What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today I'm going to give you the master tip.
The one that applies to your chest workouts that will make every, single exercise you
do better.
That's why we call it the 'master tip'.
It's actually really, really easy to do.
You just have to be conscious of it and that is the big problem.
We're not.
Let's start with a little test.
Just take your arm, raise it all the way up over your head as high as you can go, and
then look at how you look.
Do you look like me right now?
Does this look like what you're doing?
If it is you're probably really in need of what I'm going to show you here, today.
This isn't right.
I didn't just raise my arm up over my head.
I actually shrugged my shoulder at the same time.
You see, if I were to just take my shoulder out of the shrug position that's how it would
look.
I still raised my arm as high as I could in the shoulder joint, but I also shrugged.
That's not what we want to do and the reason why that happens is because we are way too
overactive in our upper traps because everything we do in a day – whether it's typing, whether
it's driving, whether it's texting – we're always shrugging.
It could even be related to stress, too.
But if you want to get the most out of your chest workouts, and every chest exercise you
do, you've got to stop shrugging.
You've got to get that shrug out of the exercise.
If you try this next test you'll see why.
Take your hand and put it on your chest, and then on that same side, shrug your shoulder
up.
Now in that position bring your arm up, across your chest as if you just finished a dumbbell
bench press, and squeeze as hard as you can.
Now without doing anything, stay in that contracted state and then depress your shoulder.
Get out of that shrug.
Feel the increased strength of contraction that you get just from getting out of that
shrug.
Why is that?
Because the pec major actually assists in shoulder depression, pulling this down.
The lower traps are going to do that, but the pec major wants to do that, too.
In order to be fully contracted you have to get your pecs in that position.
We could do that across all the exercises.
Let me show you.
If you go to the bench press here, one of the most classic exercises – again, if we
don’t look at what we're doing and focus on it we almost always perform this exercise
from a shrugged position, as you're doing here.
You might not even recognize that if I'd never told you in the beginning what we're trying
to focus on.
But as we go here, we know we can make this better and stronger, if we get out of that
position.
So as I make this one little change, I pull those shoulders down, and when I do, now I
press.
When people give you that cue of down and back, down and back a lot of people think
it's one cue.
So they just pull back.
But the down portion is actually pulling your shoulders down toward your feet.
That will give you that depression.
That gives you the increased strength of contraction and a better exercise here when doing it this
way.
Now we can take this to other exercises.
Like I said, the master tip.
If you go to a pushup the same thing applies.
Just because it's bodyweight doesn't mean the same thing isn't working.
When we do the pushup here, again, the natural tendency is to do them with our shoulders
shrugged up.
But if we want to turn that off we've got to activate the lower traps and then pull
them down and when we do the pushup now, the contraction, you'll feel it instantly.
It will be a lot stronger.
You might even fatigue faster doing pushups this way, but who cares?
The goal is to work your chest and to work it maximally, and you're going to do that
this way.
Now we take it over to the dip and it becomes even more challenging.
Why?
Because now we've got the force of gravity acting down on our bodies that's going to
make this even harder because if we have to get our shoulders down that's going to be
tough because we all want to fall this way, right?
The weight of our body is going to drive our shoulders up.
You have to fight it.
This is a little more difficult for somebody to do, but you can still do it.
You press down through here, and now the dip will become better.
So look at the difference.
You can instantly see that exercise becomes, not only more intense, but in the long run
better, and the side effect of all these positions here is that we're getting ourselves into
a safer position.
When we don’t drive our shoulders up this way and try to move our arms no matter what
exercise we're doing, we create more space inside the shoulder joint, leading to the
less likelihood of impingement.
So we have a safer position.
If you have shoulder issues and troubles do this, and I guarantee you're going to be able
to press more safely, or do any of these exercises more safely.
Then finally, we can even do this on a cable crossover.
Again, the tendency is, as we pull, to want to pull with everything.
Here, the likelihood is even higher because we like to cheat and pull that way.
Well, we don’t want to pull with the shoulder up.
If we're doing it that way, again, we're missing out on a major opportunity to make this exercise
better.
Here you can actually see the difference as the chest contracts before, with the shrug
up, and now without.
But the fact is this, guys; there's better ways to do the exercises you're doing if you
know how to do them right.
With one tip sometimes, just one, that's all it takes, it's easy for you to visualize,
finally.
The light clicks, you start doing it, and it becomes automatic from there on out.
You're going to get much more out of it.
That's what we call a master tip.
I think you guys are going to find this helpful.
Again, you can apply this to any single exercise you do for your chest.
It underscores what I always say here, on this channel.
It's not what you do.
It's how you do what you do, and why you do what you do that helps you to understand it,
that empowers you to be able to get a lot more out of your training.
That's what this channel has always stood for.
That's what it's always going to stand for, and that's what all the programs I've put
together are about.
So it's not just about telling you what to do.
It's about why you do it, and how you do it the best way to get the most out of it.
If you're looking for a pogrom that does that, head to ATHLEANX.com by clicking the link
below this video.
We have a program selector there that will allow you to get the program that is best
suited to your specific goals.
Maybe it's size.
Maybe it's strictly fat loss.
Maybe it's a little bit of both.
We have programs for all of that over there.
Make sure you use that.
It takes a couple minutes to do.
In the meantime, if you found the video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up below.
Let me know what you want me to cover in future videos and I'll do my best to do that for
you.
All right, guys.
See you soon.