Thread: pecs

when it comes to a lagging body part form has to be the number one thing. you have to drop the weight and do it with the strictest form. when on the bech or machine and you are pushing, try to bring your shoulder blades together. stick your chest out. this will disengage your front delts. when using a bar use this technique, its called intentions= use your regular grip, grab very tightly and force your honds towards each other(dont move your grip just push your hands towards eachther). Also, focus your mass bulding moves(the heaviest exc.) on the upper chest. Variety is also key. change up your routine. hope some of this helps ya

Originally Posted by gymrat09091974

when it comes to a lagging body part form has to be the number one thing. you have to drop the weight and do it with the strictest form. when on the bech or machine and you are pushing, try to bring your shoulder blades together. stick your chest out. this will disengage your front delts. when using a bar use this technique, its called intentions= use your regular grip, grab very tightly and force your honds towards each other(dont move your grip just push your hands towards eachther). Also, focus your mass bulding moves(the heaviest exc.) on the upper chest. Variety is also key. change up your routine. hope some of this helps ya

I wish there were some video to illustrate this

its all about feel bro. you can watch videos all day long but you have to the a mind/body conection. you have to learn how to target the muscle youre working. and i hate to say it but genetics are a bitch. if you dont genetically have a good chest, you will only get so far

I think I have good genetics. When in my teens they called me barrel chested.
Never knew what it ment

Most people I've seen with pec problems have too narrow of a grip on bb bench and inclined. Too narrow and your tri's get more work than your chest. When at the bottom of your lift, your elbows should be about 45 degrees from you ribs or halfway from parrell with the bar.

I had this same problem when I first started hitting weights years ago. I know exactly the problem you are having. No matter what grip I used on bench press it's the front of my shoulders that were soar. I started getting big wide shoulders but my chest stayed flat.

Let me tell you the best advice I got that has done wonders for my chest. Use dumbells for chest instead of the barbell. I know most swear by the barbell bench, but I responded to using dumbells almost right away. 2nd best thing I did that I neglected at first was doing decline. I found the position awkward so I didn't do it. Later on when I became more obsessed with working out I added decline dumbells to my chest routine and got a much thicker fuller chest.

I do heavy decline, Incline, then flat all 3 with dumbells 3 sets of 8 (failure) for each.

My chest now is one of my best body parts. Try using dumbells and see if respond better. I noticed right away when my chest was soar as hell.

Good luck brotha

Sounds like you're bringing the bar down too high up on your chest. When the bar touches your chest it should be right over the xiphoid process (the part of your chest just below the sternum) picture here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Xiphoid_process.png

You might also want to try doing more decline bench presses, and cable flyes. There's a style of cable flye that looks like one of those wind-up monkeys clapping cymbals... you 'clap' your hands with arms straight out in between the uprights of a cable machine, moving them only about two feet apart, with the pulleys placed just below shoulder height so you're pulling just slightly upwards.

dropsets always helps my lagging areas and the advice above about bringing the bar down across your sternum to help target pecs

All good sound advice. I will try them all and see what works for me. Keep them coming

Chest Flies have helped me because I had the same problem basically. My chest is not filling out more since I've started including chest flies so definitely try that if you don't do that now...

Originally Posted by gymrat09091974

when it comes to a lagging body part form has to be the number one thing. you have to drop the weight and do it with the strictest form. when on the bech or machine and you are pushing, try to bring your shoulder blades together. stick your chest out. this will disengage your front delts. when using a bar use this technique, its called intentions= use your regular grip, grab very tightly and force your honds towards each other(dont move your grip just push your hands towards eachther). Also, focus your mass bulding moves(the heaviest exc.) on the upper chest. Variety is also key. change up your routine. hope some of this helps ya

This is some solid advice right here. My chest was the same way so when i dropped the weight and focused on the contraction more than just moving alt of weight.....my chest has started to fill out quite well.

Throw in more work to get a pump in your chest.

remember their are 4 parts to your peck you must hit every single part in order for it to get noticeably bigger

Mind muscle connection is huge when it comes to isolating delts I've found.

How many exercises for chest would you guys reccomend when your bulking.. Training 3 years weigth 165 maxing 245 bench need a bigger chest and increase max press any recomendations???

Originally Posted by returnofthdragon

Most people I've seen with pec problems have too narrow of a grip on bb bench and inclined. Too narrow and your tri's get more work than your chest. When at the bottom of your lift, your elbows should be about 45 degrees from you ribs or halfway from parrell with the bar.

Agreed. Also try dumbbells and dumbbell flyes instead of barbell.

Originally Posted by cg89

remember their are 4 parts to your peck you must hit every single part in order for it to get noticeably bigger

What do you recomend

Originally Posted by Andresh

How many exercises for chest would you guys reccomend when your bulking.. Training 3 years weigth 165 maxing 245 bench need a bigger chest and increase max press any recomendations???

A good question

Originally Posted by ExLe

I had this same problem when I first started hitting weights years ago. I know exactly the problem you are having. No matter what grip I used on bench press it's the front of my shoulders that were soar. I started getting big wide shoulders but my chest stayed flat.

Let me tell you the best advice I got that has done wonders for my chest. Use dumbells for chest instead of the barbell. I know most swear by the barbell bench, but I responded to using dumbells almost right away. 2nd best thing I did that I neglected at first was doing decline. I found the position awkward so I didn't do it. Later on when I became more obsessed with working out I added decline dumbells to my chest routine and got a much thicker fuller chest.

I do heavy decline, Incline, then flat all 3 with dumbells 3 sets of 8 (failure) for each.

My chest now is one of my best body parts. Try using dumbells and see if respond better. I noticed right away when my chest was soar as hell.

Good luck brotha

Yep dumbells all the way, bench was just giving my shoulders a workout, let the dumbells come down as far as possible and really stretch the muscle, continous tension ftw.

You should consider using different exercises. The bench press certainly stimulates your chest, but depend on exact muscle origin/insertion, angle of pennation, grip width, and relatively neuromuscular efficiency of the muscle groups involved, you may or may not use your chest musculature to the level that another person will.

Consider using dumbbells, trying declines/inclines, or dips for compound movements. If you really are suffering lagging development in the chest region, then isolation work can certainly help as well.

Today at the gym I saw a bench press machine, The handled rotated all the way around. I got a grip with thumb side slightly out that way my elbows would not flare. I arched my back squeezing middle back together.
Great pec workout. My delts were not pre fatigued so they got a great work out. Before my rotater cup would hurt before I got a good pec pump.
Not today. Thanks guys

You could also try some pre-exhaustion work for your pecs.

Originally Posted by dirtwarrior

I wish there were some video to illustrate this

Agreed!

Originally Posted by dirtwarrior

I posted this on another forum and got some interesting comments so I will post here.
My front delts and tris are growing fast while my pecs are lagging. I do bench press but must be doing it wrong cause delts and tri are blowing up. Pecs are deflated.
Help

I've got one word for you, "Declines".

Decline press and heavy weighted dips! After a shoulder injury I took a long time out of the gym and recently just started working chest again. I started using the hammer strength machines wide and decline presses (which I love) and chest came back in no time. I also now do heavy weighted dips and just started adding in decline presses because its the only barbell press I can do pain free, it is the least stressful on the shoulders. Also try forced reps, drop sets and super slow negatives after going to failure

I do weight assist dips atm.
Later I will do weighted

dumb bell press is my fav pec workout, when mixin it up with wide grip pushups