The 6 Best Lower Chest Exercises (Lower Chest Workout)

While classic exercises like the bench press, flys, and push-up variations are staples in many lifter's chest day routine, performing only these exercises means you're neglecting an entire portion of your pecs.

Because the chest (pec major) is a large, two-headed superficial muscle running at different angles with multiple attachment points, it's beneficial to think about it in different sections (i.e. upper, lower and middle/inner chest) and use a variety of exercises that target specific areas to get the best possible development and definition of your chest.

This leads us to the purpose of this post - the 6 best exercises that emphasize the lower chest.

Let's build some pecs.

Table of Contents:

• Chest Muscle Anatomy
• Benefits of Targeting The Lower Chest
• Can You Isolate Your Lower Pecs?
• 6 Best Lower Chest Exercises
• Lower Chest Workout

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Best Exercises For The Lower Chest

1. Decline Bench Press
2. Chest Dip
3. Jackhammer Press
4. Straight Bar Dip
5. Cable Fly (High-To-Low)
6. Decline Dumbbell Fly

Anatomy of the Chest

If you don't need a brief anatomy lesson on your pectoral muscles, skip to the next section, which gets right into the best lower chest exercises.

It’s always a smart idea to understand the basics of the muscle you’re training; this includes its anatomy and function.

Your “chest” is actually composed of two muscles;

• Pectoralis Major: Large superficial muscle, located on the front of your ribcage.
• Pectoralis Minor: Small superficial muscle, also located on the front of the ribcage, underneath the pec major. 

Of these, we’re mostly concerned with Pectoralis Major. Your pec major actually has two heads;

• Clavicular head which makes up the upper chest
• Sternocostal head which makes up the middle and lower chest). 

The sternocostal head is significantly larger than the upper chest, making up to 70-80% of your pec major.

Function Of The Lower Chest

As a whole, the chest’s primary function is shoulder horizontal adduction, which is when the arm comes across the body, seen with cable flies.

However, the muscle fibers at the bottom of the chest run upward and out at an angle. Therefore, to really target the lower chest, we should choose exercises that bring the arm down and across the chest.

Can You Actually Isolate the Lower Chest?

No, you can not isolate the lower chest, just like you can't isolate your upper chest or inner chest or spot reduce fat when trying to lose chest fat. Any time you do a pressing or fly motion you are going to be activating your entire pec major, along with other muscles like your delts and triceps.

That said, you can emphasize the lower chest by altering training variables, such as the angle you press at, which is what the exercises listed above excel at. By doing this, you can really hone in on the development of the lower area of your pec major.

The Benefits of Targeting the Lower Chest

Besides the eye-popping benefits of a defined lower chest, there are a few important benefits of specifically targeting your lower pecs.   

1. Full Chest Development: The chest is composed of several muscles. In order to fully develop your entire chest, you must train it from all angles. This includes specific-training for your lower chest.
   
2. Correct Muscle Imbalances: Moreover, it's going to help you avoid any muscle imbalances between your pecs and the anterior (front) and posterior (back) sides.¹ 
   
3. Improve Performance: Your pecs size and strength will help you perform better in the sporting arena, including everything from tackling or fending off opponents, to hitting a tennis ball, to throwing a football and baseball powerfully.
   
4. Better Breathing: The chest muscles which are attached to the ribcage support breathing through the contraction of the ribcage. Therefore, the strengthening and lengthening of the chest muscles support deeper breathing by allowing the ribcage to do its job.
5. Improve “Man Boobs”: Technically known as gynecomastia, this is the excessive development of breasts in men. Now, this term is sometimes thrown around to describe true gynecomastia while in other cases it’s just excess fat. In either scenario, strengthening and building the lower chest can mitigate the appearance.

6 Best Lower Chest Exercises

By simply changing the angle at which you press at or perform a fly, you can better target your lower chest (which is an often neglected area) for size and strength, which we're about to show you how to do.

1. Decline Bench Press

The decline bench press is a piece of equipment you don’t see often and that’s a real shame. However, your gym likely has a decline bench for abs, which can be used for dumbbell decline bench (or even a set up inside a Smith machine).

Although the regular bench press trains the lower chest, the decline bench press variation really hones in on the lower chest because of the change of angle and pressing path. You also have the option of taking your elbows out wider to place even more emphasis on the lower chest. 

What's more, because of the decline angle, there is less strain on the lower back, and you will be using less delts and slightly more lats.

