Thread: why try different angles???

prevent stagnation. also, to be strong ina varitey of ranges of motion.

Hitting low and high chest presses "WILL" incorporate other muscles besides chest and tri's

In the case of inclines, you will be making your anterior delts more of a prime mover; in addition, I believe you serratus anterior also comes into play more at lockout if you're doing inclines at a steep angle. As well, it's good to give your central nervous system varied stimuli. It also helps prevent boredom in your workouts.

OK...why does everyone here say that inclines do not build your upper chest then?

Originally Posted by lnvanry

OK...why does everyone here say that inclines do not build your upper chest then?

Because you can't contract one part of a muscle. It either contracts, or it doesn't. Isolating the upper, middle and lower pecs (chest) Check the sig also.

no but it stresses it more than the lower part of the chest....

Uh oh.. here we go... were's johnnny?

Originally Posted by lnvanry

OK...why does everyone here say that inclines do not build your upper chest then?

Because anatomy says otherwise. They both share the same insertion point, which is on the anterior portion of the humerus. This is the part of the body that moves during a contraction of the pectoralis major. Functionally, both heads do the same thing.

The argument from those who believe inclines build your upper chest is mostly based on empirical evidence. Also, there are some EMG studies to support this claim.

Take your pick. I don't believe it's possible to "emphasize" the clavicular head, but I still feel incline pressing is a valuable asset to almost anyone's training routine.

Dennis James usually starts his chest routine off with incline bench presses on barbell or smith machine(he prioritizes incline first) and guess what? his upper chest is pretty damn big, yes he does have good genetics and has been training for a long time, but it is still much larger than other pros upper chest.....

Originally Posted by swordfish

Dennis James usually starts his chest routine off with incline bench presses on barbell or smith machine(he prioritizes incline first) and guess what? his upper chest is pretty damn big, yes he does have good genetics and has been training for a long time, but it is still much larger than other pros upper chest.....

"There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former begets knowledge, the latter ignorance. "

-Hippocrates

- Is that an agree or disagree?

does anyone know any good exercises for the inner chest? i wanna get HUGE like brad pitt in fight club

Originally Posted by swordfish

Dennis James usually starts his chest routine off with incline bench presses on barbell or smith machine(he prioritizes incline first) and guess what? his upper chest is pretty damn big, yes he does have good genetics and has been training for a long time, but it is still much larger than other pros upper chest.....

I always hate this explanation. This guy does X activity and he has Y results, so X MUST be the cause of Y. Wrong. Way too many variables. That means nothing.

so these explainations on this thread are theories?

i dont know if this is tru but this is how i think. say your doing flat and incline DB presses, while the same muscles contract, throwing them in different agles allow different muscle fibers to break, and therefore the more fibers you can damage the more growth you can see. idk how tru this is but it makes sence and i know im not the only one who thinks this

ok then cowpimp and p-funk, here's an example that I must share. This is my current routine on chest

1st exercise- incline barbell bench press
2nd exercise- flat barbell bench

I do 2-3 sets of 6-10 reps and I go all out. EVERY TIME I HAVE DONE THIS MY UPPER CHEST IS MUCH MORE SORE THAN THE MIDDLE OF MY CHEST, but if I do flat first, the middle of my chest is much more sore than my upper chest.

You can say whatever you like but there is a reason why incline bench press works the upper chest significantly more than the lower or middle.

Originally Posted by swordfish

I do 2-3 sets of 6-10 reps and I go all out. EVERY TIME I HAVE DONE THIS MY UPPER CHEST IS MUCH MORE SORE THAN THE MIDDLE OF MY CHEST, but if I do flat first, the middle of my chest is much more sore than my upper chest.

Being sore doesn't mean anything.

Originally Posted by ihateschoolmt

Being sore doesn't mean anything.

Ding ding ding.

That's a little like saying, "I do deadlifts followed by narrow squats and afterwards my quads kill. That means the deadlifts emphasize the quads."

It doesn't make sense. You're doing two different exercises and saying that switching the order of them works part of a muscle more. Maybe I'm just not seeing the logic here...

i disagree with all of you.

yeah they're theories but so is just about anything really,muscle shaping, gravity, big bang etc. point is the current scientific information tends to point more towards a muscle contracting as a whole. just like we can't prove, beyond a doubt, scientifically, that big bang and evolution are the beginnings of life its just that scientifically there is more evidence pointing to evolution etc vs some powerful entity just creating the universe with a snap of his(or hers or its) proverbial fingers.

Sticky!

Originally Posted by Yanick

yeah they're theories but so is just about anything really,muscle shaping, gravity, big bang etc. point is the current scientific information tends to point more towards a muscle contracting as a whole. just like we can't prove, beyond a doubt, scientifically, that big bang and evolution are the beginnings of life its just that scientifically there is more evidence pointing to evolution etc vs some powerful entity just creating the universe with a snap of his(or hers or its) proverbial fingers.

Sticky!

fuck the sliding fillament theory. I am going to come up with the P-funk fillament theory of muscular contraction.

Originally Posted by CowPimp

I always hate this explanation. This guy does X activity and he has Y results, so X MUST be the cause of Y. Wrong. Way too many variables. That means nothing.

haha so true, i just this post for some reason. my teacher explained that with a very good example, although i already knew that correlation does not mean a cause and effect relationship. his example:

most scandinavians have blond hair (high positive correlation, except with a much more statistically significant number of participants vs 1 juiced up freak of nature)

however if you move to scandinavia (is that even the country i don't know, lol) your hair won't turn blond

and if you dye your hair blond you won't become scandinavian

Originally Posted by P-funk

fuck the sliding fillament theory. I am going to come up with the P-funk fillament theory of muscular contraction.

no it's "P-Side Theory of Muscular Contraction"...dick

Originally Posted by swordfish

ok then cowpimp and p-funk, here's an example that I must share. This is my current routine on chest

1st exercise- incline barbell bench press
2nd exercise- flat barbell bench

I do 2-3 sets of 6-10 reps and I go all out. EVERY TIME I HAVE DONE THIS MY UPPER CHEST IS MUCH MORE SORE THAN THE MIDDLE OF MY CHEST, but if I do flat first, the middle of my chest is much more sore than my upper chest.

You can say whatever you like but there is a reason why incline bench press works the upper chest significantly more than the lower or middle.

Okay, but that doesn't mean your upper chest is going to hypertrophy more.

Look, I already presented the explanation of both sides. You aren't changing my opinion and I'm not changing yours. That is why I presented both sides. You're presenting just what I said, empirical evidence. If that's enough for you, then fine. I really don't care. I'm not going deep into this for the 4.7 millionth time.

The bottom line is that both sides feel that inclines are valuable to a weight training routine, so it really doesn't matter.