maratoolIsometric Chest Squeezes
How to do the isometric chest squeezes
- While either seating or standing, bend your arms at a 90-degree angle and place the palms of your hands together in front of your chest. Tip: Your hands should be open with the palms together and fingers facing forward (perpendicular to your torso).
- Push both hands against each other as you contract your chest. Start with slow tension and increase slowly. Keep breathing normally as you execute this contraction.
- Hold for the recommended number of seconds.
- Now release the tension slowly.
- Rest for the recommended amount of time and repeat.
Muscles worked
The force comes from the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.
A plyometric repetition is over before a slow contraction could contribute anything, so it has to produce that force immediately on contact.
Nothing travels, but holding the position is not the target muscle’s job alone: the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range; the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement.
How this movement works
Several joints combine to set the position, and then everything stops. Because the shape is held rather than repeated, the limit is how long the whole chain stays where you put it — not how strong any single muscle in that chain happens to be.
It is filed under plyometrics, which trains the stretch-shortening cycle: loaded fast, released immediately. Contact time matters more than volume, so these belong early in a session.
What you need
No equipment at all. The resistance is your own bodyweight, so you progress by changing leverage, range or tempo rather than by adding plates — and you can do it anywhere.
Every exercise using:Body only
These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:
- Leg-Over Floor Presskettlebell
- Leverage Chest Pressmachine
- Low Cable Crossovercable
- Medicine Ball Chest Passmedicine ball
- Neck Pressbarbell
Difficulty
Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.
Of the 105 chest exercises in this database, 63 are listed at beginner level.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.