Bodyweight Chest Exercises

Bodyweight Chest Exercises: Beginner to Advance

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Bodyweight Chest Exercises offer many benefits, aside from looking great. Strength training your pectorals aid in better posture, deeper breathing, improved heart health, and easier lifting, holding, squeezing, and hugging!

Burning out your chest is the key to getting that chiseled look that every man wants. If you want to get well-defined pecs, you have to take it a step further by doing what is called a chest burnout.

This means that you target every fiber in your chest from different angles, and you burn them out several times. This bodyweight chest exercises workout routine will help you get a chest workout at home.

Bodyweight Chest Exercises For Beginner, Intermediate & Advance

Some think that bodyweight chest workouts are not intense enough to build muscle at home without equipment, they would be wrong.

In this bodyweight chest workout, you will use nothing but your body to push your chest to the limit and force new growth using an intense metabolic training effect. You see, high reps does not mean no muscle. If you build up metabolites through your training and push through the burn, you can do some serious damage to your muscles and spark new growth even without the heavy weights.

I’m including beginners, intermediate and advanced versions to allow you to train your chest regardless what level you are at right now. It only takes two chest exercises, dips and pushups, to do the workout.

What’s most important, however, is how you do these movements, so you can keep doing them long after you get tired of one version of the exercise.

Benefits of Bodyweight Chest Exercises

If you don’t have access to a gym and don’t know what to do, this is all you need to know. You can build a strong, powerful, broad chest with just bodyweight chest exercises. Moreover, you will do so in an absolutely safe manner.

When it comes to training the pecs, bodyweight push ups and dips exercises are a perfect choice because:

  • Bodyweight Chest Exercises will improve muscular endurance within the upper body, strengthen both muscles and bones.
  • The movements you’ll learn are highly functional. You’ll not only gain strength and size; you’ll become more powerful all around, your joints will stronger, and your core will tighten.
  • It doesn’t matter whether you are a beginner or the most advanced athlete, bodyweight chest exercises can be effective thanks to countless variations, progressions and simply the ability of altering reps, sets and tempo.
  • Bodyweight Chest Exercises require more balance that can lead to greater muscle fiber recruitment.
  • Doing bodyweight chest exercises can be a powerful full-body workout and help to burn more calories.
  • As you’ll be moving your full body around, these drills will improve your metabolism, get you to burn more fat and help you achieve that mean and lean look.
  • At home bodyweight Chest exercises will improve muscular endurance within the upper body, strengthen both muscles & bones and get you to burn more fat.
  • An important advantage of bodyweight chest workouts is that it is a versatile exercise. If you don’t have much time to go to a gym, these types of exercises are a good option for a home workout.

Why Different Type Bodyweight Chest Exercises Are Required

Bodyweight chest workout are great, to build upper body strength. To increase muscle, we need to increase the intensity, and doing different types of push-ups and dips is important for muscle hypertrophy.

Yes, the exercise will target the muscles of your chest, shoulders, and arms efficiently, but there are ways that you can increase the intensity.

We can change the focus of your chest, triceps, and shoulders by making a few changes, such as putting your hands up for incline push-ups or down for decline push-ups and dips.

You can even begin to introduce different implements like elevating your hands or feet to change up your focus. You can also change the hand position, such as close and wide hand position, to change the focus on chest muscles.

For a more well-rounded physique, you might consider using various bodyweight chest exercises.

  • Standard push ups are best for chest, shoulder and tricep.
  • Incline Push Up works your lower chest and back more.
  • On the other hand, the decline push-up works the upper chest and front shoulders more than the regular or incline variation.
  • Wide grip push-ups focus more on outer chest and shoulder.
  • Close grip push ups focus more on inner chest and tricep.
  • Dips focus more on lower chest and tricep.
  • Pike Push-ups focus more on shoulder than chest and tricep.

How To Train Chest With Bodyweight Workout

Start building a big, strong chest with these best home chest workout for beginners to advanced. This is a home chest workout you can do anywhere! No equipment needed for this.

If you want to build a chest with bodyweight exercises, you need to understand few things: what exercises to do, how to progressive overload the muscles.

