What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
Today we're talking about the outer pec.
I know there's no such thing as a specifically targeted outer pec, but if your pec is looking
a little bit like Jessie's here, I'm telling you there's something you can do about it
in your training.
What we're talking about with Jessie is that outer pec that doesn’t' necessarily stand
at attention.
It kind of blends in with the ribcage.
It's a really common thing.
Though we can't target these fibers here, there are things we can do to deliver more
tension, overall, to the pec that is going to lead to better overall development.
I'm telling you right now, you're going to start to see the differences right there in
the outer pec because we're talking about the origin of this muscle.
So we're talking about this chunk over here.
Now, I certainly don’t have the biggest pecs in the world, but I have this definition,
and this development of the outer pec because I have good development of the origin of the
muscle.
I've even broken out the muscle marker to show you what we're talking about.
It's all the way out here on the arm, and of course the insertion is over here on our
sternum.
So what I'm saying is, if we can increase the range of motion through all of your chest
exercises, and at the same time try to increase the amount of tension we can deliver to this
muscle in its fully stretched position, we're going to have the recipe for a bigger outer
pec by virtue of just increasing overall tension.
So let's see how we actually apply it to certain exercises.
We'll start with the dip because that's actually pretty easy to see the difference.
When I'm doing the dip here, this one little change makes all the difference in the world.
What I'm doing here is, I'm increasing the distance, the range of motion that I have
to go through in the exercise, by simply shifting the origin and the insertion further away
from each other by adapting the position of my shoulder.
A lot of us will do a dip with a rounded shoulder.
What that's doing is, that's limiting the range of motion, but also putting your shoulder
in a pretty dangerous position.
So we can fix this, and kill two birds with one stone by moving our shoulders back.
When we do that you can see, as I start to dip here, I'm delivering more effective tension
to that muscle.
But you can see right here on the muscle marker, instead of being here – as I was showing
you – just by making that change I've increased the distance from here, to here significantly.
So I have a lot more range for that muscle to contract through.
Of course, what we can do is, once we appreciate the fact that we have more range of motion
to play with you want to start trying to hang out there a little bit more.
When you're at the bottom of the dip, where this muscle is maximally stretched, hang out,
and apply more tension there.
Don’t try to bounce in and out of there.
Don’t try to get out of there as fast as you can.
Bathe in it a little bit.
Enjoy the fact that it does burn, but that pain right there is going to lead to more
tension over time.
It doesn’t stop with the dip.
It can go over here to our 3D crossover exercise that we do.
Now, I like this, as opposed to a fly because I have more control over the bottom position.
I can more safely train this pec muscle through the same excursion as a fly without having
the danger of that long momentum arm unsupported on the bench.
But regardless of what exercises you decide to choose here, the goal is the same.
Increase the stretch there.
Widen out the elbow.
Don’t let it travel so close to your torso because you're limiting the effective range
of motion that the pec will travel to, and contract through.
Meaning, you're limiting the tension that you can deliver to that muscle.
Meaning, you're eliminating its potential growth.
If have it out there, hangout there for a little while.
One or two seconds at the bottom of every, single rep.
Add more tension and accumulated time in that elongated position.
We can do the same thing on pushups.
Pushups are the same thing.
How are you descending to the ground?
Are you trying to expand your chest?
Because if you're not, you're losing an opportunity to add to that overall chest development.
When you go down try to get your elbows as wide as you can.
Try to expand your chest apart so you're actually adding, and increasing that length once again,
of origin to insertion.
Then the same thing here, finally, on the bench-press.
When you're doing the bench-press a lot of us fall into this habit of just pushing our
hands up and down.
But are you thinking more about your elbows?
Because you should be.
Your elbows should be going apart, and then up, and together.
Apart, and together.
I've even talked about it being in terms of your biceps going apart, and together.
You can see when we do that we're increasing the length, the range of motion, and yes,
the tension at the origin of the muscle.
That origin, once again, is the outer pec.
We're talking about as the muscle starts right here, I can literally grab it, and come down
here as it starts to fan into, and work its way into the sternum.
So we want to try to increase tension there, guys.
On every, single exercise we do.
A lot of us will short arm it, a lot of us will go through a shortened range of motion,
and a lot of us will try to get out of that position because it's probably the most intense
of the entire exercise.
But I'm telling you to do the opposite of that.
I'm telling you to enjoy it, and use it to your advantage, and your outer pecs will start
looking a lot better just from focusing on the way you're doing the exercises you're
already doing.
Guys, if you're looking for a program that puts the science back in strength you can
head to ATHLEANX.com and choose a program that's most suited to your current goals.
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of course, we'll link another related video up here for you to watch just so you can keep
the chest gains rolling.
All right, guys.
I'll be back here again soon.
See you.