Upper Chest, Lower Chest, is there really such a difference?
Today we're going to talk about exactly that and more importantly, what you can do about
it.
What's up guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.COM
We're going to talk today about one of the most highly debated, probably classic body
building, shall we say, issues of all time.
And that is, the difference between the upper chest, the lower chest, the inner chest, the
outer chest.
Can you train them independently?
Now, we know right off the bat, the chest muscle is going to act like all other muscles,
it's going to contract, all or none.
That means, if there's a muscle contraction going on, the entire belly of that muscle
will contract.
So that would be enough evidence for most people to say, there's no such thing as going
after the upper chest.
There's no such thing as going after the lower chest.
Now before we can get into the remedy, to discuss the inner and outer chest at this
point.
Because there really is no separate portion of that muscle.
Alright but for this part, upper and lower, there is.
Now there is a portion of the chest, I'm going to show you here with my drawing and simulate,
just chest, that is the clavicular portion of the pectoralis.
And it basically attaches here to the clavicle and heads down and out, in this direction.
And then we've got the pec major here, which is the sternal part of it, which attaches
to the sternum and comes across here.
So, what is the difference?
Well, number 1 and very key, is this has a separate nerve innervation than does this
part of the pec.
Two separate nerve innervations.
That means, capable of being controlled at little bit differently.
Alright, so that's number 1.
Number 2.
In terms of what part of the pec is working.
It's really hard to argue here, that there's no such thing as more of an upper pec exercise
versus a lower pec.
Well, how do we display that?
Because, the first thing guys, is if you put your arm behind you right here.
And then you flex forward.
You're going to see that I get this line of the delt.
Ok, the interior delt pops out and I can see sort of what's left over here.
And this is what we are talking about, see the pec in through here.
Now, the actions of the pec are going to be flex the arm, horizontally adduct it, bring
it across your body and internally rotate at the shoulder.
If I were to do a movement, down here, and adduct my arm across my chest, here ok.
There's no doubt that I have lower pec activation here.
Mostly again, pec major from the sternal portion.
Ok, right across from here, down.
There's not all that much going on up in these fibers, why?
Because the motor units responsible for contracting the clavicular portion up here, aren't really
being recruited.
They're not necessary at that point.
The mechanical advantage, they're at a disadvantage when we're talking about something down here.
So down here, the mechanical advantage at this point, is going to be the sternal portion
of it.
So they're going to activate.
But when I start to raise that up and beyond.
Look at the sternal portion here, I'm still adducting my arm across my body.
I'm still internally rotating the shoulder, I'm still flexing the shoulder.
All three components of pec contraction.
No doubt, everything is contracting.
Everything is contracting.
But the only thing that is really working on overtime here, are the muscle fibers here,
the motor units firing in the sternal portion to get them to work.
And if I turn just a little bit to the side, you can see that.
You didn't see it down here.
You can see it here, because it's true.
So, when anybody ever tells you, stop doing the different versions of the exercises because
they're not useful.
That's completely false.
You want to make sure, that you're targeting the upper chest, in different ways than you
would be if you were using all your other, kind of pressing motions and things like that.
Now, here's one other thing that you can do.
I look at it like the glutes.
When we talk about the glutes, as an athlete, the glutes are often under active.
And that causes the hamstrings to act more.
And normally, when the hamstrings have to act for themselves and the glutes, you get
hamstring injuries.
When we talk about the pecs, if I just showed you here that part of shoulder elevation,
is going to be this clavicular portion of the chest working to fire, to actually elevate.
Then if I were to do this, and hold it in here, bring it across my body.
So, adduct, and then lift up.
You can see I can get some activation here.
So I can actually train activation.
Small movement, wake them up, like the glutes, wake them up.
Get some activation of these fibers, get control of that.
It's then going to assist the front delt to do the job that is is supposed to.
What happens when it doesn't?
If you have sort of this amnesia of the upper area of your chest, where you can't get it
to fire.
Then the front delt has to do all shoulder elevation.
And when that happens guy, without getting too deep.
It overpowers the rotator cuff, pulls the humerus up, leaves less space inside of here,
and you can get some serious rotator cuff problems.
So you can see, we can take an aesthetic thing, of how do I get my upper chest to look better,
and tie it into something athletic.
Because of, what we're talking about here, this amnesia from one muscle when it's supposed
to be meant to help another muscle.
So a lot of complicated things here but breaking it down, there is a difference.
And the difference is not in the contraction, muscles contract all or none.
But the difference is in, how are they firing?
What is the recruitment going on?
What muscle fibers are being recruited, and the reason that happens, is because of mechanical
advantage.
If I'm doing something down here, mechanically it's more advantageous for me to flex from
down below.
If I'm doing something up here, again the same motions, it's more advantageous for me
to contract from up above.
There is a difference, so you've got to train that way.
Guys, I hope this worked out and was useful for you.
It got a little bit again of that zone of maybe, deep.
Right, but if you break it down, step by step, you'll see and start doing them yourself,
feel the difference in doing the exact motions that I just did and you will see that there
is a difference.
So when it comes to your training, whether it be aesthetic goals, looking better or athletic
goals.
You've got to kind of tie them together.
And that's what we're talking about with training like an athlete.
It's always going to have an overlap.
So I don't care what you individual specific goal is here, there's going to be an overlap.
And you still have to train the right way.
Start training the right way, by heading over to ATHLEANX.COM right now, and grabbing our
90 day training program and start to do things, like this, the way your muscles are meant
to be trained.
In the meantime, I'll be back here guys, in just a couple of days with yet another workout.
Leave your comments below and a thumb up, if this helped to clarify the mystery a little
bit.