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HOW TO BUILD PECTORAL MUSCLES?
🕑 Added 2023-03-25 23:10:11 +0000 UTCSo, today I want to talk about the pectoral muscle training. Given the fact that I recently launched a closed forum and wrote a whole training manual on pectoral muscles and its development, the release of such material suggested itself. This topic is very popular, because all young "Arnolds" are primarily interested in pecs and biceps. In some ways, these are bodybuilders' hallmarks. If you ask me what's more important among these two muscles, I'll say it categorically: CHEST! Why?
Because when an athlete undresses (on a beach, for example), the chest lagging creates a more depressing impression than the biceps lagging. Because pectoral muscles are big and biceps are small. Accordingly, the arm lagging against the background of the muscular body is not as eye-catching as the body muscles lagging against the over-built arms. I'd even say that in the second case, it looks ugly. But the over-built pectoral muscle looks very athletic anyway. Big pecs immediately attract attention, giving a more holistic picture of the human appearance. We already had a very useful article called "How to Build Herakles's Pectoral Muscle?", in which I set out the main directions of proper training of pectoral muscles and gave some very sensible recommendations. I recommend to read it, if you haven't read it yet. Today I will give a little more detailed information on anatomy and the selection of exercises and techniques depending thereon.
PECTORAL MUSCLES ANATOMY
There are many muscles in the chest area. First of all, there are two layers: SUPERFICIAL (that's what we're going to build) and INTERNAL (that's what we're not going to build). So, the most important muscles in the superficial layer of the chest for us is TWO muscles, also lying one above the other, namely:
- PECTORALIS MAJOR (top)
- PECTORALIS MINOR (bottom)
PECTORALIS MAJOR looks like the triangular "fan". All chest bodybuilding exercises are aimed at the development of this muscle. The main function of this muscle is the arm adduction toward the body. From all sides (sideways, on top and even on the bottom). The second, very important function that very few coaches know about is turning the arms inwards during the adduction!
CONCLUSION: DURING DUMPBELL CHEST FLYES ON THE BENCH YOU HAVE TO ROTATE YOUR ARMS INWARDS AT THE TOP POINT!
There's a very important point here that I still can't explain myself. The fact is that all the manuals say that the major pectoral muscle PRONATES the arm (internal rotation) during the adduction, while among very experienced professionals there is the practice of arm SUPINATION (external rotation). Personally, all my life I've been supinating like I was taught, and I was satisfied. However, when I was writing the detailed material “EPIC CHEST WORKPUT”, I faced this mismatch and conducted a number of experiments. And I should say that although it is very unusual, but apparently the wrist pronation during the adduction really works very well. Anyway, if you have developed yourself to the level of using isolation exercises (adductions), I advise you to add wrist rotation to this movement. Try experimenting.
CONCLUSION: DURING FLYES, ROTATE THE WRIST!
You will find that the pectoralis major works a lot more than without rotation.
PECTORALIS MINOR is the one that is below the major one. They are almost never trained, because they have a specific function - they move the SHOULDER BLADES forward and downwards. To make it easier to understand, imagine that when lying you are moving your shoulders FORWARD. This movement is largely performed by minor pectoral muscles. Can we train minor pectoral muscles? Of course.
To train minor pectoral muscles, you need to “press” shoulders forward at the final point of amplitude. In other words, we're kind of "pushing our arms away from our body" at the upper point of amplitude. It's not very convenient to do this with large weights during presses. But it works great during flyes with dumbbells or using the cable crossover machine. If in the upper point of movement we add such “pushing forward” + “peak contraction” (delay) for a couple of seconds, then any flyes start to actively involve the pectoralis minor, which is the foundation for the major one. They kind of “push” the pectoralis major outwards.
PECTORAL MUSCLES LOAD ANGLES
THE FORM OF PECTORAL MUSCLES ATTACHMENT IS UNIQUE! Different fibers of the pectoral muscle are attached differently. Which, in general, is unique, because most of the muscles are attached in two places and contract entirely. In other words, there is a state of “complete contraction” and there is a state of “relaxation” and you can't contract some part of the muscle selectively. It is possible with pectoral muscle in contrast with any other muscle of our body, because different chest fibers are attached to different points and at different angles. What does it look like?
It looks like a “triangular fan”, which is attached by its narrow part to the UPPER PART OF THE HUMERUS, and by the wide part - to the STERNUM and COLLAR BONE (which are perpendicular to each other). Now you understand why different muscle fibers in the pectoral muscle will contract at different angles. It’s because they're attached in different places. The further the attachment point on the collar bone is, the smaller the contraction angle (25 degrees) is, the closer the attachment point on the collar bone is, the larger the contraction angle (50 degrees) is.
