21/07/2026
📚 HOW TO BUILD A BIGGER CHEST WITHOUT WEIGHTS 📚
‘Traditional press-ups are great – they lower the barrier to entry for resistance training,’ says Dr Milo Wolf, founder of training app MyoAdapt and owner of a PhD in sport science. ‘But there are a few issues people can encounter,’ he adds.
Firstly, because your range of motion is limited by the ground (your chest can only go so low), there is limited stretch on the chest muscles – handy for maximising muscle growth, according to Dr Wolf’s research.
Secondly, once you become fairly capable at press-ups, you often have to do sets of 20-plus repetitions before they start to feel challenging.
Training near muscular failure – where your muscles tire to the point they cannot perform another rep – is key for muscle growth. But Dr Wolf’s research suggests that, during larger sets, people struggle to know when they are near this point. Often, they end up breathing hard but falling short by five or more reps.
During smaller sets of five to 12 repetitions, however, people are far better at gauging their effort levels and pushing closer to muscular failure.
The solution, he says, is to switch to a more challenging variation of the press-up: the deficit decline press-up.
‘To make the press-up harder so you can get closer to failure more easily, and also to get a deeper stretch in your pecs, triceps, front delts and serratus anterior, the deficit press-up is a good option.’
He suggests placing your hands on press-up handles, weight plates, chunky books or even a pair of chairs, leaving more room for lowering your chest.
‘Additionally, in order to make the movement more challenging, elevating your feet turns it into more of an incline pressing pattern,’ Dr Wolf adds.
‘We have one study comparing the incline press to the flat press, finding more hypertrophy of the upper pecs in the incline press compared to the flat press.
‘By elevating your feet, not only are you making the movement more challenging because of the moment arms involved, you are also mimicking more of an incline press pattern, which will do a better job of training your upper chest, which can be difficult