There are a lot of bodyweight chest exercises without weights that will let you constantly improve and work your chest from different angles. It is not essential to be strong to build pec muscles. If you know the right kinds of exercises based on your fitness level, you can build muscle without equipment. 

  • Beginners get to perform from the bodyweight chest exercises on their knees or do simpler variations.
  • Intermediates perform them in standard fashion.
  • Advanced will do this bodyweight chest exercise with a twist to increase the level of difficulty and challenge your pecs even more.

You can also change the tempo by slowing down your descent or pausing at the bottom of the position. This will increase the time under tension, maximizing your muscle-building potential.

At Home Bodyweight workout to strengthen your chest

Now, let’s get into the best bodyweight exercises for strengthening your chest and building a large chest size using bodyweight exercises that you can do at home.

We have created the bodyweight chest workout to many sections such as:

  • Bodyweight Chest Workout for beginners
  • Intermediate bodyweight exercises
  • Chest workouts for Advance athletes

Here are the best bodyweight chest exercises for beginner, Intermediate and Advance that you can do at home or gym. This will help you to build strong upper body. Make sure that you have a solid grasp of the most important aspects of good form, positioning, etc. and apply them as necessary.

For workout inspiration, be sure also to read our complementary bodyweight exercise posts:

Beginner Bodyweight Chest Exercises

1. Wall Push Up

The “wall” push-up dramatically reduces the pressure on the arms, upper back, and abs. It is the best home bodyweight chest exercise for beginners.

The closer you stand to the wall, the easier it is to perform, but remember, it’s still important to be aware of your body alignment as you perform this push-up.

Wall Push Ups

How To Do It Properly

  1. Stand approximately 2 to 2.5 feet away from the wall with your arms held at shoulder height in front of you.
  2. Place your hands against the wall with your body straight and your legs a few feet behind.
  3. Keeping your feet firmly fixed to the ground, lean your body forward so that your elbows flex and your chest comes within inches of the wall.
  4. Using your hands, push your body back into a standing position.
  5. The movement should be smooth and controlled.
  6. Try not to flare your elbows to the sides.

2. Box Push Up

For the next degree of difficulty, place the box or chair to support your arms while you perform regular push-ups.

This type of push-up allows you to really concentrate on the push-up motion—all without the strain of the traditional version.

Because you’re moving less weight, the beginner can do more reps to increase hypertrophy and muscular endurance.

Chair/ Box push-up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Stand approximately 3 to 3.5 feet away from a low bench or sturdy chair.
  2. Slowly lower yourself by flexing your elbows so that your chest comes within a few inches of the edge of the chair or bench.
  3. Using your hands, push yourself back to starting position while focusing on maintaining a straight body position.
  4. Be sure the bench or chair is stable and secure before you perform the push-ups.
  5. Your back and legs should be straight at all times.

3. Knee push Up

The knee push-up, also known as a modified push-up, is a bodyweight chest exercise that works for muscle groups throughout your upper body. Beginners should add these bodyweight chest exercises to their at-home workout routine.

The knee push-up is a brilliant exercise for beginners. If you’re having trouble performing a full push-up, practice an easier push-up variation, the knee push-up.

Knee push-up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Kneel on the floor. Extend arms and put hands shoulder-width apart on the floor in front of you.
  2. Lower yourself by flexing your elbows so that your chest comes within a few inches of the floor.
  3. Raise your body to the starting position.
  4. Focus on keeping your muscles active even when you’re lowering to the floor.
  5. Keep your back straight — never rounded! — throughout the move.

4. Diamond push-up on knees

The diamond push-up on the knees is a brilliant beginner exercise for the development of the triceps brachii and inner chest. It offers numerous benefits and is perfectly suited for both beginners and experienced athletes looking to build upper body strength.

Practice diamond push-ups on the knee by bringing your hands too close together to form a diamond or triangle shape below your chest, and by putting the knee on the floor.

Diamond push-up on knees
Diamond push-up on knees

How To Do It Properly

  1. Get into a push-up position, supporting your body on your hands and knees instead of on your hands and forefeet.
  2. Your hands should be positioned in such a way as to form a diamond shape with your thumbs and index fingers.
  3. Keeping your body straight and rigid and your elbows close to your body, inhale as you lower your chest to the floor.
  4. Exhale as you extend your elbows and push your body back up to the starting position.
  5. Keep your elbows tucked in to your body
  6. Keep your body straight and rigid.

