna allow it to not only live up to its name but rightfully put it in the spot that it belongs in with a big red x right through it and so now wrapping up the worst category for upper chest here we've got probably the most commonly performed upper chest exercise and that's the incline dumbbell fly and i'm sorry but it's still here it's still in my worst category as it's been now for oh let's say 11 years i don't like the exercise guys and i've talked about in depth many reasons why most of all it's unsupported exercise you're performing on a bench with your arms unsupported allowing those anterior shoulder capsules to undergo an inordinate amount of stress again not a factor that we're going to overlook when we're looking for hypertrophy because we know we have better options that being said things can actually get even worse because some people will perform this variation of it it's called the crucifix fly and all you're doing here is swapping out the tendon that you're pissing off so instead of aggravating the supraspinatus tendon during the regular version of the incline dumbbell fly you're shifting the load now to the biceps tendon with that pronated position of the arm guys the pursuit of hypertrophy with either of these exercises is not worth the trouble especially when i'm gonna show you better options ahead for that reason guys they belong in the bottom category and so with that now we get to break out our blue marker as we work our way up into the better category and i say better but not great because while good these exercises still have some limitations built in that prevent them from ranking up at the very top and we start right away with the decline push-up and this is an exercise that while effectively hitting the upper chest because it's putting those arms in a higher end position right that common end position of all the effective upper chest exercises it still has the same problem that most push-ups do and that is the inability to produce enough overload and strength ultimately guys when you're looking for good options here this variation of the push-up is at least a good option because it targets the upper chest more effectively but it's not the best and therefore just deserves the blue circle in the better category and so if the very thought of pushing up overhead in any incline pressing situation is enough to keep you up at night or maybe that's just the sound of the pops and cracks in your shoulders when you do it this next exercise is going to be a welcome exercise for you to look into it's the landmine press done from a kneeling position and what this does is it gives you a much more natural and gentle pressing motion and arc to press in because you're not just pushing up overhead but you're pushing up and away from your body yes that's going to allow the front delts to contribute a bit to the press but what it does do is it gets a nice isometric contraction of the chest involved too because your hands aren't just holding on to the end of the bar but they're squeezing into each other at the end of the bar and allowing you to get that adduction stress at the same time that you're pressing up in that more natural position the kneeling landline press is one of my favorite ones particularly for those that have orthopedic issues but really it's just a good solid option limited only by the fact that you really can't load it very much and so to prove the unbiased nature of this list even the exercise that bears my name doesn't allow it to rank any higher in the list than it should it's here in the better category it's the cavalier crossover but what it is is it is a damn good exercise for the upper chest because it's allowing us to follow the fibers as always though it is limited again by a shorter range of motion if you look at the exercise and you think about what the chest itself does you're taking the arm from a position closer to its attachment up on the clavicle so if we take that arm and drive it up and across as almost in a shrug and again abduction at the same time we do a really effective job of targeting those fibers in the upper chest area that being said while you can handle more weight here the range of motion as mentioned isn't very big we have an exercise that will do a better job of this but for now this will wrap up our better category and so with that now we get to break out the yellow marker as we continue to work our way up towards the top this time into the better still category and to prove i'm not about making you wait guys let's talk about that exercise the cavalier crossover now jumps up to that next level by introducing the ucv rays and what we're doing here is though dramatically lightening the weight we are introducing more range of motion to the exercise and allowing for greater range into adduction throw into the fact that we can open up the chest a little bit more at the starting position to provide a slightly better stretch bringing that arm up and across the body again by not carrying the dumbbell straight out in front of us and dragging it across our body we're allowing ourselves a greater arc and distance which gets that arm across the body better stimulating the chest guys as you're going to see here that adduction is an important component of the best of the best chest exercises this one leads off the list in terms of our better still category and so while we know the importance of adduction we still have to have an eye towards overload and the ability to load the exercise we're performing and that's why we got to get back to pressing in the better still category i'm looking at the dumbbell incline squeeze press and very much like the landmine press this gives us a chance to introduce some isometric adduction though we're not able to get our arms across our body we can create that isometric midline stress by simply pressing the inside of the dumbbells against each other throughout the entire press just be sure that in a pursuit to press those dumbbells together you're not allowing your elbows to press too tightly to your sides which would turn this into more of a tricep exercise maintain that 45 degree flare of the elbows to keep the focus on the chest this here guys is one of the best pressing exercises you can do when we want additional benefits than just the straight up incline press which bridge is next to my favorite back exercise for the upper chest that's right back exercise that works the upper chest you see if you understand i mean really understand the anatomy you'll understand how this works the upper chest guys let me explain when we're talking about the back we're talking about a muscle that inserts in a very similar location on the humerus as the chest muscles do and here when we bring our arm overhead as we do in a pullover both of those muscles are going to want to be involved however we can shift that load in a significant way towards the upper chest if we know what we're doing instead of allowing our elbows to flare out to the side you want to make sure that you're almost thinking of turning your hands inward think about the internal rotation that we know can activate the chest and also the adduction that comes with the internal rotation at the shoulder that's going to help to further engage those