Originally posted by The_Chicken_Daddy
Hmmm...
Even if you could activate fibres in the "lower" lats, you're not gonna be able to isolate them from the fibres in the "upper" lats, hence growth will occur all over and the original question of how "to build up the lower portion of my lats" is futile.
Think about it people, if you could target various regions of muscles and actually cause significant growth in those areas, your muscles would be all bumpy and uneven. Not to mention you could almost "re-design" the "basic shape" of the human anatomy, which i have yet to see. Once i do, i'll re-consider my standing on intramuscular targetting. Until then...
Yes, but growth most certainly does NOT occur evenly anyway! I don't think it EVER does! And maybe you cannot ISOLATE persay, but how about putting enough extra stress within one region more so than another to possibly induce slightly MORE hypertrophy than in another region? The body does not grow evenly, otherwise bodybuilders would only have to use compound movements! And then, with your logic, when some part of them was lagging, you'd just attribute it to bad genetics and stop there, well horse pucky!
Just look at athletes in different types of sports and see how specific training develops one's muscles differently. There is definitely no doubt that you can target different muscle heads. Yes it is more of a debate about targeting specific regions within a muscle but because the muscles are so complex, I believe it is possible.
For instance, there have been extensive studies done on discovering fiber type distribution (which I didn't even realize this til I did some further research) within human muscle tissue which have shown that certain sections within the same muscle group are made up of more fast or slow twitch fibers, like more fast twitch fibers near insertion points for example. Now that ALONE would account for the muscle's shape! So while people's muscles are very similar, some people could have a higher percentage of fast twitch fibers in certain regions such as the belly of the biceps, which would give them more of a peak. So perhaps people without a peak just have to work harder on targeting their fast twitch fibers since they have less of them to create the mass needed for the peak!
So now if for instance the upper lats are made up of more fast twitch fibers and the lower portion is made up of more slow twitch fibers, then it would stand to reason that you would train differently in order to stimulate the fibers that the section of muscle you are looking to improve. And this can be done in many ways, changes in angles of exercises, changing number of reps, or speed of movement, etc. Nobody has perfect symmetry, we all have flaws due to our genetics so those lagging parts have to be worked on harder than perhaps someone else.
TCD, I think you are just not giving the human body/muscles enough credit, you are making it more simplistic than it really is. I think there is plenty of evidence that different exercises target different heads and different sections of the muscle groups more than others and it just happens to be something that is very difficult to prove. But people should know that you can't always "prove" everything! We know there is gravity because of the EFFECTS it has but we can't actually prove IT exists. Well, this might just be another example of that, cause I sure can see the evidence, it's there, some just choose to ignore it or will be waiting til their dying day for proof that may never come. And those are the ones who are probably cutting themselves short just cause something hasn't been tangibly "proved".
To me that is like arguing with my speed skating coach if he tells me some weird drill will help my skating. I wouldn't say no and ask him to "prove" it, I mean, how could he? I just trust him because he's got years of experience and has been coaching for years, many top level skaters came from his training. So in the same way I trust bodybuilders who have been training for years, or PT's who have been training BB's for years. And people like you, TCD, are so freaking stubborn that you will STILL demand your "proof".
I think you're a hopeless case. Quite frustrating, that's for sure, ya stubborn 'ole coot. You're gonna grow up to be one stubborn old man, lol!
And in the case with Snake Eyes, he's not frustrating cause he's not making it too simplistic and he's backing up/explaining why he feels a certain way. TCD, your rebuttals just don't hold much weight if ya know what I mean, (no offense) you just don't give very strong arguments for your side. Okay I'm done. For
now...
I know. 
