CT wrote a long half a page post in Bartl’s thread about working the chest and how to isoliate the chest and how to stop other muscles from taking over when your chest can’t handle it.
If I remember correctly, he said he did decline Bench to tacle his problem. I don’t know how to link to a specific post so I just coppied and pasted it for you;
I hope I’m allowed to steal this from Bartl’s thread.
CT Wrote;
For a lot of peoples stimulating the chest is very hard to do because they are either shoulders or triceps dominant. This means that in most pectoral exercises one of these muscles will take over the bulk of the work and the pecs will be left relatively understimulated. To correct the situation it is important to:
a) at first select exercises where the dominant muscle is put in a mechanically weak position so that the body is forced to rely on the chest to do the work. This may require dropping most ‘traditional’ chest movements for a while.
b) learn to activate the chest during movements where your dominant muscle normally takes over, this is the second step of the process.
If you look at my training for today you’ll notice that I start my workout with an incline press. A year ago there is no way that I would have been able to effectively use this movement to stimulate the pecs. Why? Because my shoulders were dominant and with every type of incline and even flat press I would rely more on the delts than on the chest.
Now I do get a lot out of the incline press simply because my chest has caught up with my shoulders. How did I accomplish this? It was a three steps process. It needs some patience, because it has to be done gradually. Don’t forget: it took you years to build the erroneous motor pattern of relying on the delts to do the job, you cannot reverse that pattern in a few days!
STEP 1 - STIMULATE THE CHEST WHILE BREAKING THE BAD MOTOR PATTERNS
The first thing to do was to stop performing every exercise where my shoulder tended to take over my chest. This means no flat bench press, flat DB press, incline bench press, incline DB press, flat DB flies or incline DB flies.
In the past I tried to include ‘chest-specific’ exercise to correct my weak point but still kept the above exercises (especially the bench press) in my routine. This did not allow me to learn to use the pecs while performing the bench press.
Don’t let anybody tell you otherwise: the big basic movements (bench press, incline press, decline press, dips) are the exercises that are the most effective at building the chest. Well, they are in theory. If you cannot use your chest properly in these movements they will lose their effectiveness. So to benefit from them you have to breakdown the old motor habits, and that means stopping the use of these movements until the chest is strong enough to take over the exercise.
So what are good chest exercises that take away the shoulder from the movement?
Decline bench press, Decline DB press (pronated grip), Decline DB press (anatomically correct rotating grip), Lying cross-over (far away cable flies), Decline DB flies (anatomically correct rotating grip), Squeeze press (got to press inward hard every inch of every rep)
STEP 2 - LEARN TO USE THE CHEST IN THE BIG BASIC MOVEMENTS
Once that the chest is strengthened and that you are able to feel it work properly in exercises where it is in a mechanically advantaged position the next thing to do is to learn how to use the chest in big compound movements where this muscle group is normally taking a back seat to the shoulders or triceps.
To do this I recommend the pre-exhaustion (pre-fatigue) technique. This is not normally a method I recommend as it forces you to use less weight in the money exercises (big compound movements). But this is one of the few situations where it is the way to go.
What is pre-fatigue? It is a superset (two exercises performed without rest) for the same muscle group (chest). The first exercise is an isolation movement (for the chest) and its objective is to fatigue the target muscle group while also causing a pump in that muscle group (accumulation of lactate and hydrogen ions). Then you immediately move on to the big basic movement (e.g. Bench press or incline bench press). What does the pre-fatigue technique accomplish?
a) the accumulation of metabolites (lactate and hydrogen) makes it easier to ‘feel’ the chest (because it’s pumped). So when you are performing the bench press (or incline press) you will better be able to establish a good mind-muscle connection with the pecs because of the pump. A better mind-muscle connection will allow you to learn to use the chest more when you bench press.
b) pre-fatiguing the chest ensure that it will be thoroughly fatigued at the conclusion of the compound movement. So even if the delts took over, the chest will still have received an adequate stimulus.
Good pairings include:
A1. Cable cross-over 10-12 reps
no rest
A2. Bench press 8-10 reps
2 min. of rest
and
B1. DB flies 10-12 reps
no rest
B2. Incline press 8-10 reps
2 min. of rest
A second technique is to make a slight modification in pressing technique: when performing the bench press do not only press the bar up: try to squeeze the bar inwards. In other words try to bring both hands toward the inside when you press. Obviously since you are holding on to the bar, the hand wont move. But this simple technique will inhibit the triceps and force the pecs to do the bulk of the work. Obviously since you are taking a very strong muscle out of the exercise you will not be able to use as much weight. But the goal right now is to learn to use the chest, not press big weights.
STEP 3 - INTEGRATE
Once that you are able to really feel a strong contraction in the chest when doing basic pressing movements you can move on to a more ‘normal’ exercise selection. However avoid getting back into your old habits and always try to squeeze the bloody hell out of those pecs when pressing!