CONCLUSION: parts of the pectoral muscles may be contracted selectively. And that's a unique feature of pectoral muscles. Depending on the inclination of the bench, we actively influence the contraction of different areas of the pectoral muscles. That is, if the bench is set at an incline, the fibers at the top of the pectoral muscles are more "sensitive" to such loads than those at the bottom, due to their different anatomical attachment angles.
PECTORAL MUSCLE ANATOMIC DISPROPORTION
The question I almost always ask when discussing chest training programs sounds like this: “Have you seen the situation when bottom pectoral muscles are less developed that the top ones?" To be honest, almost always people answer negatively. There's a lot of guys around with over-developed lower part and less developed upper part. Almost everybody is worried about how to build the upper part, and few people care about the question of the “less developed lower part”. Why? Because the anatomical attachment of the pectoral muscles is such that during the horizontal presses and flyes the lower chest mainly works, and NOT THE ENTIRE CHEST, as most coaches teach. Once more:
NOT ALL CHEST WORKS DURING HORIZONTAL PRESSES! THE LOWER PART WORKS MAINLY.
This focused structure was more beneficial to our ancestors than an even distribution of the load, because the load had to be often "pushed" down or in front of them. And it was very rarely pushed at an angle upwards away from the body.
That's why the total weight (your body + weight) in bar dips will always be greater than the total weight during incline barbell bench press (head-up). The lower areas are strong, and in a wide range of inclination it is the lower areas that will do most of the work. Accordingly, they will increase in size more actively than the top areas.
Add to this the physical feature of major muscles to hang down under the influence of gravity and you will see all the ugliness of the over-trained lower part against the upper part. What's the conclusion?
YOUR TOP PRIORITY IS HEAD-UP EXERCISES!
Only at these angles your pectoral muscles will develop proportionally. The situation is as follows: the lower chest works less (but still works), and the upper chest works much more than usual. In this way, a true balance is achieved, and the upper and lower parts are aligned.
CONCLUSION: HEAD-UP PRESSES INVOLVE THE ENTIRE CHEST MORE EVENLY THAN HORIZONTAL PRESSES
“Oh, my God,” many will say. “What a rubbish!” Still, this is the case for most people. It'll all depend on the inclination level. It is clear that if you make a very large angle relative to the horizontal (for example, 45 degrees), then in this situation there will be no balance because the angle will only force the upper chest and the front delts to work actively. But if you make not very large angle of 20-30 degrees, it's a great way to achieve a uniform development of the entire chest.
Unfortunately, most gyms are equipped with the machines which have too much head-up inclination (40-45 degrees). It's not cool, because it loads the upper chest and deltoids, rather than distributing the load evenly over the entire chest. That's what you can do if you aim to fix the upper chest lagging. But even if you do presses at these steep angles, the lower areas will still work.
The most obvious example of this is Franco Columbu, who in ancient times trained in a gym where there was no flat bench press equipment, so he had to do only the incline head-up press. This led to the development of a very massive upper chest. Nevertheless, the lower part looked pretty good. As a bonus, Franco received horizontal separation of the top bundles from the lower ones, which is clearly visible in many old photos. What I'm saying is that if you're a bodybuilder, you don't flog a dead horse and do more head-up presses without fear. By the way, I don't do any horizontal presses in my main chest workout program at all. I just don't see the point in terms of uniform muscle development.
GRIP WIDTH FOR BENCH PRESSING
It is believed that the narrower the grip, the more the inner pectoral muscles work, and the wider the grip, the more the outer pectoral muscles work. On the other hand, sports physiologists say it's all rubbish because the muscle is "either contracting or not...entirely". Opinions, as you can see, are the exact opposite. Who's right, then? It seems to me that the first group is right, because the second group does not take into account the range of motion in the exercise.
1. In case of FULL range of motion there is a "full" contraction of the muscle FROM THE BASE TO THE CENTER (evenly, along the entire length of the fiber)
2. In case of PARTIAL range (the middle part works only), there is "partial" muscle contraction: most of the load goes to the middle parts (the muscles at the edges get less load).
3. The WIDER the grip is, the LESS the amplitude is. The narrower the grip is, the GREATER the amplitude of the contraction is.
4. The "inner part of the chest" is the "muscles at the edges", so with a close grip and a great amplitude they contract better.
