Medicine Ball Chest Exercises to Build Your Pec Muscles

If you have been doing the same chest workout for some time, you may find it boring, or you do not see the development you want. So, it is time to modify it a little bit. One way is to use another type of workout equipment for challenging yourself and progressive overload.

You know, I mainly do bodyweight training, push-ups and its variations. A method to make the regular exercises harder is by working out with equipment that provides an unstable state. This way more focus is required and a lot of other muscles are activated to keep the balance. A good example is the stability ball decline push up when almost all your muscles have to cooperate to maintain your balance, but it still works your chest muscles perfectly.

The same benefit is true for chest exercises with a medicine ball. Plus, you can choose from many moves as you can use more than one ball to exercise.

Here I’m going to show you some moves that are worth to be done.

List of Medicine Ball Chest Exercises

1. Exercise Ball Push Up Variations

These are beneficial moves to gain your pecs since serious control is required from your pecs, shoulders, core, and triceps. Let’s see some variations.

Standard push-ups with two balls

This is an enhanced version that is very similar as if you were using push up bars to go deeper having a more extended range of motion. However, balls are unstable, so your muscles have to work harder to control the movement. To make it even more advanced do it in a decline position or with four balls.

Diamond with one ball

This exercise works your upper pecs and your triceps perfectly. If you want to make it even harder you may place your feet in a higher position or by placing two balls under your feet. You may also turn it into a plyometric exercise to boost your explosive power, but be careful with it, the ball can quickly slip off your hands.

Single arm

By placing the med ball under one of your hands, a large portion of the weight of your upper body shifts to the other side. This way the opposite pec muscle get a lot more load. So, if your left hand is elevated, the right part of your pecs will work and vice versa. Plus, the ball is uncertain, so that part has to work as well.

This is a complex, yet powerful full body training which is an excellent progression exercise for one arm push up.

Want to boost your explosive power? Just do the following plyometric variation.

2. Medicine Ball Chest Press & Throws

While these weight ball exercises are mainly for developing explosive power, they are excellent moves to finish your chest workout since they pump up the muscles.

Slam the ball to the wall.

The standing version is a bit harder. Depending on your fitness level you may use a more massive ball. If you have a partner, do the medicine ball chest pass.

Sample Medicine Ball Chest Workout

Let’s suppose you can do about 30 push ups, so you are not a beginner. So, you need extra resistance to keep growing. A well-compiled chest workout trains every part of your pecs. Its middle, upper and lower sections. (I know, there is only pectoralis minor and mayor, but we can target those areas with the right type of exercises.)

This is what I would do in 3-5 circles:

• 10-15 two handed push ups
• 5-10 single arm push ups
• 8-10 diamond

Finishing the training with 2-3 sets of medicine ball throws with 20-25 reps.

That’s it! Intensive and effective training that works almost the entire upper body.

To conclude

As you see the med ball is a very versatile piece of equipment for chest strength training. Because of its instability, it can be used to turn any standard exercise into a compound move.

Do you know other med ball exercises for chest? Share with us below.