Lower Chest Workout

Follow along with Pat Chadwick as he shows you the best lower chest workout to achieve real results using only body weight. Get a stronger upper body and pack on muscles in this easy-to-follow workout routine.

This will be a 10-minute workout that consists of 11 lower chest exercises. You will work for 30 seconds, doing as many reps as possible with clean form, followed by resting for 30 seconds. The exercises below are all different push-up variations and are non-repeat. If you need to take a break - take it! Just don’t quit!

The benefits of exercising include better endurance, strength, and increased oxygen supply to muscles. Also, it improves our mood, concentration, and alertness. In fact, there is a 26% decrease in odds of becoming depressed.

What Muscles are Worked by this Lower Chest Workout?

The primary muscles targeted are the pectoralis major, triceps, serratus anterior, and anterior deltoids. The secondary muscles targeted are the abdominals, glutes, quadriceps, obliques, and rhomboids. You will utilize different grips and different body positions to put more emphasis on the lower chest.

What Level is this Lower Chest Workout?

This workout is for all fitness levels, which means that it is suitable for beginners and advanced levels. For every exercise that you find difficult to maintain good form, you can make the movement easier by dropping your knees to the ground as this will take the load away from your upper body. There will be demonstrations for easier variation of each exercise in the bottom left-hand corner of the video above.

Bench Dips 

1. Sit down on a bench or any elevated surface with your hands gripping the edge of the platform, next to your thighs. Your fingers should be facing forward.
2. Walk your feet out to extend your legs, extend your arms out fully, and lift your butt off the bench, your heels should be on the floor, and your toes are facing up. This is the starting position.
3. Inhale as you bend your elbows and lower your body down until the elbows are at 90 degrees. Keep your core tight and your legs straight.
4. Exhale as you push your palms to extend your arms and return to the starting position. Lock your arms out fully before repeating the next rep.
5. Repeat this movement for 30 seconds. If this is difficult to do, you can bend your knees at approximately 90 degrees to reduce the load on your upperbody muscles. You can find out more about different variations of this exercise in this dips tutorial.

Psuedo Push-Ups

1. Begin by lying on your stomach with your legs extended and feet together. Place your hands alongside your stomach (your goal is the have them as close to your waist as possible), with your elbows close to your ribs, and fingers facing outwards.
2.  Keeping your core and glutes tight, you will extend your arms to a push-up position. Your shoulders should be leaning in front of your palms. You will feel your weight being distributed to your chest and front shoulders. Maintain your body in a rigid line
3. Inhale as you lower your chest down towards the ground. Keep lowering until your chest is at 90 degrees.
4. Exhale as you push up and return to the starting position. 
5. Repeat this movement for 40 seconds.

Incline Diamond Push-Ups

1. Start at an incline push-up position with your hands on an elevated surface using a diamond grip (connect your index fingers, and connect your thumbs together). Locate this at the center of your chest. Keep your core tight.
2. Inhale as you bend your elbows and pull your shoulder blades together to lower your chest to the surface. Keep your elbows close to your torso, and lower down until your elbows are parallel to the ground.
3. Exhale as you push through your palms and extend your arms, and return to the starting position.
4. Repeat this movement for 40 seconds. You can learn more about this exercise, its benefits, and its variations in this diamond push-ups tutorial.

Negative Incline Push-Ups

1. Begin at an incline push-up position where your hands are on an elevated surface, legs extended, feet together, and body in a straight line from head to feet. Keep your core and glutes tight.
2. Inhale as you slowly lower your chest towards the platform by bending the elbow at a count of 5. This will focus on the eccentric phase of the movement. 
3. Exhale as you extend your arms and return to the starting position. This should take a second.
4. Repeat this 5 seconds down, 1-second up tempo for 40 seconds.

Downward Cross Flys

1. Start by standing tall or resting on your knees so that your torso is upright. Make a fist with your hands, bend your elbows at 90 degrees, and pull your shoulder blades back together so that your fists are close to your chest, at upper chest level. Keep your core tight.
2. Exhale as you extend your arms downward in an arc shape so that your fists cross each other. Squeeze your chest at this position for a second.
3. Inhale as you bend your arms and retract your shoulder blades to return to the starting position.
4. Repeat this crossover motion for 40 seconds. Make sure to alternate between one arm being on top of the other for each rep.

Twisting Push-Ups

1. Start in a push-up position with your arms extended shoulder-width apart, and shoulders stacked on top of your wrists. Your legs are extended and your feet are together. Engage your core and glutes to keep your body rigid.
2. Inhale as you lower down by bending the elbows, and twisting your torso to the right so that your left chest touches your right hand. Keep your core tight throughout this movement.
3. Exhale as you push up by extending your arms and returning to the starting position. 
4. Perform this movement on the opposite side (right chest touches left hand).
5. Repeat this twisting motion for 40 seconds.

Staggered Push-Ups

1. Begin in a staggered push-up position where your right hand is in front of your right shoulder, and your left hand is placed lower down towards your left hip. Keep your legs straight, and feet together, and brace your core.
2. Inhale as you lower your chest down towards the ground by bending the elbows. Lower down until your elbows are 90 degrees.
3. Exhale as you push back and return to the starting position, followed by switching hand position so that your right hand is behind and left hand is in front. 
4. Repeat this alternating motion for 40 seconds.

Medicine Ball Push-Ups

1. We can appreciate that not everyone will have a medicine ball with them everywhere they go, so a good alternative for this would be a stack of books. Begin in a push-up position with your right palm placed on top of a stack of books and your left palm on the ground. This will put one hand higher than the other. Keep your core and glutes tight to ensure a straight line from head to feet. 
2. Inhale as you bend your elbows until they’re at 90 degrees to lower your chest down towards the ground. Maintain core engagement throughout this movement.
3. Exhale as you extend your arms and return to the starting position.
4. Repeat this movement for 20 seconds, followed by switching the stack of books to the opposite side, and performing this for 20 seconds.

Wide Push-Ups

1. Begin in a push-up position with your hands being wider than shoulder-width, your legs straight, and your core and glutes tight. Your back is straight. 
2. Inhale as you bend your elbows, keeping them close to your torso as you lower your body to the ground. Keep lowering until your chest is just below your elbows.
3. Exhale as you extend your arms and return to the starting position.
4. Repeat this movement for 40 seconds. We have covered 4 different variations of this exercise and you can check it out in this wide push-ups tutorial.

Underhand Incline Push-Ups

1. Start at an incline push-up position with your hands on an elevated surface at shoulder-width apart, using an underhand grip (fingers facing towards the ground). Brace your core and glutes to ensure that your body is in a straight line.
2. Inhale as you bend your elbows and retract your shoulder blades together to lower your chest to the platform. Keep lowering until your elbows are at 90 degrees.
3. Exhale as you push through your palms to return to starting position. Your arms should be locked out. 
4. Repeat this movement for 40 seconds.

About the Author

My name is Pat Chadwick, I am a calisthenics coach with over 4 years of experience in helping people from all backgrounds to achieve their calisthenics goals. My goal is to become the number one calisthenics coach in the world as it is my passion to help people change their lives through inspiring bodyweight movements. I believe everyone deserves the right to feel good about their health, body, and be delighted inside and out.