There is also a nuance associated with the position of the elbows - the narrower the grip is, the easier it is to move them closer to the body. It is important for chest presses. But I'll tell you about it some other time.
For now, remember that in most cases THE NARROWER THE GRIP IS, THE MORE THE TRICEPS WORKS. On the other hand, THE NARROWER THE GRIP IS, THE GREATER THE AMPLITUDE, THE WORK AND THE CONTRACTION OF THE INNER CHEST PART ARE.
How do we get the benefits without flaws? That requires... using the HEAD-UP position. The fact is, that THE HIGHER THE INCLINATION, THE LESS TRICEPS WORK. BUT MORE FRONT DELTOIDS WORK!
In other words, the optimal strategy would be TO USE THE RELATIVELY CLOSE GRIP + HEAD-UP POSITION DURING PRESSES. And the inclination angle should not be very steep (not 45 degrees), because it will activate the deltoids. Your optimum is likely to be around 20-30 degrees. And the grip width shouldn't be too narrow either, because it will involve triceps and delts more. The grip should be a little wider than shoulder-width. If you do this, first of all, you will have a uniform contraction of both upper and lower pectoral muscles. In addition, the range of motion and the load on internal areas will increase. Anyway, it'll be the most evenly distributed load across the entire chest I can imagine.
OTHER MUSCLE GROUPS AND THE CHEST
The pectoral tendon actively interacts with the shoulder joint, which is actively involved in all presses and rows, because we do all this with our arms, which are attached to the body by shoulder joints. The peculiarity of the chest is, in fact, that all the exercises that we do to train it are PRESSES! Even when you're doing flyes variations, it's nothing more than a single joint press variation, because your elbows move away from you, not towards you as in rows. What does that mean? And that means that YOU SHOULDN’T TIRE THE PRESS GROUP BEFORE CHEST WORKOUT! What does the “press group” include? It includes CHEST + DELTOIDS + TRICEPS! While training all these muscle groups, we "press" the weight away from our body. Any chest presses to one extent or another involve both shoulders (front deltoids) and triceps.
And, besides, the SHOULDERS and TRICEPS are minor muscle groups. PECTORAL MUSCLES are MAJOR muscle groups. The front delts and triceps are the weakest link in any chest press. Now imagine that you tired this weakest link with preliminary work. What's going to happen? The strength of the chain is determined by the strength of the weakest link. If you train TRICEPS or DELTOIDS first, you won't be able to seriously load the PECTORAL MUSCLES after! The weaker muscles will just fail before the chest is tired.
CONCLUSION: TRAIN THE PECTORAL MUSCLES FIRST AND ONLY THEN TRICEPS AND DELTOIDS.
CHEST WORKOUT DETAILS
Unfortunately, it is not possible to tell in one article about all the important details of chest workout. Make sure you watch "How to Build Herakles's Pectoral Muscle?" In this old article, I was talking about very important things from a practical point of view regarding chest workout.
I'll remind you very briefly. You'll never build your pectoral muscles if you don't have the following three things in workouts:
- NO PECTORAL MUSCLE SENSE.
- NO PROGRESSION IN CHEST LOADS
- INCORRECT FOCUS in pectoral muscle training in terms of anatomy. As we mentioned before – use a 30 degree angle (head-up).
The ability to “feel muscles” and the right technique are closely related. Because the right technique is the way to use the OPTIMAL movement vector for the BEST contraction of the pectoral muscles. With the right technique your brain is much easier to contract these muscles, that's all. And this already leads to better results in terms of both strength and muscle mass gain.
Most people, when they train any muscle, including pecs, do not feel them. Your goal as a bodybuilder should be to load your muscles as much as possible, you should concentrate on MUSCLE WORK and not on lifting WEIGHTS! A PROFESSIONAL NEVER TRIES TO EASE AN EXERCISE! He's trying to make it more difficult. And an AMATEUR ALWAYS DOES IT REVERSED (trying to ease the exercise sacrificing the technique and muscle sense, to lift heavier weights and show off to his or her friends). So first, you need two things:
- USE PROPER FORM (this will unload the unimportant areas and focus the load on the pectoral muscles)
- BEDTIME MANTRA (this will form the brain-muscle connection and thus provide additional stimulation to the pectoral muscles during each exercise)
CONCLUSION
Pectoral muscle development is a topic of endless discussions. I have thought for a long time that I know almost everything about it. But each time I learn a new technique, I'm more and more convinced it's not like that. There are many variations of the same exercises, as well as many options for their set and progression of loads. Not to mention their combination with the training of other muscle groups.
