What's up, guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Athleanx.com. So, if your lower chest looks like this,
completely undefined, at worst, even sagging, well, all the Decline Bench Presses in the world
aren't going to fix your problem. But the good news is I can. As a matter of fact, I can help
you to actually shape your chest more like this. And it starts with not just the right exercises,
but also doing the exercises the right way. I'm going to give you a game plan today to help you
so that you once and for all get rid of this saggy lower chest and get you that
chiseled chest that you've always wanted. You see, when it comes to guys is perhaps no
more sensitive issue than fixing a sagging lower chest because along with it also comes a lot of
taunting, you know, the locker room talk, all the words that may have been thrown at you throughout
your entire childhood and maybe even to this day. Well, what if I told you that starting today,
you'll never have to hear that crap again? And by the time this video is over, you're
walking away with a solid game plan to make sure of that. But just to make sure that we're talking
about the same thing, you got to take a look at these two pictures because both of them will be
classified as not really having a good chest. But which one's more closely identified with what
you look like right now? You see this guy right here, he's got a lot of chest fat,
and the only solution to this is going to be through nutrition. No matter what you do in
the gym, you have to fix the fat issue first. And that's always going to come from focusing
on what you're putting in your mouth. Now, here you could also see a little bit of gynecomastia.
That's a separate issue that might have to be taken care of surgically depending upon how bad
it is. So, you have to make sure that you're identifying your real root problem first.
Now, if you're looking like this guy over here and you're just simply dealing with a lack of
chest development and specifically lower chest development. But it's here that the science of
chest training actually proves to me that I can help you, because we know that with the right
selection of exercises and with the right training techniques, this area is actually very fixable,
especially when it's in this state. But we have to understand what we're working with in terms
of our anatomy. Follow me to the board. You see, our anatomy actually gives us more
than just optimism for developing a lower chest. It gives you the actual roadmap of how to do it.
Because we know that we have three separate heads of the chest, the clavicular or upper portion of
the chest, the sternum or the main compartment of the chest. And then we have this lower
abdominal head which runs from this high to low direction. If we can choose the right exercises
to follow these fibers, we know we can actually get this area to be influenced more favorably to
allow you to get rid of that undeveloped lower chest that you're dealing with right now.
So, what are these exercises? Well, I actually cover them in depth in my Lower Chest Solution
video that I'm going to link for you at the end of this one. But it's the usual heavy hitters like
that Decline Bench Press that we talked about. I didn't say it wasn't effective. I said on its own,
it's not enough. But you can see that it's got that all important requirement of the arm slot
traveling from high to low. And sometimes it's deceptive when you look at a bench press because
you think you're pushing just straight up over your body. But if you actually sit up, you can see
that from the decline position, the angle of the arms are actually slightly downward. I can also do
a Dip because it's another easily overloadable option to drive not just the size gains but
strength gains as well. But you don't always have to do the standard dip. You can do a Straight Bar
Dip, again, meeting the requirements of the arm slot traveling in the direction that's required
to more effectively target that lower chest of yours. Of course, pushups are always an option to
just make sure you're doing it out of the incline position because once again, this is going to take
the arms and angle them slightly downward. We can even bastardize some popular exercises
meant for something else and get an effect on the lower chest, as long as you know what
you're doing. This Push Down is not really a good variation of a Tricep Push Down because
what you're doing is engaging way too much chest. But what it does do is it gives you
a chance to load up that stack and perform something very similar to that Straight Bar
Dip we just looked at before. Again, no matter which one you choose, the common theme here is
what's important, the arm travel from high to low, making them all solid choices.
But remember this, a muscle that doesn't contract through its full range of motion will never fully
develop. And if you're having a hard time developing that lower portion of your chest,
you need to make sure you're exploring its full range of motion. And that means you've got to look
at the attachment points. We're talking about the arm and again, the midline here of the sternum.
Those two points have to cross each other at some point or at least get as close together
as they possibly can. And the three exercises I just showed you here, don't do that. So,
if you can take your arm and bring it across your body in any exercise, you're going to fill in
some of the important gaps that might be missing right now and there's plenty of ways to do it.