Intermediate Bodyweight Chest Exercises

5. Standard Push Ups

Push-Ups are the best bodyweight calisthenics exercise to build your entire upper body. The standard push-up is undoubtedly one of the best bodyweight chest exercises, directly targeting your pecs and also your triceps.

Check how to do them correctly and blast your muscles at home or at Gym.

Push-Ups can be a real challenge if done in various forms. Intensity is the key here to Build Muscle and Strength.

Push Ups

How To Do It Properly

  1. Lay face down on the ground with your legs straight, and arms supporting the upper body.
  2. Raise yourself off the ground, straightening your elbows and your arms. But keep your elbows close to your body.
  3. Raise until your elbows are locked, and pause for a moment at the top of the movement.
  4. Now, lower your body all the way down until your chest is very close to the ground.
  5. For more variations, you do incline push-ups, decline ups.

6. Knuckle push-up

During Knuckle Push-Ups, the pressure is placed on your knuckles instead of your extended wrists.

If you experience pain in your wrists while doing standard Push-Ups, doing Push-Ups on your knuckles may be a good way to get the benefits without the pain.

Knuckle push-up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Assume a standard push-up position but place the knuckles of your fists on the floor perpendicular to the body.
  2. Pushing yourself up, until your arms are fully extended.
  3. Slowly lower yourself back down to the starting position. This completes one rep.
  4. Repeat for the desired number of repetitions.
  5. Perform on an exercise mat to avoid any discomfort on your hands.
  6. Be sure to exhale as you push up and inhale on the way down.

7. Stability Ball Push Up

Using a Swiss ball (or exercise ball) can bring an extra element to push-ups, giving you an uneven surface to increase the difficulty.

You’ll have to focus on maintaining your balance on the ball, which allows you to work more than you would be performing the standard, floor-bound version of the classic move.

Stability Ball Push Up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Lay with your chest on the stability ball. Place your hands on the ball at the sides of your chest.
  2. Place feet back and lean forward so that your chest is directly over the ball, and you are supported on your toes.
  3. Push your body up, until your arms are almost straight.
  4. Extend your arms to bring your upper body back to starting position.
  5. Do not let your lower back sag or your butt rise. Ensure your body is straight and rigid.
  6. Your neck should be in line with your body, not tilted up, which could strain the neck.

8. Feet on stability ball Push-up

The push-up with feet on a Swiss ball is a progression of the decline push-up that targets the chest, shoulders, and triceps while engaging the core. The exercise emphasizes the upper chest and shoulders.

Feet on stability ball push-up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Lie face-down on the ball with your arms supporting you in push-up position.
  2. Your hands should be directly beneath your shoulders.
  3. Lower yourself by bending your arms until your elbows form a 90-degree angle.
  4. Pause for seconds at the bottom and using your arms to push you up to starting position.
  5. Core tight and your back flat throughout the movement.
  6. Keep your body in a straight line. Don’t allow your hips to sag or rise.

9. Wide Push Up

The Wide hand knee push-up, also known as a modified type push-up, is a bodyweight chest exercise that works for muscle groups throughout your upper body.

Wide pushups are a simple yet effective way to build your upper body and core strength. If you’ve mastered regular pushups and want to target your muscles a little differently, wide pushups are a good option.

By positioning your hands further apart, wide pushups target your chest and shoulder muscles more than standard pushups.

Wide Push Ups

How To Do It Properly

  1. Lay face down on the ground with your legs straight, and arms supporting the upper body.
  2. Slowly descend to the floor by retracting the shoulder blades and unlocking the elbows.
  3. Push back to the starting point by extending the elbows and driving your palms into the floor.
  4. Remember to keep your back straight.
  5. Keep the chin down and don’t look forward.

10. Decline Push-Up

Decline Push-ups are similar to normal push-ups, but with your legs on a bench.

Your lower body is raised from the floor, the resistance your body provides is increased compared to doing the push-up on the floor. This makes the decline push-up harder than the standard push-up.

