The PERFECT Science Based Chest Workout (2025 EDITION)

With the return of the perfect workout series, I am updating the perfect chest workout to give you the best chest workout you can do. The biggest difference is that I am giving you not just one, but two perfect chest workouts for you to try that are not just randomly thrown together, but are based on science.

While this perfect chest workout is based on science, that doesn’t mean it is simply married to the latest research fad that everyone is jumping behind and throwing all other techniques out the window. Instead, it’s going to be based on anatomy, biomechanics, as well as some of the newer research.

Now, the perfect chest workout should consist of exercises for your upper chest muscles, middle chest muscles, and lower chest muscles. But, even that doesn’t guarantee chest gains. In order to round out your pectoral muscles, you need to fill in the gaps of what is lacking on those popular chest exercises.

If you look at the four main exercises that people do in their chest workouts, you will see incline bench press, barbell bench press (don’t on a flat bench), dips and the standard pushup. Take a close look into each of these upper body movements and you will see one thing in common; they hit the primary muscles but lack full shoulder adduction within the exercise. Today, we’re going to change that.

Luckily, with two perfect chest workouts being given to you, you won’t have to worry about hitting every area of the chest along with every function of the chest all in one workout. When we know, thanks to science, that hitting the chest twice in a week is going to be better than once a week. This means that we can split some of the targets and functions up across the two workouts.

So what does each workout look like?

Perfect Chest Workout 1:

(Primer) Banded ER: 1-2 x 10-15 (sub max)

– This is to warm up the rotator cuff which will help keep stabilization of the shoulder joint during the rest of the workout, especially in the next exercise up.
-Make sure that this is extremely sub max effort. You do not want to be fatiguing the rotator cuff by the end of the exercise.

Incline DB Bench Press: 3 x 5-8 FF

– Take this exercise to failure, which can be done safely because of the application of the dumbbells.
– Point your thumbs up and forward as you press to get a little bit extra adduction at the top end of the range of motion.

Crossovers: 3 x 10-12 + Partials

– Lean back as you cross the cables over each other. This will make the muscles of the chest the primary mover of the exercise versus the shoulders if you were leaning forward.
– Once failure is reached, continue to eek out a few more partial reps as we know that partial reps after reach failure produce more growth.

Floor Flys: 2-3 x 8-10 + Eccentric Only Reps

– Once you reach concentric failure on the floor fly, simply floor press the dumbbells up and try to control the eccentric lowering of the floor fly. Repeat this process until you’ve reach eccentric failure.

Deficit 1.5 Rep Ladder Pushups: 1 x Failure

– On the bottom end of the 1.5 rep pushup, you will be holding in the stretch position for an ascending ladder. Rep 1 = 1 second hold, rep 2 = 2 second hold, etc.
– Exploring stretch tension is a good way to increase hypertrophy, especially if it’s not something you do currently

Dips: 1 x Failure

– Similar to the crossovers, once you reach failure, continue to rep out more partial repetitions to continue taking the set beyond failure.

Watch the video for the second perfect chest workout as it will round out the training you will need to do to completely hit the chest muscles over the course of the week. You will be targeting the chest with the second chest workout only a few days later to get in your total weekly volume of 12-24 sets.

Here are the relevant studies used to build this perfect chest workout:

– https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27102172/
– https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6950543
– https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/abstract/2022/02000/muscle_failure_promotes_greater_muscle_hypertrophy.8.aspx
– https://www.researchgate.net/publication/380851058_Resistance_training_beyond_momentary_failure_The_effects_of_lengthened_supersets_on_muscle_hypertrophy_in_the_gastrocnemius
– https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9935664

The PERFECT Chest Workout – http://athleanx.com/x/perfect-chest-workout-2025
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