What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
A chest non-responder.
What is that?
It's somebody that tends to not get the chest development that they want because they're
letting other muscles do the job that the chest is trying to do in the first place.
And when we talk about the chest we're really talking about the delts wanting to take over
and do everything for you.
Today I'm going to show you the number one thing you want to do to try to get those delts
to shut the hell up and let the chest do its job.
Of course, we're breaking out the muscle markers to help explain how this all works.
So let's draw some muscle marker action here.
What we have is the front delt.
Okay, the front delt is going to come off the end of our shoulder here and it's going
to come down through here, insert in there, and it's going to come up and around here,
and head down that direction.
That's the front delt.
Now really close by is the upper chest.
Really, the pecs in general are going to suffer from this.
I'm going to show you here today.
But the upper chest is the one that fits right in there, and that's coming off the clavicle,
coming down, and heads down toward the arm that way, and of course, right up underneath
here, and heads down toward the arm that way.
So what we basically have are these two muscles that are really close in proximity.
So what does that mean?
It means everything when we're trying to determine how to get the chest to actually respond and
get the shoulders to shut up.
What we do is we look right here, right off the bat with a bench press.
So with the bench we come down into position here, the first thing we want to do is make
sure the microphone doesn’t choke me.
The second thing we want to do is look at the pressing, how we do it.
When we press up the major mistake you're going to make is allowing the shoulder to
become the first line of defense and take over.
So if the shoulder gets in front of the pec itself then it's going to take on the brunt
of the press.
So what we want to do is make sure that the delt stays behind and the chest leads.
We can do that two different ways.
One of them is sort of a "Cam Newton drill" that I say.
You take this, you open your chest up.
The Superman.
Reveal the "S", right?
By doing this we're actually taking our shoulders and putting them down and back – as you've
probably heard many times – is a proper position.
It's also lifting the sternum up, but more importantly it's letting the chest lead the
way.
You see what happened to the delt?
It shifted backward and let the blue pec come up in front.
As opposed to this where now the delt is dominating, coming in front of the pec.
You can even see the pec give way and let it take over.
We don’t want that.
So what we do is get up and press here.
Let the arms come down, but the chest doesn’t sink on the way.
The chest stays up, the arms come down, and then when we press we don’t let the shoulder
take over.
We keep it back as the arms come up.
Down, keep it back, as the arms come up.
You'll feel, immediately, your chest do a hell of a lot more of the work.
Now this would work on an incline press as well.
But we can do more than that.
We can do pushups.
If I come over here and I get down on the ground and do a pushup, I'm actually doing
the same thing.
We know that we need the chest to be able to lead the way and be the first line of defense.
Let it do the press when my arms are pressing, and don't let the arms start doing this.
There is something called a pushup plus which we do want the arms to protract when we're
working on our serratus, but that's a different deal.
That's not for those that are struggling to build their chest.
So we want to do the same thing.
We don’t want the front delt to come in front and then let that all cave in.
you can feel this.
You can feel the delt take over if it goes in front.
You'll feel your chest – look – just give in and give way.
You don’t want that.
You want to be able to do this.
So in action it's going to look like this.
We come down, we're right here, we lower ourselves down to the ground – again, we want to open
ourselves up.
Boom.
Down to the ground, here, come all the way down.
As we press up, lead the way with the chest, keep the shoulders back.
Down, boom.
Here.
Now your pushup count is probably going to take a significant hit, but who cares?
It's about directing the work where you're trying to get it in the first place.
If your delt is dominating it's not going to where you want it.
Okay?
Like that.
Now, finally another chest exercise.
Nothing changes.
Everything's the same.
It can carry over to dips.
We get up in the dip station here.
Again, talking about opening it up.
Here, drag, brings your shoulder blades down, back, lift your sternum up when we're in this
position, grab on here.
Now we come up, and again we don’t allow the delts to jump forward and allow the chest
to quiet down.
Instead, what we do is keep them back, up, dive down, and press up with the chest.
Combining the fact that I've always told you guys "Don't let your shoulders shrug up either,
to take away the work from the chest."
Keep them down, and depressed.
Down, and back to get them to work the most.
So something you can take to virtually any of the big exercises on your chest.
The fact of the matter is, forget this non-responder.
What you need to do is you need to figure out ways to force it to respond.
There's always a way.
A lot of times it might take a little bit less weight – just a little bit – until
you learn the technique and you're able to let the chest start taking over and then start
bringing back the weights that you were working with.
Either way, these will work or I think you're going to find them helpful.
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All right, guys.
See you soon.