 How to do the decline bench press:

1. Assume a face-up position on a decline bench and secure your feet.
2. Get your eyes underneath the bar and take a slightly wider than shoulder-width grip.
3. Position your shoulder blades together and keep puffing your chest out.
4. Slowly lower the barbell to your lower chest/sternum with your elbows underneath the barbell.
5. Pause in the bottom position and press the barbell back up to lockout and reset and repeat.

Note: If you’re training at home, or don’t have a decline bench press, you can use an incline push-up instead. An incline bench press mimics the decline bench press biomechanically and can build an awesome lower chest.

2. Chest Dips

Dips are often referred to as squats for the upper body. Due to the biomechanics of the movement, the lower chest is heavily involved in pushing the entire weight of your body up. In addition, the large ROM puts a greater stretch on the lower chest and triceps for greater muscle-building potential.

The key here for the lower chest is the torso lean. Doing this puts more emphasis on the lower chest but it puts a strain on the anterior shoulders, so be careful. And this dip variation is a great carryover to the regular bench and overhead press because triceps dips improve your lockout strength.

These are sometimes referred to as Gironda dips, named after Vince Gironda. He’s one of the pioneers of bodybuilding and was famous for coaching some of the biggest bodybuilders there were; this included Arnold Schwarzenegger. He had Arnold perform the Gironda dips religiously which Arnold says were responsible for building his massive chest.

How to do chest dips:

1. Get up on the bars with your arms fully extended.
2. Look down and touch your chin to your chest.
3. Slightly round your back.
4. Keep your feet together and bring them out in front of you, staring at your toes.
5. Descend as low as possible to achieve a full stretch.
6. Maintain strict control throughout the movement.
7. Keep elbows flared out wide to reduce triceps involvement and emphasize the chest.

Note: The range of motion and movement can be advanced for newer lifters. Be sure you have a good base before you perform these ultra deep.

3. Jackhammer Pushdown

This is not your regular triceps pushdown. This is because the jackhammer position with your elbows out wide and the slight forward lean isolates the lower chest and takes the focus off the triceps.

Plus, the constant tension of the cable machine and the larger range of motion of this exercise make it an effective muscle-building exercise for the lower chest.   

How to do jackhammer pushdowns:

1. Standing in front of the cable machine, use the same handle for your regular triceps pushdown.
2. Standing close to the cable machine with the cable over one of your shoulders, lean the torso forward and take a wide grip of the handle.
3. Bring the handle up towards your chest and let your elbows flare out at the top of the movement.
4. Push down to extend the elbows and squeeze the chest muscles together.
5. Slowly return to the starting position by bringing the elbows out and up.
6. Reset and repeat for reps.

4. Straight Bar Dip

The straight bar dip is a variation of the dip not seen often as it’s extremely challenging. That's why we put the jackhammer pushdown first as it’s a great exercise to strengthen the lower chest and prepare it for the straight bar dip.

If you’ve ever seen a muscle-up, the straight bar dip is the second part of the movement that is isolated. You basically have a straight bar in front of you that you perform the dip on.

The straight bar dip is easily the most challenging exercise on this list, however, it will also cause your lower chest to blow up.

How to do the straight bar dips:

1. Set up a barbell with heavy weights on a rack or bench press station.
2. Set the bar high enough for you to dip with your feet lifted off the ground.
3. Grab the bar with a shoulder-width grip.
4. Lean forward over the bar and press up.
5. Slowly lower the body as far down as you can go.
6. Repeat the movement.

Note: You may need to start with partial reps when you begin this movement. If you need assistance, you can set the bar lower so you can touch the ground with your feet for assistance.

5. Cable Crossover Fly (High Position)

The cable crossover fly is a great exercise that is adjusted to target the lower chest. By setting the pulleys to the high position it changes the angle to target the lower chest.

Being in the high position, this variation of the cable fly stretches the chest from the start and takes you through a large ROM for better hypertrophy potential. Similar to the chest dip exercise, maintaining a slight forward lean will emphasize the lower chest muscles further.

How to do cable crossover flys (high position):

1. Set each handle of the cable machine at the highest level.
2. Stand in the center with one foot behind the other and take a grip on both handles.
3. Lean your torso forward keeping your spine straight and with a slight bend of the elbows too.
4. Engaging your anterior core, pull both handles down and across your body, and squeeze the lower chest muscles at lockout.
5. Slowly reverse to the starting position, keeping the bend in your elbows.
6. Reset and repeat.