Decline Push-Ups

How To Do It Properly

  1. Placed your hands firmly on the floor and spaced slightly wider than shoulder-width apart. Put legs on the bench.
  2. Now raise yourself off the ground, straightening your elbows and your arms.
  3. Raise until your elbows are almost near to locked, and pause for a moment.
  4. Now lower your body all the way down until your chest is very close to the ground.
  5. Vary the position of the bench to hit different angles of the upper chest.

11. Dumbbell Push-Up

Push-Ups are the best intermediate bodyweight exercise to build your entire upper body and shoulder, chest, and arms.

Push-Ups can be a real challenge if done in various angles and Intensity to build muscle and strength. It is a great exercise to add to your inner chest bodyweight workout arsenal.

Dumbbell Push-Up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Grip a dumbbell in each hand and get into a plank position.
  2. Now raise yourself off the ground, straightening your elbows and your arms.
  3. Raise until your elbows are locked and pause for a moment.
  4. Now lower your body all the way down until your chest is very close to the ground.

12. Narrow Grip Push-Up

Push-ups are the best bodyweight chest exercise to build your entire upper body, including shoulders, chest, and arms.

Narrow Grip Push-Ups is the best exercise to build inner pec and triceps.

Narrow Grip Push-Ups

How To Do It Properly

  1. Lay face down on the ground with your legs straight, palm near, and arms supporting the upper body. Take a narrower push up stance than you normally would.
  2. Now raise yourself off the ground, straightening your elbows and your arms.
  3. Raise until your elbows are locked, and pause for a moment.
  4. Now lower your body all the way down until your chest is very close to the ground.

13. Spiderman Push-Up

The Spiderman Push-Up is great if you’re getting tired of the standard push-up and need a challenge.

This exercise is primarily chest and arm strengthening, but it also increases hip flexibility and really works your core too.

Spiderman Push-Ups

How To Do It Properly

  1. Start in a high plank position with your hands flat on the floor about shoulder-width apart.
  2. Keeping your body in one long line, bend your arms and lower yourself as close to the floor.
  3. As you lower your body, bend one leg out to the side and bring your knee toward the same-side arm.
  4. Push back up to start, and straighten your leg back out. Repeat alternating sides.
  5. Engage your glutes, tense your legs and brace your core to keep your body rigid.
  6. Keep your knees high and away from the floor, and make sure that your movement is well-coordinated.

14. Knee Bent Bench Dip

Knee Bent bench dip is a medium-intensity exercise that uses your own body weight to strengthen your triceps and pecs.

Bench dips are fairly simple to learn and can be done almost anywhere, making them a great exercise for home-workout.

Bench Dip

How To Do It Properly

  1. Place your hands on the side of a flat bench so that your body is perpendicular to the bench when you place your feet out in front of you.
  2. Only your heels should be on the floor, and your legs should be straight.
  3. Your arms should be fully extended with just your palms on the bench.
  4. Bend your elbows to lower your body down until your elbows reach 90 degrees.
  5. Now extend your arms to lift your body back to the starting position.
  6. Do not dip down too low as it places unnecessary strain on the shoulder joints.

Advanced Bodyweight Chest Exercises

15. Chest Dip

The dip is another bodyweight chest exercise. It is one of the most effective compound movements for the upper body, especially pushing muscles in the lower chest and triceps.

Parallel Bar Triceps Dip

How To Do It Properly

  1. Grasp the dip bars with your arms extended and locked. Keep your body as vertical as possible to keep the emphasis on the triceps and away from the chest.
  2. Keep your elbows as close to your sides as possible as you bend them to lower your body down until your upper arms are about parallel to the floor.
  3. Press your hands forcefully into the bars to extend your arms and raise your body back up.
  4. Repeat for the recommended number of repetitions.
  5. Do not lock out your elbows at the top of the movement.
  6. To focus effort on the triceps, keep your body upright and elbows tucked in.

16. Shoulder Tap Push Up

The shoulder tap push-up is a variation of the push-up that challenges the core to a greater extent than its traditional counterpart.

It is a full-body strength move that focuses on your arms and chest while also strengthening your core.

