FTM Workout: 10 Chest Exercises with and Without Equipment

For many transgender men and transmasculine folks, upper body workouts are a great way to alter the appearance of the chest without surgery or before surgery.

Adding upper body exercises to your routine can help boost arm, back, and shoulder endurance and strength, reduce your risk of injury, and more.

Certain workouts can also change the shape of your upper body and how big (or small) parts of your upper body look compared with others.

“The wider your back and lats are, for example, the smaller your hips are going to appear,” explains certified personal trainer Morgan Olson, founder of Body Type Programs, which are designed to help cisgender women and nonbinary people assigned female at birth to get fit and build confidence.

Similarly, the broader your shoulders become, the smaller your hips and chest tissue will look in comparison, notes Ali Figz, a fitness professional who primarily works with LGBTQIA+ folks.

“It’s absolutely possible to sculpt your body to make you feel more gender-affirmed,” says Olson. “With consistency and patience, you will get striations and vascularity in your chest from doing upper body exercises, even while having breast tissue.”

No matter your specific health and fitness goals, you need to eat to meet them. As far as exercise is concerned, that generally means consuming adequate protein and calories.

“You need to fuel your body with enough protein to build the muscle with an emphasis on upper body training,” says Olson.

Typically, that means 1 gram of protein per every pound of body weight. But to figure out the best eating plan for you, consider working with a nutritionist.

“You want to become a student of classic lifts like the bench press and overhead press,” says Lizzy Bristow, owner of Body by Daddy, who specializes in fitness for LGBTQIA+ communities.

This will help you hone the movement patterns and build the foundational strength you’ll need for more complex exercises down the line.

Some people who are trying to minimize the size of their chests avoid chest exercises out of fear that the exercises will make their chests look larger. There’s no reason to do that, according to Bristow.

“Even if you’re trying to avoid an increase in chest or breast tissue, you should do chest exercises,” she says. “Increasing strength in the pectoral girdle won’t affect the volume of breast tissue or fat tissue in your chest.”

“To make your pear square, you need to lift heavy,” says Bristow.

In other words, to put on the maximum amount of lean muscle tissue to your frame while simultaneously reducing the amount of body fat around your hips, you want to lift heavy.

Lifting heavy, she explains, offers the greatest amount of muscle mass. Muscle is a metabolically active tissue, so the more muscle you put on, the more fat you’re able to drop.

When you’re first learning an exercise, “pick a weight and see if you can do 15 reps easily,” suggests Figz. “If you can, move up in weight. If you can’t, that weight is ideal to start with.”

Once you’re comfortable with a movement, you want to keep your reps in the 5 to 8 range, they say. Here, the last 2 reps of each set should be pretty darn difficult.

“Doing 3 to 5 sets is important,” says Olson.

For nonweighted exercises, Olson suggests going to failure (or close to failure).

Ultimately, how you incorporate the exercises below into your routine will depend on how often you exercise, your other fitness goals, and more.

If you’re doing workout splits, you could separate them into two different days based on which muscle group they primarily target.

As a general rule, beginners will notice changes more quickly than experienced lifters.

Similarly — assuming you’re adequately recovering between sessions — exercising more days per week than not will create faster results.

“A person who started hormone replacement therapy and already has a low[er] body fat percentage can see muscle gains very quickly,” says Bristow. Like, within 2 to 4 weeks.

“Meanwhile, a person who is just starting their journey and is not on HRT might take twice as long,” she says.

“If a gym pass isn’t in your future, there are a ton of equipment-free exercises you can do,” says Bristow.

“One of the most underrated and overlooked upper body exercises are triceps exercises,” says Figz. And diamond push-ups are one of the best bodyweight exercises for hitting that back-of-the-arm muscle.

“For the look of bigger arms, you want to spend some time focusing on your biceps,” says Figz.

“Bicep curls are a classic exercise that will increase the size of your arms over time,” so long as you continue to lift heavier and heavier, they say.

This exercise can be done with dumbbells. But if you don’t have access to free weights, grab two water bottles. The more full they are with water or sand, the heavier they’ll feel.

If you have a gym membership — or access to a home gym — give these weighted upper body exercises a try.

“The main chest exercise to increase pectoral strength and size is the bench press,” says Figz.

Start with the standard, flat-bench barbell bench press. Once you’re comfortable with the exercise, they recommend bench pressing at different angles.

“The overhead press works the shoulders but also requires trunk stabilization,” says Bristow. That means that if you overhead press enough weight often enough, “you’ll get as strong as an oak tree,” she says.

“Pull-ups help build a bigger back and lats,” says Bristow. This makes your upper body look broader from the front, which visually shrinks the appearance of chest tissue, she says.

This classic exercise primarily works your lats, but it also works your traps, delts, and grip muscles.

If you don’t have access to a barbell, this move can also be executed with dumbbells. In fact, Bristow recommends incorporating unilateral dumbbell rows into your routine from time to time to solve any upper body muscle imbalances.

“Tricep rope extensions on the cable machine are ideal for isolating the triceps,” says Figz.

“Use a light[er] weight while doing them so you can control the eccentric and concentric movement and really feel the squeeze of your triceps at the peak of the exercise,” they say.

“If someone is planning on having top surgery, I always recommend they start doing resistance training, especially chest strengthening exercises,” says Bristow. ”There are many benefits to starting to lift before surgery, but the biggest is recovery.”

If you’re reading this after recent top surgery, make sure you get the green light from your surgeon before you get started.

Healthcare professionals generally recommend waiting at least 3 to 4 weeks before getting your heart rate up in any way, shape, or form, and at least 5 to 6 weeks before resuming weight-bearing exercises.

It all depends on your individual recovery process.

Upper body exercises are a great way to increase muscle mass, reduce the amount of body fat, and gradually alter the shape of your physique.

That said, talk with a trans-inclusive healthcare professional before altering your exercise routine. They can offer more personalized advice and safety considerations.

Gabrielle Kassel (she/her) is a queer sex educator and wellness journalist who is committed to helping people feel the best they can in their bodies. In addition to Healthline, her work has appeared in publications such as Shape, Cosmopolitan, Well+Good, Health, Self, Women’s Health, Greatist, and more! In her free time, Gabrielle can be found coaching CrossFit, reviewing pleasure products, hiking with her border collie, or recording episodes of the podcast she co-hosts called Bad In Bed. Follow her on Instagram @Gabriellekassel.