Thread: Isolating the whole chest...

cant help ya on that one but thought id say wut up

do you mean middle of each pec or middle of your entire chest (close to the dividing line)

Inner Chest muscles. " Clevage"

some exercises that isolate this area would be cable crossovers, any type of db or cable fly. i would often superset or dropset these exercises to try and jump start my "cleavage" into growth since it is lacking compared to the rest of my chest

We have debated this many times, IMO there is no way to isolate any one part of the pec, it's a single muscle and it will grow as a whole, just as any muscle does and will. To say different is to say that it's possible to shape a muscle, which is impossible.

prince, i understand what your sayin. But does that mean incline press won't help me develop my upper chest? does that mean cable flies wont help me target my inner chest to a greater degree? most people cant just do bench press and grow a huge and proportioned chest. if it was that simple no one would bother with any other exercises.

No you cannot target your upper chest, middle chest or lower chest, and yes it is that simple.

Why do other exercises? To hit the chest from different angles.

Can you build a proportional chest with just flat bench press? Yes you can, as I said the pec is ONE muscle, it will grow as a whole.

Can you build your chest to it's fullest potential with just flat bench press? Not likely, a multitude of exercises for every muscle group using varying rep ranges, poundages, sets, etc., are needed to keep the muscles in a continued state of hypertrophy.

You can believe and argue all you want that incline bench press makes your upper chest grow, I really do not care.

answer this for me then. back in high school, when all i did was bb and db presses for my chest, my middle chest was nothing. all my pec mass was packed along the outter portions of my chest. when i started to incoporate flies my inner chest filled out to where it is today. how is that possible if what u say is true?

Your Pectoralis Minor was more developed due to bench pressing being your only chest exercise. Once you incorporated other chest exercises you began developing the Pectoralis Major.

With the many different attachment points of the chest I do believe that incline presses have absolutely without a doubt made a different on my upper chest.

To me this is like saying that pulling on one corner of a cars bumper puts equal stress on each side, which is not true - there is angle and there is leverage meaning that the source of the stress is going to be unequally spread.

This is why I start off with incline presses, and all the proof I need is right here.

If you study muscle physiology you will learn that a muscle grows as a whole regardless of where the stress is placed.

I dont feel I am being fooled by illusion, not in the least.

So, you're disagreeing with a scientific fact?

Maybe using the angle of incline did cause growth in your chest as a whole, but not in one specific area.

If you could cause one area of a muscle to grow that is saying that it is possible to shape a muscle, is it not?

Science has made mistakes before, I prefer to look at it as simple science. I do not believe the force of contraction is the same at the bottom and on the top.

This topic is so overdebated because there is NO fact in regard to it. Personally, I believe you can target different parts upper and lower because that is the direction the fibers run, but it would not be possible to hit the left and right portions. I have seen some BBers who can flex just a part of their chest and you can only see those fibers firing. If only those fibers fire, then I would have to say that the whole chest wouldn't grow, just that portion, but I could be wrong. I don't really believe that inclines hit upper any better than flat, but I imagine for some people who are wired that way it is a distinct possibly that this is so. To say it is impossible would be incorrect since I don't think there has been any GOOD research into the topic, but I would love to see some.

This made me think of that book called something along the lines of Magnetic Muscle(?), which was MRI scans of muscles after certain movements.

My upper chest has come up noticeably since prioritizing incline work, that is all the proof I need to continue doing so. I can see it, and I can feel it, not just the mass but a nice striation/dimple between my upper and lower chest.

Originally posted by Mudge
My upper chest has come up noticeably since prioritizing incline work, that is all the proof I need to continue doing so. I can see it, and I can feel it, not just the mass but a nice striation/dimple between my upper and lower chest.

i feel the same way you do Mudge

the entire chest will grow with any 1 excersise...wheater it is flat bench or incline... or flyes for that matter.... but at different rates .... its not like the ousiide wont grow if all you do is flyes, just not as much as in the inner chest.... just my 2 cents

Originally posted by jadakris31
the entire chest will grow with any 1 excersise...wheater it is flat bench or incline...

I get something from flat pressing but not very much at all in the upper chest area. I would also say that I can clearly feel differences in contractile force with one angle versus another.

Mudge, you're missing the point.

I am sure you can feel it, but the fact remains that a muscle grows as a whole. If you benefit from inclines than for god's sakes do them, just undestand that you cannot isolate different regions of a single muscle. It does not matter which motor units are firing, or where you feel sore within a muscle, it will still grow proportionally as a whole.

Do you think that you can isolate the top of your bicep and cause a peak to grow by doing preacher curls? That is the same rationale that you're using with "upper" chest.

It is not the same rationale because there are many more attachment points and much more distance for the chest, again I am talking about angles here. I will draw it out if I have to

For the bicep there is hardly any seperation from the two points where each part of the bicep pull from, on the chest I've got a good 6 or 7 inch spread.

I'm not talking isolation, just favoritism/strength of contraction.

there is only one insertion point on the humerous.

Do this, flex your arm in front of you as though you're doing a flat flye movement, now with your other arm feel your pec. Is the entire pec (upper, middle & lower) tight or just the lower? Of course the entire pec is tight and flexed, and no matter how you move the angle of your arm the entire pec will remain tight and flexed in each position.

I think there are three muscles that make up chest so maybe certain isolation exercises may help one over the other in development.
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Ok, so to achieve the line that seperates one pec from the other all the way up to the clavicles what needs to be done? Is this done by developing the upper, lower, and middle parts of the chest? Is it done by just developing a really big chest? Is it also a matter of low bf %? Or is it a combination of all of these?

Nothing will get you that separation line if you you do not posses the genetics in the first place (just like a bicep peak), I assume you mean the one that was so very prominent on Franco Columbo.

Yes, like arnold here:



This is just the genetic shaping of the muscle?

Hard, heavy lifting with great intensity causes the greatest amount of growth in my experience. Prince is absolutely correct in saying you cannot shape a muscle or tone it with higher reps to make it more "cut". A muscle is already shapley and cut, just covered with skin and fat. If you want to make it grow, you need to do basic free heavy exercies with great intensity to overload the muscle. Incline press, bench and decline are pretty much all you need to grow. Things like flys dont overload the muslce, they simply fatigue it.