I have been training for 5 years and somehow my upper chest and traps are considered lagging behind. Any suggestions?
It all depends on your body comp. If you aren’t as lean as you should be, then the upper chest will appear to lag. Charles Poliquin had a real good article about acheiving structural balance, search for it, #52 May 14, 1999. Traps respond well to the usual, shrugs, but I have really responded in the trap dept. now that I have reincorporated power cleans and heavy deadlifts back into my workout. The traps are instrumental in stopping the weight in the lowering phase. I also now do incline bench first, using a narrow grip, I go very heavy, 90% of 1 rm, only because it will also fire the lateral (lazy) head of the triceps heavily, which respond to heavier weights. I have noticed the difference, but I always can, the good thing is that I am getting asked more details about my training now than I have in 6 months. "are you getting BIGGER?, what are you doing differently?, are you juicing? (NO, never have, never will, believe it to be the chicken shit way to premature and unearned gains, another topic).
Recap, deadlift heavy, power cleans, heavy STANDING military, driving the shoulders to the ears at lockout.
Use pictures of Pro wrestler Bill Goldberg for motivation, also, another old wrestler, Road Warrior Hawk. ooooooooooooftah