Chest Bencher’s. We have all seen em. These lucky bastards get away with a few sets of Flat BB Presses (omgz nho phlat benchez bez dha dhevill!1!) and another few sets of cable flys and are off on their way to Hyooge Pec Land.
Some of us not so lucky in the pectoral genetic pool department have not gotten a chest pump since…ever. we are all tris and front delts.
Let me make this clear what this thread is not about.
This thread is not about people who can get big a chest using alternative movements for presses i.e. hammer strength machines, db presses, incline presses, dips and so on.
This thread is dedicated to all MY homies with pumped front delts and some thick tris with flat chests.
Personally, any press.
Wait let me repeat that. ANY PRESS for me is all tris and delts. Ive tried it all Hammer, DB, Incline, Decline but to no avail.
The DB fly with bent elbows has been my savior. Can a big chest be built without any kind of press in the chest routine? Discuss.
Disclaimer: I am a newbie. In no way am I starting this thread to teach people what to do with their chest routine. God knows I’m the last person that should be giving advice on chest training. This is a thread for people in similar cases as my self to discuss how they’ve gotten around this problem and answer the question that was proposed.
This is how I like to do my DB Flys. I can get up to pretty heavy weights this way (relatively speaking for a db fly) and get a huge stretch at the bottom with a forceful contraction at the top.
I’m no advanced trainee but Db flyes can definitely help you learn how to use your chest.
Then once you learn how to use them, you can do things like flat bench press while using your chest.
Or you can do something like… do DB flyes then immediately after do flat bench press. If you can’t feel your chest still… then you are doing something wrong.
You just have to learn how to use it. Just like every other muscle you train.
Also: when benching, are you pulling your shoulder blades down and back?
i’m a chest bencher lol…but, i’m interested in this topic…
i noticed i’m relatively strong on fly movements compared to my bench…it could be just a matter of getting your chest strong enough so it starts taking over movements…
I do not believe you should ever use adduction as your sole chest builder. I know Stu uses a adduction secondary workout from what I’ve read, I don’t know what kind of progress it has added. The key is to learn to recruit the chest in the pressing movements.
I had to teach myself to recruit them and feel them during movement using everything from isometric squeezes, flexing, pressing DBs together at the top of presses. Trying to push bar together on BB presses. Using activation type isolation moves.
I have had to teach 90% of my male clients how to recruit their chest so don’t give up on presses just learn how to feel them out and get some growth.
Can you describe your form when pressing? Most specifically, what is your ROM when pressing for chest? If your front delts and tris are dominating, you may be emphasising the top, rather than the bottom, of the movement. Unless you’re already doing so, I would recommend pressing from your chest and stopping half-way. See if that focuses the stress on the pecs.
On the topic of flys, I personally don’t like them for 2 reasons. Firstly, they just feel uncomfortable for me - possibly because I have long arms. Secondly, I don’t think the movement works well with dumbbells since a limited amount of the movement is against gravity. I don’t mind doing them with cables sometimes.
I do want to add a good fly type movement though. CT has wrote about this before, but I tried it again after watching a Jim Stoppani video. On a slight incline start DBs slightly wide in a reverse grip position, rotating them as you fly/press up and the squeeze them together at top to finish off. A few sets and I could feel it in my upper chest.
This is a â??chicken or eggâ?? situation. Is the muscle weak because of the motor pattern (which is often due to bad technique, improper mind-muscle connection, or bad posture), or is the motor pattern faulty because the muscle is weak (so the CNS must involve other muscles more to compensate)?
There really is no way of finding out what the problem is so you must address both issues.
WEAK MUSCLE
You need to increase the strength of the muscle at a faster rate than those of the muscle(s) that take over. Exercise selection should minimize the contribution of the â??dominantâ?? muscle(s) and the rep range should be slightly higher. Exercises for other muscles should try and involve the weak muscle.
Stretch the dominant muscle between ramping sets.
FAULTY MOTOR PATTERN
First you need to learn to activate the muscle, then how to stimulate it and integrate it into the basic movements and then finally you can train it with heavy lifting.
Step 1: Learn how to activate it
Perform Isolation exercies at a high frequency
Practice flexing the muscle while not at the gym
Step 2: Learn how to stimulate it and integrate it
Exercise selection should return to the main exercises where the most weight can be used.
Still continue to use higher reps as you might still overuse them in heavy lifts.
Step 3: Train it with Heavy Lifting
You can lower the rep range of the lifts.
I am a huge fan of incline dumbbell flies and Arnold flies on incline or flat bench. I believe that there is a ton of mind muscle connection involved with these if you truly want to reap the benefits of them. I have done both very heavy flies and very light with a tempo, but the common thread throughout each is that I am focusing solely on chest and really trying to eliminate the use of anything else to move the weight. I believe that that is key when doing a fly movement.
Incline DB flys are my favourite exercise. Currently start ramping from 30kg DB up to a final set with 40kg - just need to be careful when lowering yours arms so they don’t rip out their sockets lol. Do this after incline DB presses.
