what's up guys
hey today we are talking about building upper chest
now this is one of those areas of the body that people always seem to have a
lot of trouble with and so today we're going to jump into why that's actually a
challenge to build that and how to address it as far as targeting that area
in some exercises to do so first let's talk real quick about why it's so
difficult to build our upper chest and really it comes down to our anterior
delts which are going to be right here
any of the exercises that we do for upper chest which are going to be your
traditional incline bench presses those utilize a lot of anterior delts and i'm
going to show you why
so your anterior delt is going to lift your arms to the side like you do
with side lateral raises
but it's also going to pull your arm across your midline just like this
ok so that's what our anterior delt does
so what is our upper chest which is also called the clavicular head of our
pectoralis major clavicular because it originates along the clavicle here
so the clavicular head meaning our upper chest originates over here right on the
clavicle vs here but where does it insert? Well it inserts right here on the
humerus right next to where the anterior delt does
so we've got one that originates all along here on the clavicle inserting on
the humerus and one that originates from here on the clavicle inserting on the
humerus
so what is the main function of our pectoralis major or chest
well it's to pull your arm across your body just like this. The same thing that are
anterior delt does. So that's so that's one of the biggest challenges with doing upper
chest as any time we do traditional upper chest exercises like incline bench
press were using
a ton of anterior delt
there's also one other issue that we have and it's very difficult to isolate
the chest because we're also using a lot of triceps
anytime were pressing so whether it's a bar
press on a flat bench or on incline bench or whether using dumbbells
anytime you're straightening your arms and are getting extension in your elbow like
this you're using your triceps
so you're someone who has really strong triceps and strong anterior delts, it's going to
make it really difficult to engage your chest
so we're going to attack this from a couple different ways and one is to try
to isolate eliminate as much as we can from the anterior delt and the other one
is going to be eliminated as much of the triceps as we can
so first way we do that and this goes back to this is why the muscle
origination insertion is so important
the fact that the anterior delt originates so far out here on the
clavicle versus the chest the upper chest coming across here
it affects the range of motion where that muscle is effective
so if we were looking at Bonez here and i'll do the same thing if I were to pull
my arm across my body my range of motion
it's effective for that anterior delt because it's a really short muscle is
where that muscle is most effective if I'm pulling across is going to be about
from here - Bonez you're not helping me here
- so almost with your arms straight out in front of you
anything past that if I were trying to bring his arm across his body which he's
not cooperating so I'll do it myself here
so we're talking about from here to here using a lot of anterior delts
but if i were to go here all the way in squeezing all the way across here where
I'm getting a peak contraction on my chest that anterior delt has already
been shortened at this point
so from here to here really not doing a whole lot
so what I'm trying to tell you is in order to really engage your chest and
try to eliminate your anterior delt as much as possible
we've got to get that range of motion which is from here to here and that's
where the problem lies because most of our traditional exercises like bench
press
we don't get that range of motion. If i were to simulate right now a bench press
and i'm going to go ahead especially on a bar where my hands are locked in one
position and if i were to press straight up
you can see that my arm isn't coming very far across the midline of my body
versus this right here
ok so here to hear my anterior delts are very strong position as well as my
tricep so using a ton of triceps using a ton of anterior delts and not really
getting good isolation on the chest
so how do we overcome this well this is where flyes come in now
With a fly I have the ability to come more towards the midline my body
the problem is lots of people like to do fllyes on a bench using dumbbells
I'll just grab any pair right here
it doesn't matter what the weight is as long as they are the same weight. So if I were to lean
back here and do a traditional fly with dumbbells
I've got resistance from here here here as soon as I reach here
I've got very little resistance because I can almost just lock the weight out so
that range of motion that i'm talking about which is from here and further in
I've got no resistance right here at all i could do this all day long in this
range of motion because i have no resistance
so even if i'm going to do a dumbbell fly on an incline bench trying to target
my upper chest
it's going to be very ineffective because i'm going to use a lot of anterior delts
the good news is I've isolated at least the chest anterior delts and taking the
triceps out of it because we're not pressing so we've eliminated triceps. Now how
do we take the anterior delts out
well that's range of motion that's why I like cable machine so we come over here
to the cable machine instead of doing a traditional cable fly which is going to
look like this which even this is a lot better than a dumbbell because where with the
dumbbell
I really lost resistance about here at least from here to the midline i still
have resistance but i'm still not taking advantage of the maximum range of motion