6. Decline Dumbbell Fly

Similar to the decline bench press the decline dumbbell fly is a variation performed on a slight decline on the decline bench. This decline trains the lower chest muscles slightly more than the flat and incline dumbbell fly variations.

Like the decline bench press, this decline fly decreases the strain on the shoulders compared to the incline and flat variation. Like with all dumbbell fly variations, there is less triceps and shoulder involvement, making it a great isolation exercise for the lower chest.   

How to do decline dumbbell flys:

1. Lie face up on the decline bench holding a pair of dumbbells with a neutral grip.
2. Secure your feet and extend your elbows until the dumbbells are together above your chest.
3. Lower the weights laterally, maintaining a slight bend at your elbows to avoid elbow strain.
4. Make sure you feel a stretch in your chest muscle when the dumbbells are at chest level. 
5. Squeeze your chest muscles and bring the dumbbells back to the starting position.
6. Reset and repeat.

For more creative exercises like this one, check out our article on the Best Dumbbell Chest Exercises Without a Bench!

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Workout Example For Lower Chest

We’re now going to go over what a pushing dad might look like that gives priority to your lower chest. Keep in mind these for someone who really wants to add growth to their lower chest as their upper and middle chest has good development. It will still include a minimal amount of exercises for your chest as a whole but heavily favor your lower chest.

We’ll actually give you two lower pec workouts, assuming you’ll train chest twice a week. Research shows that this tends to be the ideal frequency for building muscle.²

Lower Chest Workout #1

• Decline Bench Press: 1X8, 1X6, 1X4, 1X6, 1X8
• Incline Dumbbell Press: 3X8-10
• Chest Dips: 3XRPE8
• Sitting Shoulder Press: 3X10-12
• Jackhammer: 3X10-12
• Triceps Pushdown: 2X12-15

Lower Chest Workout #2

• Straight Bar Dip: 4XRPE8
• Military Press: 4X6-8
• Decline Dumbbell Fly: 3X8-10 + 1 Dropset
• Push-up/Incline Push-Up: 3XFailure (Both) 
• Cable Fly (high-to-low): 3X10-12
• Lateral Raise: 3X10-12
  

How to Warm-up Your Lower Chest Before Training

Strolling up to the bar and slapping a pair of 45-pound plates is not the best way to warm up for lower chest workouts (or any workout, for that matter). Instead, it's smart to start with a few light sets or ramp-up sets before jumping into chest workouts. This will help groove better technique, move important flow to the area, lubricate the joints, and help you decide your working weight for the day.

Here’s an example of a ramp-up set for Decline Bench Press:

• 10 reps with an empty barbell
• 8 reps with 95 pounds
• 6 reps with 135 pounds
• 5 reps with 155 pounds
• 4 reps with 175 pounds

The same can be done with dumbbells or a cable machine (start light and work your way up). You can even do fewer reps if you don't want to burn out before your working sets. The extra volume here is helpful for your muscle-building goals and to prevent injury. 

Also, make sure to check out these chest stretches for before and after your workout. 

Final Chest-Building Tips & Takeaways

Remember, there's no reason to follow or put together an entire workout dedicated to your lower chest. Instead, include some of the moves we just went over in your chest day routine, along with exercises that target the upper, inner, and outer chest, and you'll have a well-rounded program that will add serious muscle mass to your pecs.

Here are a few great tips for building your lower chest:

• Always warm up. The worst thing you can do is get to the gym and immediately start lifting heavy. 
• Maintain muscular balance with your entire upper body. This means you should address all angles of your pec muscles, and give equal attention to your back to avoid imbalances.
• Fatigue your pecs to build muscle. For strength gains, stay in the 5-7 rep range. For hypertrophy, stick with 8-12, and for muscular endurance, aim for 12+. A well-defined program should address all of these rep ranges in some capacity. 
• Hit your chest twice a week. And, make sure to leave plenty of time in between sessions for recovery.

Interested in more chest-building moves? Check out our articles on the Best Upper Chest Exercises, Best Inner Chest Exercises, and Best Outer Chest Exercises!

BEST HYPERTROPHY PROGRAM

SFS Hypertrophy Program

Prepare to maximize your gains with our exclusive 12-week hypertrophy training program. Choose between a 4 or 5 day training split and gain 2-12 pounds of muscle over 90 days...

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