IMO, growing the chest is not a problem of press or flies but genetic,if one (me included) born with a flat chest can improve it a lot, both in size and strenght,but -unfortunally- in a side chest delt and trics will be bigger…
this guy was one of best of his era …and his pecs were flat compared to delt/triceps! http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/7231/imagescal3tz76.jpg
I have to say that presses did for my chest much more than flies (and I get flat pecs aka delt/triceps dominant),once you learn how :
1/to put blades in
2/to arc (slightly)the back
3/push your chest to lift up against the bb
4/lower the bb to the sternum area (NOT to the neck
you lift more weight,feel more blood in the area while training,have more size.
it’s a structural problem ( how much fibers we have in a certain area, how long are muscle bellies,how long are tendons,what kind of flexibilty in that area).
I always thought to a pipe (bones aka frame) and to adesive tape (bulding the muscle).
each 3 training sessions I put 1 layer of tape (muscle) around the pipe (bones).
I have 2inch diameter pipe,my buddy 3inch diameter type.
we train togheter,we are strong the same,he’s bigger.
but , at the end of the day, it’s a spice challenge to force our weaker areas to growth more to obtain a balanced body.
so, weaker area firt,then the others
push the pecs to the death,force them to become from “bad” to “decent”,meanwhile delts&triceps from “decent” became “good”…
I too feel BB press in my front delt and tris. I never did learn the powerlifting version of the BB press (big arch, elbows tucked, etc)
I am by no means an expert, but I can say that I have been very happy with my chest development since switching exclusively to DB press. It’s also MUCH easier on my elbow joints. For flyes I feel a very good chest pump with decline flyes.
I was not talking of PL benchpressing, just IMO more confortable and safe way of benching,I’m very far from big back PL arcking but found that squeezing my blades before lying on the bench ,keeping my feet on the ground (not on the bench),hitting the sternum (not the neck) produce a better perfomance both in terms of injuries (thanks God my rotator cuffs are still ok)and contraction.
my training partner was not used to this stance and his shoulders are in bad conditions, coincidence???
if I don’t set up in this way front delts&triceps works more than chest…
My pressing technique is decent. I retract my shoulder blades and have a small arch. I can’t squeeze my pecs together or whatever during a bench because that would be counter productive to shoulder health and weight used. I don’t think I would ever use the bb bench as a pec builder. I have tried DB with the whole bringing them together at the top thing but it really doesn’t help and gives me shoulder pain. The general consensus here is that heavy flies alone will not build pecs. Am I right ?
[quote]Elite0423 wrote:
My pressing technique is decent. I retract my shoulder blades and have a small arch. I can’t squeeze my pecs together or whatever during a bench because that would be counter productive to shoulder health and weight used. [/quote]
Where did you get that idea from?
Squeezing your chest is counter productive to shoulder health?
What?
And the weight is just an ends to a means. If you have to drop your weight some in order to learn how to use your chest… there is nothing wrong with that. If you stick with it you will most likely have a stronger bench press, in the end. You’re just holding yourself back.
And the general consensus is you need more than ONE movement for any body part. DB flyes will be fine if incorporated into a complete chest routine…
…IMO,
things counter productive for delts while bb benching:
1/too wide handle grip (optimal pushing angle between forearms and arm is 90°ish ACCORDING to your phisiognomica)
2/lowering the bar to the neck; this stressed up very much rotator cuffs.
3/if you have a weak posterior kinetic chain (back,rear delts) compared to your anterior kinetic chain (front delts,chest,abs)your shoulders are in heavy danger.
trust me,I discovered this bymyself when I started to lift weights-
IF squeezing pecs would damnage delts 99% of world iron addicts would have damnaged delts
And the general consensus is you need more than ONE movement for any body part. DB flyes will be fine if incorporated into a complete chest routine…[/quote]
I tend to agree, just one excercise can’t stress all axpects of a muscle even if our SNC recruits all pec not just upper pec.
anyway,isolation movements (flies) could be incorporated in a routine but what about doing inclined bb press one training and declined bb press enother training?
this is two movements (just multiarticolars) perfomed one at time…
My pressing technique is decent. I retract my shoulder blades and have a small arch. I can’t squeeze my pecs together or whatever during a bench because that would be counter productive to shoulder health and weight used. I don’t think I would ever use the bb bench as a pec builder. I have tried DB with the whole bringing them together at the top thing but it really doesn’t help and gives me shoulder pain. The general consensus here is that heavy flies alone will not build pecs. Am I right ?
[quote]Elite0423 wrote:
My pressing technique is decent. I retract my shoulder blades and have a small arch. I can’t squeeze my pecs together or whatever during a bench because that would be counter productive to shoulder health and weight used. I don’t think I would ever use the bb bench as a pec builder. I have tried DB with the whole bringing them together at the top thing but it really doesn’t help and gives me shoulder pain. The general consensus here is that heavy flies alone will not build pecs. Am I right ? [/quote]
See my and buzza’s previous responses. Oh, and everybody else’s…
Just like you would think of pulling from the elbow to use your lats, try thinking of pushing from your elbow to use your chest. I’ve also noticed that pushing at angle towards face uses more delt - if it doesn’t feel unnatural to do so, try pushing in more of a straight line. Of course, you will also have to do enough reps to get a pump.
Haven’t been doing it long enough to have a very nice chest but I have always felt my chest on presses (except the very beginning when I would lay flat down on the bench and unrack with no thought for tightness or shoulder position lol - perhaps arching also encourage pec use?) and the bench is my strongest lift
If all other pressing fails you could always use dips… if you use an appropriate angle I couldn’t believe anyone not feeling their chest on this!