getting that peak contraction
so if i wanted to do flyes with a cable and really engage my upper pecs the
first thing I need to do is I need to bring my arms a little bit higher
ok and I need to cross them over. See this is all range of motion right here
now i can get a peak contraction in my upper chest so
there's another way this is kind of exercise really doesn't have a name
don't even know what you would call it that I like to do to really target that
because even with a cable crossover i'm still limited because my chest literally
squeezes against each other so i can come to about here on a single but if I
had to do it or sorry I mean come to here on the double
but on a single i can come all the way across here so I like to do these
unilaterally and what I like to do spring in my head about a 90 degree bend
my elbow here this is my starting position and what I like to do is
squeeze across my body keeping my hand nice and high i take my other hand put
up top on my upper chest
so I can feel it contracting and I squeeze across so in this range of
motion i'm using very little triceps because there's not a whole lot of
extension happening at my elbow and I'm taking the anterior delt out of it quite
a bit because the muscle the anterior delts already in a shortened position
so this is maximizing the range of motion for my upper chest with that
being said
any of these chests isolation exercise are great for you to really get in there
target the muscles feel it but if you really want to build some ass you still
got to do a compound movement which is going to be any of your pressing
movements its compound movement because you're using more than one joint using
two joints using your elbow joint and your shoulder joints are using multiple
muscles and this is going back to anterior delts is going back to your
packs and your triceps
so how do we minimize our engagement with our anterior delts
well that goes again back to range of motion and this is where dumbbells do
come into play so let's come over here if we want to target the upper chest
we still want to put the bench on an incline is now I don't like to use a bar
because like i already mentioned to you guys
we use a bar i'm locked into a fixed position that's why i like to use
dumbbells presses because I can start nice and wide
get a nice wide range of motion here from wide to narrow squeezing in so i'm
getting a much bigger range of motion then I would just with a bar bench press
the problem I see with most people whether they're doing bar or dumbbells
is too steep of an angle on the bench your traditional bench for doing incline
bar is about 45 degrees
the more upright you are the more you're going to engage your delts
so I like to just put a slight incline so it's just a little higher than it
would be if it were flat so I don't need that extreme angle because i don't want
to engage my delts grab some of these are real life just to show you guys
so then I'm going to instead of doing an arrow like this i see a lot of people
doing this right here
I'm not taking advantage of getting the most range of motion so instead i start
nice and wide get a good stretch and I squeeze up to the middle
elbows are out nice and wide squeeze up
now if i want to maximize my strength I would want to try to engage more my
triceps and i might go keep my elbows in a little tighter here i'm gonna engage
my triceps and i'll feel strong as i'm using my triceps and my chest and my
interior delts
but i want to go ahead and target my pecs i want to get a nice stretch
so I'm going to take my elbows out wide take the dumbbells out wide and squeeze
to the middle
so those are just a few tricks for targeting your upper chest go back
Google pictures of franco columbu and guys like even Arnold Schwarzenegger
these guys had big upper chest and that's the difference between a cool
looking chest and a chest that looks kinda like saggy boobies
if you've got a lot of lower chest development they look like boobs. If you have a
lot of upper chest development looks cool you know the kind where you can
almost set your chin right on your chest
you also get that really cool separation between your upper chest and lower chest
so the key takeaway here is getting that extra range motion that squeeze towards
the midline of the body and it's also getting our our hands up a little bit
higher so that means using an inclined bench or if you're doing any kind of
flies on the cable machine that means squeezing up here a little bit higher as
opposed to hear toward my midline or down lower
so we want to go nice and high and instead of a traditional fly
we can do a crossover or we can do unilaterally and really get a maximum
range of motion here and squeeze across and by the way this is one of my
favorites actually like to start off with that really just focus on the
muscle get a good burn i use lightweight higher reps i do about 20 reps
I want to feel that muscle pre fatigue it and that's when i come over here and
I finally jump on a compound movement and that's when I do my dumbbell presses
so those are some tips on how to build your upper chest
a lot of times people have a hard time billionaire upper chest like that
keep building up there anterior delts and said so here's some tricks how to
avoid that and you'll be on your way to build a bigger chest so tune in next
week we're going to go ahead and we're going to talk about the rest of the
chest development
hi from the outside your chest to the inside your chest the bottom your chest
people and have questions how to develop
one area so i'm going to give you some tips and tricks for each of those and so
until then i'll see you next week and then I after we're done with all those
will put them all together and we'll come out here and we'll do a whole chest
workout i'll show you how i put together with sets and reps
alright see you next week