And it's the exercise variety here that makes this easily achievable. No matter what situation you're
training in right now. There's really no excuse when it comes to equipment limitations because you
can do any of these cable exercises by simply hanging a band on a pull up bar or to a high
anchor point. But you can see that all of them have in common one thing, that we're taking that
upper bicep area and driving it across, trying to get it towards our sternum. And when we do this,
you should feel the most intense contraction that you'll ever feel. Some might mistakenly
view these as isolation exercises, that is not the case at all. They are complementary to the
bigger, heavier loaded exercises that still require that missing element of adduction,
and you're making sure you're hitting them all by picking and choosing which ones work for you.
But what if you're doing the right exercises, you just happen to be doing it in the wrong
way. Because there's one tip that I'm going to give you right here that is going to completely
change the effect that your lower chest training has on the development of your chest. You see,
if you let your arms travel upward during any of the exercises I just showed you, in other words,
let your shoulders shrug, you're going to miss all the benefits. It's that important. Do this for me,
take your hand and put it on your lower chest just like this and shrug your shoulder up. Now feel it.
Keep your hand here. Now drive your shoulder down. What do you feel? A hell of a lot more
engagement. It's getting the arm closer, more adducted to your body, which is triggering your
chest. But it's just depressing the shoulders and getting that shoulder out of this elevation.
The problem is, in this high to low direction that we use for the exercises, we sometimes
don't control that. So as the weight is returning or if our body is lifting us up in a dip, the arm
is going to drift naturally up into the shrug. You have to fight that on every single exercise. So,
on a Bench Press, make sure that you're driving your shoulders down, get on shrugged and then
press. You'll feel that lower chest engage a lot more on that Decline Bench Press. On the dip make
sure that you're pushing your shoulders down. I actually like to perform a Dip Plus meaning
when I get to the top, push all the way through my arms even further to ensure that not only am
I getting this un shrug that's important, but also activating the serratus anterior, which is
another good supporter of the lower chest. I'll do it also on the pushup where I don't
just get through full extension of the elbow but push through even further to once again
engage that serratus. But even all of the crossover variations that I showed you, you have
to un shrug that shoulder. And when you do, you will completely change how that exercise feels,
and maybe for the first time ever feel it engaging the area that's been dormant this whole time,
allowing you to start to see the results that I promised you in the beginning of this video.
But there's still two important things that are more complementary, but no less important if you
want to see optimal lower chest development. And that is, what are your abs looking like right now?
I'm serious. Because your upper abs are actually framing your lower chest. If you don't believe me,
just look. That top row of abs right here is what actually frames the bottom portion of your lower
chest, it gives you that defined lower pec line. And we have so many choices we can do here. Any
movement that takes you from top down, in other words, shoulders moving towards your pelvis,
is going to be a good upper ab exercise. And the nice thing about them is they're a lot
easier than lower ab exercises because you don't have to lift the entire weight of your legs.
The other nice thing about this area of the abs is it's actually rather easily achievable. Because
you don't have to be at the extreme low levels of body fat like you might have to be to reveal the
lower portion of your abs where men tend to store more of their fat. So even if you've made some of
those nutrition adjustments that I recommended in the beginning of the video to actually get
rid of some of that chest fat, you've actually killed two birds with one stone and now made
it even more possible for you to start to see those abs, if you remember to train them.
And of course, as a physical therapist, you know, I d get to this. If you're looking like
this right now, what are you doing? I can tell you what you're undoing,
all the things we've put together for you already in this video. Any attempt to get good chest
development is going to look infinitely worse by simply rounding your shoulders and assuming
poor posture because you're pointing all of it down and putting it in the sagging position.
But there is a fix for that and it's improving your posture. Imagine this,
imagine you had a glass of water sitting right here on your sternum. You want to make sure that
it's not tilted forward at all, just rest it right here on top of that shelf. If you can
assume that position but strengthen yourself in a way that keeps you there day in and day out,
well, then you've got a chest that's not going to sag anymore like that,
but it's actually going to stand at attention and show off the results of your hard work. Of course,
one more recommendation, the Face Pull is my favorite way to help you to do this, so make
sure you're doing those every single day. By the way, if you're looking for a full posture
video, I'm going to link that one for you here as well as a video I talked about earlier on.
If you're looking for more videos here, make sure you guys click Subscribe and turn on your
Notifications so you never miss a video when we put one out. All right, guys, leave your
comments below, let me know how you make out by implementing these changes. And do me a favor,
share it with someone else that you know could benefit. All right, guys. See you soon.