Do you want to bump up your chest development?
Well I am going to show you today how we are going to combine muscle science and the way
that the chest functions to allow you to do just that.
What's up everybody?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM
Today I want to show you something that we can do for the chest to help you to bump up
your chest development.
Now when I say bump up, are we talking about the overall chest or the upper chest?
Well it really depends upon what you are trying to target.
And when I say that, it starts with how we position the bench, because one of the things
we can do, and I have covered this before, is vary the angle on the bench to determine
where you want to work more, more in the upper chest or more in the lower chest mid chest
area.
Well it is all determined again for those of you guys that haven't seen this, by the
angle that we choose.
And there is a real simple way to look at this.
If we were always straight up, we would essentially be doing a shoulder press.
Knowing that we were going to be working high up in this sort of shoulder chest area.
So a shoulder press when we are straight up vertical.
When we are all the way down flat, we are working more of the main coverage area of
the chest.
And even if you want to take that to an extreme, all the way down, decline is supposed to work
lower in the chest.
So if you want to get more of this mid to upper area of the chest, then you should favor
an incline angle that is more towards the upright.
So for me, if you put me back here at the 30 degree, it would be a little bit higher
in here, more to the 45 or 60 degree, if I am trying to target the upper chest.
Now the next thing is the Guillotine Press.
One that we do, that actually shows more activation for the overall chest not just the upper chest,
but the overall chest, is one where you get underneath the bar and pretty much bring it
down to your neck.
I don't like that because number one, it got it's name for a reason and number two, you
don't really want to put your shoulders in that kind of position.
But you do like the benefits and the advantages of the chest activation by having the target
be higher instead of being lower on the chest.
So how can we accomplish it more safely?
We can use dumbbells.
Well that's part two.
Part three, one of the functions of the chest, two of the functions of the chest, are to
actually adduct the arm, which means bring it close to your side so you can see the chest
work every time I just sort of flap my arm over here.
But the next thing it does, is it horizontally adducts the arm.
So basically it brings the arm across the chest.
Now You guys all know how I feel about Flys.
I don't like the exercise as an added stretch for the chest.
because it really doesn't add a lot of extra stretch to the chest muscle.
If you haven't seen why I believe that, then you can watch the video that I did on that,
The Chest Fly Fallacy.
But in terms of the danger it can put your shoulder in, it is not a good exercise.
But the adduction of the arm is so how do we get the benefits of adduction without doing
the Fly and how do we get the benefits of the Guillotine Press without having to come
all the way up to our neck with a bar.
Well we do a different exercise here, where we take the dumbbells, we put them together,
and we squeeze them as hard as we can.
By squeezing we are adducting the arms.
In other we are trying to come across our body, we are being stopped by the dumbbells
themselves and we are really trying to squeeze as hard as we can.
From here the elbows are in tight to the side because again we want to adduct that chest
muscle again by using our arms adducting our arms we are using our chest muscle.
and then we are going to press straight up from here to a position high up over our neck
and head.
So as we come down, I am squeezing still real hard, I target the upper chest by touching
the dumbbells to the upper chest.
And squeeze and push the dumbbells back up, down, up to the upper chest, squeeze and push
straight up.
Ok, you can see much more activation.
Up at the top, and down, again squeezing the whole time.
And up, one more, squeeze all the way down and then press up.
And so again, recapping.
Set the angle of the bench to where you want it to be if you want to engage more upper
chest.
If you didn't want to you can go down a little bit lower.
Number two, one of the functions of the chest is to adduct the arm closer to the body.
So instead of being in this vulnerable position where we can sort of danger the AC joints,
we are going to bring the elbows in a little bit tighter.
Third, It adducts the arm across the chest.
This is horizontal adduction, ad...adduct . We don't want to put ourselves in the Fly
position in order to get here though, because of the dangers that that presents to the chest.
So we get it there and we engage those muscles from the beginning and hold that throughout
the entire exercise.
And thirdly we still have the pressing motion.
So combining these elements together guys, you have got one kick ass chest exercise.
And one that you can take to the gym with you.
If you want more exercises that you can do for your chest, for your entire body, that
apply muscle science to help you get the most out of them.
Then I definately, definately encourage you to check out the AthleanX training system.
We are putting the science back into strength and helping you to utilize that to get way
more out of your workouts than you ever thought possible.
Guys I'll see you back here in seven days.
In the meantime, put this to work, let's see how you do, make sure you leave your comment
below if you find this helpful. .