upper chest fibers make sure you're not going too far overhead with the dumbbell you want to end in that common end position that we've seen in all the effective upper chest exercises and you will ultimately make sure that this exercise targets the area that you want in this case the upper chest which is going to put it here in the better still category and so with that i get to break out my green marker now as we continue our way up the charts this time to the almost best category and for this we're going to look at our first exercise the underhand dumbbell press now while i was quick to send the guillotine press to the chopping block it wasn't because as i said it was done on a flat bench you can actually do an exercise that targets the upper chest effectively on the flat bench and that is this exercise here the underhand dumbbell bench press the reason why i hated the guillotine press wasn't just because of the damage it could do to the shoulders but because by putting those elbows way out to the side you are eliminating the key component that makes the underhand bench press so effective it's that down and out to up and in travel that the elbows have to go in by getting into this underhand position that makes it so effective for hitting the upper chest as a matter of fact emg studies have shown this to be a very effective exercise for hitting these upper chest fibers in some cases more effectively than the traditional flat bench press either way guys this is an important exercise that gives especially those people that are limited to the equipment they have a way to hit the upper chest when they don't have access to an adjustable bench and for that reason this gets the first in the almost best category speaking of prices guys one that doesn't get nearly as much love as i think it should but is going to get the love here today in the almost best category is the incline cable press and whether it's due to a lack of awareness or a simple lack of equipment access this exercise does deserve a second look if you're not doing it already and the real benefit here is being able to not just resist the act of putting the arms out in front of the body but having resistance to adduction of the arms across the body at the top so when you're looking for a peak contraction on the chest this exercise is going to be able to provide that in a much more significant way than simply pressing dumbbells up overhead that being said there are significant limitations here that do prevent it from being all the way at the top number one the equipment access like i said number two your ability to get into the exercise in the first place because it can be a little bit difficult especially if you're getting into what i think is the third limitation handling heavy weight here it's very difficult to get a lot of weight in position to even perform the exercise in the first place but if you perform it as a secondary option to a more traditional pressing variation you're gonna get those extra benefits i already talked about this here definitely belongs in the almost best category adduction adduction adduction jeff how many times are you gonna mention that in this video a few more times especially with this exercise here we're talking about the low to high crossover and when it comes to building your chest adduction is critical but beyond that when hitting your upper chest the direction of the movement is critical remember follow the fibers when you want to hit the upper chest you have to go from a low to high up and in position and that is exactly what the low to high crossover does it allows us to resist adduction in this exact plane of motion not to mention the fact depending upon where you stand in relation to the cables you have more or less of an opportunity to create an additional stretch and recruitment on those upper chest fibers at the beginning of every single rep this exercise is one that combines all the most essential elements of a great chest exercise which is why it belongs here firmly at the top of the almost best category and guess what we're not quite done with it just yet which brings us to our final category here we've worked our way all the way up to the top it's the best of the best deserving of the green star we've got a head-to-head matchup between the incline dumbbell bench press and the incline barbell bench press well guess what guys it's a hard decision and it's actually ultimately going to be your decision but i can give you some guidance if the weight that you're using right now on your dumbbell presses is still allowing you to perform three to six repetitions at a load that's challenging for you and you're still within the dumbbell rack that you have access to then i would say stick with the dumbbell press because we get a little extra adduction in this variation of the exercise than we do in the barbell bench press with the barbell bench press done on an incline bench we have still that fixed hand placement that limits the amount that we can get adduction of the arms in terms of getting them close to each other again fixed on the bar we can't get any further if we have the dumbbells however we can get past this point and move them even closer towards midline that little extra adduction stress here is enough to allow that inclined dumbbell variation to be slightly more effective but again if you are eclipsing your weight that you can use on this exercise because you can do more than 100 or 105 or 110 pounds or whatever your rack holds then it's time to move on to the barbell variation of the exercise but at the end of the day either of these exercises is going to fit the bill when you're looking for that staple foundation exercise for building up your upper chest and therefore are going to share the title with that big green star indicating the best of the best or whatever that shape is guys but what if we lived in a perfect world well listen guys in a perfect lifting world if we had the opportunity what we would do is we would take this exercise right here that low to high crossover and we would put it right over here depending upon which variation of the exercise you chose either the incline barbell bench press or the incline dumbbell bench press super setting it with that crossover is going to give you the best of all worlds eliminating the focus on the adduction that's missing from either of these allowing you to get the strength overload there and then complementing it with what's missing here in that crossover guys when you're looking for the best exercises you have to consider all options sometimes it means even considering more than one exercise and so that would conclude our best of the best for upper chest guys if you found the video helpful make sure you leave your comments and thumbs up below you're the one that asked for it you wanted me to break down the chest exercises even further i'll do that for you again if you let me know you want me to cover in the meantime if you're looking for programs we break the science down in every single thing we do you can head to athenex.com and find all of our programs also guys if you haven't done so make sure you click subscribe turn on notifications so you never miss a new video when we put one out alright guys see you soon