Upper chest: exercises and how to train
The upper chest is the clavicular head of the pec major, running from the collarbone to the upper arm. It drives the arm forward and up and brings the arms together in front of you, which is why it lights up on incline presses. A well-built upper chest fills out the area under the collarbones instead of leaving all the size down low.
How to train it
Incline pressing is the backbone here: Incline bench press with a barbell and Incline dumbbell press. Set the bench to 30–45 degrees, since anything steeper hands the work to your front delts, and touch the weight just below the collarbones. On top of your other chest work, 6–10 hard sets a week for the upper chest is usually plenty.
Exercises where it is the main mover
Exercises where it assists
Weekly sets in ready-made programs
A set where the muscle is primary counts in full, a set where it assists counts as half — the same way the log’s stats count it.
Other chest muscles
See how much work each of your muscles gets
GymAssist paints a 40-muscle map from your sets, shows lagging muscles and forecasts recovery.
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