Shoulder Tap Push Ups

How To Do It Properly

  1. Start in a high plank position with your palms flat on the floor, hands shoulder-width apart.
  2. Lower yourself by flexing your elbows so that your chest comes within a few inches of the floor.
  3. Raise your body to the starting position by pushing up with your arms. Tap your left hand to your right shoulder.
  4. Place it back on the floor and repeat your next push up and shoulder tap with another hand.
  5. Tighten your core, engage your glutes, and keep your spine, head and neck aligned.

17. Hindu Push up

The Hindu push up is a traditional Indian-style exercise practiced by wrestlers.

The arms would be straight at the beginning and the end of the exercise. This variety of push-ups has existed for centuries among Indian martial artists. It works on core strength, shoulders, hips, and triceps.

Hindu pushup

How To Do It Properly

  1. Start in a downward dog pose, your body in a V shape.
  2. Bend your elbows and lower your chest until it’s just above the floor, going into low plank pose.
  3. In a scooping motion, scoop your head upward while arching your lower and upper back and go into cobra pose.
  4. Return to the starting position, you do not need to reverse back through the sweeping, arching motion.
  5. Engage your core, relax the spine and neck, open the shoulders and keep the movement smooth.

18. One-arm Pushup

A one-arm push-up is an advanced bodyweight chest exercise that requires far more strength and balance than a standard push-up using two arms.

It just might be one of the most difficult body-weight exercises to master. Almost 70 percent of your body weight is bearing down on one arm.

One-arm Pushup

How To Do It Properly

  1. Get in the standard pushup position. Place one hand on the ground directly beneath your chest and the other behind your lower back.
  2. To maintain balance, turn your torso slightly away from the pushing arm. Lower your angled torso to the ground until your chin is a few inches above the floor.
  3. Push yourself up from the floor.
  4. Do not rotate your arm outwards from your chest, as it will put additional stress on the elbow that can lead to discomfort and injury.

19. Clapping push-up

Clapping Push-ups aka Plyometric (plyo) push up is an advanced bodyweight exercise that works your chest, triceps, abs, and shoulders. With this type of push up, a “jumping” element is added to the exercise to make it more challenging and explosive.

Clapping push-up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Start in a standard Push-Ups with your palms flat on the floor, hands shoulder-width apart.
  2. Lower your body as if you’re going to do pushups until your chest is almost touching the floor.
  3. Reverse the motion by pushing hard through the palms, just as your arms reach full extension, pull your hands up off the floor. Rapidly clapping the hands together and placing them back in the original position before your body falls back to the ground.

20. Pike Push Up

Pike Push-ups aka shoulder push up is a variation of the push up that increases strength and stability in the shoulders and triceps. Performing the exercise in a more upright position will target the shoulders more than the chest.

The pike push-up looks like a mash-up of Downward-Facing Dog and Dolphin Pose, and this move can build major strength.

Pike Push Up

How To Do It Properly

  1. Start in a standard pushup position with your hands slightly wider than shoulder-width apart.
  2. Lift the hips up and back until your body forms an inverted V shape. Keep arms and legs as straight as possible.
  3. Slowly lower the top of your head towards the ground. Once your head is about to make contact with the ground, pause for a second.
  4. Then slowly push back until your arms are straight, and you’re in the inverted V position.
  5. Make sure you maintain control throughout the movement.

Takeaways

A bodyweight chest exercise will make your chest bigger and broader, which just looks good and is great for those trying to lose chest fat.

There are tons of bodyweight chest exercises without weights that will allow you to constantly progress and hit your chest from different angles.

The key to achieving hypertrophy (building muscle) with bodyweight exercises is maximizing tensions and time under tension.

People Also Ask

How To Add To Bodyweight Chest Exercises to Your Workout?

Bodyweight chest exercises are a versatile exercise. You can do them:

  • You can do them at home.
  • Mixed into your cardio or strength-training workout
  • at the end of a weightlifting session

Is it OK to do push ups every day?

Push-ups shouldn’t be done every day. It’s not a good idea to do push ups every day because muscles need time to recover. Overall, you need to listen to your body. If your chest isn’t recovered, then don’t do push ups. Simple as that.

Thanks for reading, enjoy your Workout!

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