What's up guys, Jeff Cavaliere, Althleanx.com. Today, we're talking about the inner chest,
that middle chest line that makes the chest what it is, If you don't believe me, look what happens
when I actually take that line away, suddenly it's less impressive. See, the fact is very much like
the abs, it's the attachment point that creates the visual contrast that makes that muscle look
more impressive. If I took the same eight pack that this guy has here and we remove the linea
alba and the tendinous attachments, it's suddenly now becomes a one pack that even though the waist
circumference hasn't changed, it just doesn't look so good anymore. So, what can you do if
you're lacking that middle line? Well, there's a few things that you need to do. You need to create
that contrast and that contrast is created in two ways. Number one, your anatomy that you were born
with. And secondly, your ability to grow this muscle. I'm talking about the entire muscle,
not just the inner chest, that's not possible. But let's talk about the anatomy. We break our muscle
market to do that. We know that the chest has an attachment right here on the sternum, a tendinous
attachment. And with a tendon does it attaches to the bone, it rides out into this muscle belly and
then goes out to another tendon to attach to the arm. Well, the tendon attachment actually is in
your advantage because what it does is it doesn't grow like a muscle belly does. So, it sutures
itself down to the bone that it attaches to, in this case, the sternum, and it stays there.
But as we grow the muscle itself, we know that that will stand out further and further,
creating that visual deepening of the chest that creates that line. However, we also know
that there's another thing that can hide that, and that is what you eat. Right? Let's face it, guys,
any discussion of how a muscle looks has also got to consider the fact that if you eat poorly,
you have higher levels of body fat, it's just not going to look as good. See, this
chest of mine right here, though it may not be the biggest one out there, because I have good muscle
definition from low body fat levels, it looks more impressive than it actually might be.
Again, this guy right here has a bigger chest than I do, but he certainly doesn't have the
definition. Which, again, in the opinion of whoever is looking at that, could change how
they feel about it. The other thing, though, is training. We know that we can impact our training
by how we do what we do. And the thing you're going to want to make sure you do is two things.
Number one, don't isolate your training focus to just strength. If you're isolating to just
strength, you're likely never going to develop the type of inner chest that you're looking
for. And there's a reason for that. Most of the strength-based exercises that are looking for
a strictly progressive overload, which is a good hypertrophy stimulus, but it's not the only one,
are going to be limiting how much adduction you get in the exercise you're performing.
I mean, an incline bench press or a flat bench press or a weighted to dip or a weighted push
up or are going to be done with the arms in this position here, never actually approaching
complete chest contraction by getting into a fully educated state. You want to explore other options.
We know that eccentric overload is a great option. We want to include exercises that allow us to get
more stress placed on the origin in the assertion, which is an exercise like this allows you to do.
But you want to allow that to be an additional stimulus for growth, because, again, growth is
what's going to make this entire chest stand out and create the deepening of the line. The third
thing, however, is I think where everything is at, where people don't necessarily do enough of this,
and that is go for that metabolic route, drop the weight down. If you drop the weight down,
you may actually get into a fully contracted state for the first time ever because you need
to go a little bit lighter in order to get there. So, if you take an exercise like the crossover,
if you always stop right here, you're never really getting it to a fully contracted state. If we're
talking about getting the best chest development to create maximum hypertrophy and the most
deep line, you can get that, then you want to make sure you take it even further than that.
Bring it all the way across the body, even if it means lighten the load to do that.
Now, don't just stop after a few repetitions, you want to really, really revel in the burn and such
an intense burn here on these exercises that you can barely stand it. But this is a great
way to create that full chest contraction. You do the same thing for the upper chest by simply
lowering the angle of the arm and bringing it up and across your body, but still make sure you're
getting it across your body. Even something like a bench press, if you were to drop one dumbbell can
be tweaked to get more adduction stress by simply sliding over. Right? Shifting your body, rotating
onto one cheek and then driving your arm up and across your body like you see me doing here.
And of course, you can do the dumbbell pull over, which is really squeezing the hands together,
creating a really hard adduction from the top down to really hit the upper chest better. But the fact
is, guys, all of these exercises are going to allow you to create a better overall contraction,
not isolate the inner chest fibers. That's not necessarily possible. However, we do have some
science to support the fact that doing these full range of motion exercises or as I call them, full
range of contraction exercises, we can actually include some additional fibers into the job.
There's a thing called the non-spinning chest fiber that actually starts here on the sternum
and it heads out towards the arm, but never quite makes it. So, you might think to yourself,
how could they contribute to a contraction that they actually don't attach to the arm
it's pulling? Well, interestingly, what happens is these fibers have proteins that come out of
them that make them somewhat sticky. So as the contracting fibers cross over and slide by them
on the way through full contraction, they grab hold of them, and they involve them in
the contraction. So, you're getting an overall, greater production of force and greater capacity
for growth by involving fibers that maybe never, ever got dragged along for the ride or engaged
because you never went far enough. So, the fact is, guys start taking these exercises all the
way through full range of motion, even if it means lightening the weight and I promise you, you are
going to start to see better results. If you're looking for a step-by-step meal plan,
guys, because again, nutrition matters. I have them included in all my programs as
well as all of our step-by-step workouts to get the job done. They're over at athleanx.com. If
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