What's going on nation I'm Scott from MuscularStrength.com and today
I'm going to be talking to you guys about how to build a bigger chest
By taking what you're already doing and showing you how to make it better, but before we get started
Be sure to click that notification bell, so you never miss a new video up
Well now guys
It is
imperative that you really pay attention to am about to show you because this is gonna lead into the
exercise that
I want you to do in order to get more chest activation now the chest has two primary functions
And we talked about this in my how-to dumbbell press video and for those of you that missed it
I can show you I can link to it down in the comment section below
but the two primary functions of the chest is to
Press forward like this and then to also add duck the humerus so to bring your arms from here to here
That's why when you go like this you get a lot of chest
activation and now it should be quite obvious what the difference is between the dumbbells and the barbell and now I'm just
Demonstrating this on the incline just so you guys can see it better for a camera angle
but this applies the incline and flat and decline okay now when you Bob Al benchpress your
Hands are locked into position like this and even if you bring the weight all the way down and all the way up
You're still only maximizing one of the primary functions of the chest
Which is just pushing the weight away from your body you're not able to adduct your arms, but if you were to grab dumbbells
You can do both, you can go down a bit further
Which gives you more of a stretch on your chest which is gonna help with a bit more muscle growth and muscle
Activation and then when you get to the top here instead of being stuck in one position
You can add ducked your arms in and really flex and squeeze your chest for more muscle activation however
There is a problem here as well although you can induct your arms as soon as the dumbbells touch each other
You can't abduct your arms anymore, and it's quite a bit of space in between your hands
Even when using the dumbbells and those are only 20 s imagine using like 60 70s 80s 90s or hundreds
That distance between your hands come in close together is gonna. Get bigger and bigger and bigger
The bigger the dumbbells now that you're using so you're still able to abduct them and activate your chest
But you're kind of limited depending on how heavy you're going and now some of you guys might say well
You can just take one dumbbell and then
Balance yourself all the way down all the way up and then go across your body like this and you're right you can do this
However when you start to get really heavy with the weight. It's not the most stable exercise to do
It's very easy to lose your balance and either fall off the bench or for example
Maybe you press it all the way up and you try to go across your body and then your arm
Just happens to fall over this way there. There is some danger to the exercise now obviously with proper control
I'm sure many of you can do that and you can make that movement happen
But is the risk worth the reward and in my opinion the answer is no, but there is something that you can do
Which will make this a lot easier
And allow you to really target and isolate your chest if you're lacking some growth and that's this exercise over here
And it's the bent-over
Single arm chest press now in order to do this exercise
You're gonna need a cable machine and all you have to do is put the cable
You know as high as you can I like to put it about my head height and then from here
you can take it just like this you can get over into the chest press position and you can press down and
Cross your body like this and now there's a a lot of added benefit with those few extra
Inches where you're able to cross your chest all the way like that
Stand up right now and press your arm forward and go to here so your hands almost in the middle of your body and then
Take it two or three more inches across you should instantly feel a lot more chest activation just in those couple inches
And we can take advantage of that with the bent over cable press by not only utilizing this range of motion
But because we're able to easily balance ourselves
we can really stack this up with more weight and
not being any sort of danger of falling over or the weight going across our body because we're not laying down if
Anything if you start to get stuck you can just let the weight come up
And there's going to be zero risk for you injuring your shoulder
but if you want to take advantage of the exercise and
Come down like this you can take both hands hold it in place and then once you're ready to go
press down go across your body and then control on the way up go back as far as you can and
Then press it across your body
go back as far as you can and
Repeat four reps and now for some of you guys that are really strong. You might say well a cable machine
You know isn't enough weight for me well
There's a solution for that too, and all you have to do really is just grab another pin
and then you can take weights and either put them on top if your gym has them or you can pin a
Plate to the stack just like this and this will work
What a 10 25 35 or 45 pound plate so there really is no excuse
And I don't think the majority of you guys are gonna be pinning
35 and 45 so the whole stack, but the option is there if you need it and now for those of you who?
You can apply this to different ways
For those of you guys who are having a really hard time with chest activation I would recommend starting off with this
Exercise first and I would also recommend even applying my cheat and recover technique to this movement to really ensure
You're breaking down as much of that chest as possible for regrowth, and what's really cool about this is
If you want to apply my cheat and recover technique to dumbbells
You would have to have a spot or help you there's no way you'd be able to skip the concentric phase of the movement
Unless your spotter was there to bring the weights up. However over here
You have the option of using both hands and throwing the weight down like this and then focusing on
that slow- and
then resetting for all eight of the cheat reps and
If this doesn't activate your chest
Nothing will and then as soon as you finish your eight cheat reps
It's very easy to remove the pinned weight, or if you're not using the pinned weight
Just adjust it to a lower weight from here
And then get down and focus on the recover epps going all the way across and all the way back
using proper form on the concentric and eccentric phase of the motion
So like I said for those of you guys having a hard time really feeling some chest engagement not seeing much checks chest growth
I'd recommend doing this as your first exercise
utilize cheat and recover and for those of you who are seeing chest growth
But you're looking for an exercise to really finish off the chest at the end of you workout
That's another great place for this movement as well. Let's say you blasted
You know dumbbell press incline press some heavy flies
Maybe the PEC deck you just want one more thing to really finish things off
Come right over here and just alternate left arm and right arm like 10
Maybe 15 reps per side
Three to four sets and then you're good to go, so you're gonna apply this to your current workout
Be sure to let me know down in that comment section below if you want more quick tips like this
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