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The Best Chest Expander

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This article was written by Staying Alive Crew Published at 07:20 pm
Chest Expanders

These days it's quite common to look for inexpensive and compact fitness devices that offer wide-ranging resistance training for the chest and arm muscles.

Chest expanders are excellent for providing resistance training and building functional strength in your home gym or when on the go. 

You get resistance with tubes made from rubber, steel springs or, other elastic material to help build muscles in the upper body

Many chest expanders enable the resistance to be adjusted, so the stronger and fitter you become you can adjust the resistance progressively. 

Chest expanders are ideal for sculpting and building upper body strength and improving flexibility and enable the same upper body exercises that are great for men and women. 

We trawled through countless workout equipment chest expanders to bring you our top picks. 

Leaving you to stand tall, at the starting position keep your arms straight and expand those resistance cables to sculpt your chest with pride!

Table of Contents

7 Best Chest Expanders in 2024

Chest Expanders Buying Guide

If you’re keen on buying a great resistance training appliance, you’ll be eager to snap up a chest expander, which is a helpful and portable fitness device that enables you to work multiple muscle groups in your upper body.

We’ve put together more information in our comprehensive buying guide to help you find the right chest expander. 

So you can focus on those pushes and pulls to sculpt your body!

Chest Expanders

A chest expander is a portable piece of fitness equipment that consists of two handles connected by springs that provide varying degrees of resistance. 

A chest expander helps to supplement calisthenic exercises. The basic exercise involves a compound exercise using the chest, back, arms, and shoulder muscles

Different chest expanders offer the flexibility to adjust the tension, hence making the compound exercise more difficult as you get fitter and stronger. 

There are a few different types of chest expanders, from the lifeline chest expander, adjustable chest expanders, which as the name suggests allow the resistance to be increased/decreased to suit your need.

A chest expander bar resistance is increased based on the positioning of your hands and power twister arm exercisers have a golden ratio triangular structure and typically resistance can be adjusted via a knob dial.

Benefits of Chest Expanders

A chest expander is an inexpensive simple fitness device, which is not only lightweight but portable, making it convenient to take with you and use pretty much anywhere.

If you are looking for a piece of equipment that offers your upper body a variable resistance workout, then a chest expander delivers in spades. The more you move the handle of a chest expander the greater resistance it emits.

Many chest expanders offer adjustable resistance, making them ideal for beginners or for women at the lower end of the resistance spectrum. 

Chest expanders are great for building functional strength, promoting ligament and tendon strength, and toning chest muscles. 

Chest expanders are a low-impact piece of equipment that offers smooth and stable resistance, making them ideal if you are dealing with injuries. 

Chest expanders simulate many of the same upper body exercises that you get when using free weights, however, chest expanders are much cheaper than free weights. 

Anyone looking to work their deltoids and pectorals and improve their breathing capacity will benefit from using a chest expander. 

Features of Best Chest Expanders

Types of Chest Expander

There are 3 main styles of chest expanders, which are devices for strengthening the chest and other upper body muscles. A chest expander involves stretching steel springs, rubber cables, or latex tubing.

Adjustable Chest Expander

Adjustable chest expanders allow you to increase or decrease the resistance. This can be done either by removing or adding resistance cables. 

Pay attention to how many springs it has and whether the springs are detachable. When you want to decrease the resistance, you simply detach 1 or 2 of the springs.

Chest Expander Bar

Often referred to as a torque stick, or chest spring bar, or twister bar, offers effective resistance by keeping muscles under constant tension for isometric and isotonic strength and endurance workouts. 

Resistance can be adjusted with the placement of your hands being closer to get increased resistance.

Power Twister Arm Exerciser

Most often designed with a golden ratio triangular structure, and designed to adjust the resistance by rotating a knob to meet your training needs.

Material

You want a chest expander that is durable and can handle the pressure applied via resistance. Generally, chest expanders are made of carbon steel, latex, or ABS. 

If the chest expander allows the resistance to be adjusted, how easy is it to adjust the resistance?

Secure Grip/Handles

You want a chest expander with solid, secure, and ergonomically designed handles to provide a strong and comfortable grip.

What material are the handles made from? Are they anti-slip handles?

Exercise Type

Which part of the upper body do you intend to train? The chest? Arms? Shoulders? All of them? 

Some chest expanders are great in working the chest and arms, but may not work the shoulders

Other chest expanders are versatile and enable you to work the chest, shoulders, traps, and biceps.

This will influence which model of chest expander you select.

Men or Women

Is the chest expander suitable for men only or women too? Most women want to firm and lift their breasts but they don’t want to bulk up. Men want to pump up and tone their pecs. 

Is the resistance suitable for both sexes?

Extra Features

Does the chest expander come with extra devices? Additional features to link, handles, resistance bands, etc? 

Additional features can offer versatility in the kind of exercises you can use the chest expander for. 

Price

What is your budget? Balance what your needs are, the features you are looking for, and the highest quality chest expander you can get within your budget.

Chest Expanders FAQ

Is a chest expander safe to use?

The short answer is yes. Providing you are following the instructional manual and using the chest expander as it was intended to be used. 

Chest expanders are low-impact devices and many have additional safety mechanisms built-in, to prevent any accidental snap of the springs.

Chest Expanders Sources

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