Hey, what's up guys. Welcome back to the channel. So in today's video,
we're going to go over some techniques that help you guys activate more of your
upper chest when training, because if that's a lagging area for you,
it could be due to a few different reasons.
It could be because you have poor mind muscle connection,
which we're going to fix, or it could because your form is off just a bit.
When doing your incline bench press and believe it or not.
There's a few minor details to the inclined bench,
press that if you were doing wrong,
you're not going to get much upper chest activation. And in fact,
you might be more shoulders into the movement. Now, before we get started,
number one, I'm keeping my shirt on for this video,
because I want the focus to be on the movements and not on my bulging,
amazing chest. Okay. So thumbs up.
If you like better with the shirt on and number two guys,
we're having fun here. Okay. I like fitness
to be fun and entertaining and enjoyable so that when you go to the gym,
you actually enjoy what you're doing. Okay. Now,
when it comes to the chest guys, it's the pectoralis major. All right,
it's this whole area right here, but there's the stern.
There's the clavicular head and the sternocostal head.
And what we want to do is try to place a bit more emphasis on that clavicular
head because that's technically the upper chest, right?
But keep in mind whether you're flat bench pressing or inclined bench pressing,
the entire chest is being activated.
But if you have poor mind muscles connection,
you might not be getting as much activation as you want out of that upper head.
So this is an exercise that I like to do with my clients to try to get them to
know exactly what it feels like to place more emphasis on that upper area.
Or as I like to say, increase their mind muscle connection.
Now this movement is a high to low cable fly.
And this is probably an exercise that a lot of you guys have in your workout
routines right now,
but you're utilizing it more as a muscle building exercise versus a technique to
help activate that area more. Cause remember, that's what we're doing here.
So we're not going to go super heavy with the weight.
And we're going to change the form a little bit so that we can get what we want
out of the movement. So when setting this up,
you want the cable to be at about the same height as your head.
And this is if you're doing this exercise and your regular routine as well,
just because it's a high to low cable fly doesn't mean you need to put it all
the way up here. Cause when you put it all the way up here, what happens?
This causes your arm to go like this. Then as you do the movement,
you're bringing more shoulder into the exercise.
You're definitely not activating that upper chest.
So bring it down to about head height.
And now for the purpose of what we're using this exercise for,
which is activating the chest and trying to place my emphasis in the upper chest
you're going to do is step away from the machines so the
weight stack is barely off the bottom portion of the stack and you're going to
turn your body like this and make sure your elbow is down again.
Remember elbows up like this. We're bringing shoulders into the movement.
We can actually hurt ourselves. Keep that elbow down,
maintain a slight bend in your elbow. And then right from the start,
you should already start to feel stretch in your upper chest. Okay?
Well your chest in general, but a lot more in the upper chest.
And then from here,
we're going to come through and bring it in and we're going to go across our
body. That's why we're doing this with one arm. Instead of two,
if we were doing two,
we tend to just kind of stop in the middle or we have to just crisscross thing
like this. We just want to focus on activating that area.
So we're gonna do one at a time and come across like this.
And as we come across,
we're going to focus on like puffing our chest up and squeezing and flexing.
And you should feel this whole area activate.
And if you still having a hard time feeling,
it wants you to take your other hand.
And I want you to caress that area real good as you back and forth with the
cable. Okay? This is actually only a technique that you can use when training,
well, as long as you don't need your hand, but when
at least training your chest, placing your hand,
there is a technique that you can do to try to get your brain to focus more on
that area. And you're going to go back and forth like eight to 10 times,
and you're gonna do eight to 10 times per side.
Some of you only have to do this once others might have to do it twice,
which is do it enough that by the time you put the weight down and you're
standing here, you feel some activation in that upper chest. Okay.
It has been activated. We've increased the mind muscle connection. Now,
for those of you don't have a cable machine, just grab a band again,
place it up here, height. And then all you're going to do is take a step back.
Same thing, come across, flex your chest,
and then come back nice and slow. Just like this,
eight to 10 repetitions and then do the other side.
And then we're done with the pre activation now in your chest workouts,
if you're always rushing to the flat bench first cause you can bench the most
there that's okay. But if the upper chest is lagging. Go to the incline bench,
press first. It just makes sense. Right? But on the incline bench, press,
some of you guys might have an issue for a few different reasons. Number one,
if the gym you go to has an incline bench press machine.
Unfortunately a lot of these are set up in the angle of the bench
could be too high.
I've been in gyms where the incline bench press looks like this,
which brings a lot more shoulders into the movement. Number two,
they could have some adjustable benches like this, that go to the same area.
And don't allow you to get into this position right here. Me personally,
this is the angle that you want to be in in order to get the best out of the
exercise when trying to hit more upper chest. And the bottom goes down too.
So what do you do if the adjustable bench doesn't allow you to get into this
position? Well, it's very simple. You guys can take plates.
You can put it's in the bottom position.
We can take some plates like this and we can literally stack them up
maybe one or two and get us where we need to.
Okay guys, it's not a big deal, but I do have that ability.
So I'm going to leave it just like this.
Now when it comes to your form and this is super important, guys,
you know the form cues, when doing a flat bench press,
all of those same form cues apply. When doing an incline bench press,
we want to retract and depress our shoulders. We want a slight arch in our back,
want to flex our glutes.
I want to make sure that our feet are flat on the ground and we're pushing our
knees out. As we perform the repetitions,
we want a solid base to lift as much weight as possible.
But what tends to happen because we're going back on an incline is as
we throw ourselves backwards, especially with heavy dumbbells.
What happens when we get to here is we might start with our shoulder blades,
retracted and depressed,
but as we throw ourselves backwards in order to get those weights up,
cause we have to lift them.
We ended up actually keeping our shoulder blades retracted,
but no longer depressed.
And that slight movement from here to here is going to bring
more shoulders into the exercise and I'll show you what I mean.
So if you come back and your shoulders are retracted,
but they're no longer depressed,
you're going to bench like this and you're going to be benching over your upper
chest and bringing a lot more shoulders into the movement.
And a lot of the guys probably feel pain. When you do the incline bench for us,
for this very reason,
you have to get into the habit of when you roll backwards, get everything,
retracted the press. As you roll backwards, push off your toes.
And then get your hands here and then stay in this position.
And just slightly turn out your elbows because believe it or not,
this is exactly where you want to be. When benching elbows slightly turned in,
able to go all the way down. And as you press through the movement,
you'll instantly notice more chest activation and you're pushing through your
triceps and your shoulders are no longer involved.
So to wrap things up, guys,
for trying to work on your upper chest and you've been having a hard time
building.
Yeah, there's no secret.
There's no like amazing technique that I'm, that I'm holding back from you guys.
It's literally increasing that mind muscle connection and that upper chest.
And then just fixing your form when doing the incline bench press.
And if you guys need a program to help you with your overall gains,
you can go to my website and muscular strength right now.
You can try any of my muscle building programs.
I recommend the full body evolution to guys,
want to train full body and get even faster gains. Bro splits are fun,
but definitely full body is the way to go.
If you're trying to maximize your potential in a shorter amount of time.
So go to my website, muscular strength, use the code.
MS7 when you sign up as a platinum member,
you can try any of my programs for seven days,
free hope you guys enjoyed the video and as always more good stuff
coming soon. See guys.