how can i do some pushups that will build muscle in my lower chest?
building muscle in your lower chest is like developing your inner pecs. First you must “find your inner self” and then train with him or her. So to develop your lower chest you must “find your lower self” which will likely be in a dingy bar making dead baby jokes.
LOLses aside the concept of developing certain parts of a muscle belly are very unsubstantiated. The good news is that mostly your pec is made of two muscle bellies. the bad news is that they are obviously hard to isolate. Muscles typically only grow and shrink.
So basically you should find a good exersize that you feel in your chest (everyone is different and it ranges from dips to bench) and do it often and heavy. the article on chest specialization by CT is a great starting resource on how to target the pecs.
In other news: a push up variation that I like is towel push ups where you find a slippery bit of floor and put towels under your hands. then slide your hands out as you go down and together as you press up. These, ring flies and horizontal iron cross on rings are great movements. Some variation of bench press also likely works well.
Good luck.
-chris
Push-ups can’t build your chest very well. In order to get full pecs you’ll need to do dumbbell bench press with different incline, chest flys with different inclines, and dumbbell pullovers. Not enough people do dumbbell pullovers. Dips and A GOOD chest press machine are also good options.
Dips.
I think dips work the overall chest fairly well.
As a side note: I have begun doing thick bar chinups and pullups, and while this has caused my reps to go down, I have noticed that the muscles in my back seem to get worked harder by using the thick bar. I thought as an expertiment that I should try using thick handles for my dips. So I took the pads off my leg curl machine and I was able to slip these onto my dip handles. This way I now had thick bars to do dips with, and the padding protected my hands. I can tell you it makes a significant difference. While the number of reps I can now do with dips is substantially less (this exercise will test your ego), I can really feel a hard pump in my chest doing these thick bar dips. For whatever reason, doing dips this way also reduces the strain on the shoulders and joints. Try it.
[quote]btbnashua wrote:
I think dips work the overall chest fairly well.
As a side note: I have begun doing thick bar chinups and pullups, and while this has caused my reps to go down, I have noticed that the muscles in my back seem to get worked harder by using the thick bar. I thought as an expertiment that I should try using thick handles for my dips. So I took the pads off my leg curl machine and I was able to slip these onto my dip handles. This way I now had thick bars to do dips with, and the padding protected my hands. I can tell you it makes a significant difference. While the number of reps I can now do with dips is substantially less (this exercise will test your ego), I can really feel a hard pump in my chest doing these thick bar dips. For whatever reason, doing dips this way also reduces the strain on the shoulders and joints. Try it. [/quote]
This sure is a good idea. The only shit thing is if you do your dips already on regular size paralettes then you don’t get the same effect 8(
But the fat grip pull ups are a beast, no? Try fat bar DL and OH squats. Fat bar is for real.
-chris
I agree. I cannot emphasize how pleasantly surprised most people will be by switching to a thick bar for pullups / chinups from the typical thin bars found on most (if not all) commercial and home exercise machines. The thick bar ups the quality of the workout ten-fold. Using the thin bar, I reached the point where I was doing sets of between 13-15 reps of every variation. Once I started using the thick bar I was reduced to doing sets of 4-6 reps. But my back has never felt more worked than when doing these thick bar sets. And no elbow, wrist or other joint pain�??I just feel it in the muscles of the back (and biceps).
The gym I go to (when I�??m sick of working out at home) does not have thick barbells. But I understand that using thick bars for bench pressing and other barbell exercises results in the same feeling�??a lot of pump in the muscles and less stress on the joints. The only downside is the need to use less weight.
The lack of stress on the joints is from the obvious less mass to move overall. If you were pressing the same with thick as with thin then you would have that same.
But it does jack up your forearms and give you good kungfu grip.
-chris
[quote]Avocado wrote:
These, ring flies and horizontal iron cross on rings are great movements. Some variation of bench press also likely works well.
Good luck.
-chris[/quote]
Good information, I liked the inner self thing… But suggesting he does a maltese cross for chest workout? The guy’s just trying to build some muscle, not beat yuri van gelder for the title of lord of the rings… That’s one serious hell of an exercise you’re talking about…
For chest, find what works for you, I’m a bit of a dip\BB bench monkey… I have a friend who’s a DB monkey etc etc
Do what works.
Pushuos are good for lower chest add weight to them so are dips. People say you can’t choose lower or upper pecs but you can the chest fibers do not run perfectly horizontal and everyone I know who does a lot of pushups has a certain look to there chest because of more muscle on the lower part.