I was wondering if anyone could point me in the right direction. I am looking to get a good chest workout that really targets the lower chest area. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
-Scottorius
Weighted dips - that’s it! Heavy weight around waist and do the dip! 4-6 sets of 5 to 8.
Not a long answer, nor a complicated routine but very effective all the same.
Good luck.
Patch
Why? what is the purpose of this goal. usually lower chest problems are either postural in nature or too much body fat. fix your posture and your lower pecs with tighten right up.
Decline Chest Press. Dips (weighted).
Thank you all for the advice. I am currently doing incline but I will incorporate Weighted dips in my workout. To answer your question MikeShank, I think My posture is fine what really is correct posture? I really think it could be that growing up I was overweight and recently all of the weight and didnt work out regularly. So my assumption is it is fatty, so tightening up that area should help.
-Scottorius
a good way to measure your posture is by measuring the distance between the medial points of your scapula. what that means in english is have a friend use a cloth tape measure and measure the distance between the middlemost point of your shoulder blades. do this in a relaxed, normal posture state. if your partner measures you to be more then 4 inches, which is the recomended distance by noted physical therapist florence kendall, then you can assure that your posture has something to do with the saggy appearence of your pecs. most people tend to measure around six inches of space. this causes a problem for lower pec definition in that weak rhomboids/lower/mid traps/scapular adductors, create a slumping posture which results in a loss of residual tension on the fascia that envelops the chest muscles. this loss of tension due to poor muscle balance can result in the appearence of weak lower pecs. your best bet to see if this is your problem is to stand in front of a mirror and draw your shoulder blades closer together. this will increase the tension on the pecs and probably cause them to lift up nicely. if this does not work then rest assured that your problem probably has to do with having too high a percent of bodyfat.
sincerely,
mike cruickshank
WOW THAT WAS A GREAT RESPONSE. Is this at all dependant on height or shoulder width?
Jsal33
Yep posture and bodyfat moreso. Parallel Dips Dips Dips…with weight. No fitness dips using a bench unless you wanna stretch out your shoulders.
Right on about the posture.
That being said, there is no such thing as a lower pec. It’s one muscle. But a good chest exercise is the slide push up (I think a Don Alessi special), and heavy decline flyes. You could even superset them if you’re feeling saucy.
J
I’m sure height and body frame are gonna have something to do with it. however, being a regular personal trainer and not some psuedo exercise phyisologist/physical therapist/corrective exercise specialist/ orthropeadic doctor wannabe, i really don’t have the time nor the expertise to be able to make such individual variences. i guess your best bet is to do what i do every day, take the average and using your common sense, make your best guess. so what if the measurement is off one inch cause johnny “i am so unique that nobody is like me and therefore i can never start an exercise routine cause it is not individualized enough”. this is a general measurement that can lead a trainer/trainee in the right direction to solving such a problem as “weak lower pecs”. most of this stuff i stole from an ian king lecture i went to anyway. if you want the reference to the florence kendall book it is on pages # 339-346 of the fourth edition of muscles testing and funtion. now that i think of it, i must of stole that measurement from ian king since i can’t find an exact reference to it in the book. hold on, screw that, i just found a reference on pgs. 92-93, with pictures and on pg. 88 of the fourth edition i quote “scapulae: Neutral position, medial borders essentially parallel and 3 to 4 inches apart”. (kendall pg. 88).
additionally, this may be just a theory of mine, but most of these other posts telling you to do a lot more direct pec work “could” be leading you in the wrong direction (once again, this is a theory of mine so it probably doesn’t mean shit). i say this because the pecs are powerful internal rotators of the humerous and theoretically could make your problem worse since their allready overdevelopment is causing you to slump, more development could just cause you to slump more, put more burden on your allready overchallanged scapular adductors, and further reduce the amount of resting tension in your pectoral fascia. the dips may theoretically be o.k. cause they have a stretching effect on the chest, but the decline benches might be suspect. my solution to this problem has always been to allow my clients to keep their regular bench and lat days cause dropping them would be catastrophic to their overall fitness, but to add in at least 3 sets of 10 of rear delt work (every 3 weeks change it up, weeks 1-3 use kneeling scare crows, weeks 3-6 use y ups or mid scapular raises off an incline, weeks 6-9 use dumbbell rear delt flies) once a week, make sure they are doing heavy horizontal pulling(4 sets of 6 to 8 reps of machine rows/t-bar rows/one arm dumbbell rows/straight bar low cable rows alternated every 3 weeks). in addition they should use cuing techniques such as every time they go past a mirror they should notice that their chest is in front and not behind their shoulders. that pool noodle idea that tc through around a couple of years ago works well also. also stretching the pecs and lats out with one stretch each for 2 sets of 30 seconds each arm done almost every day will also help with creating elasticity in the allready overfacilitated pecs and lats which will then go nicely with your current scapular adductor strengthening routine. i can’t see how these reccommondations can help you in establishing better balance in your upper body and therefore improving your “lower pec problem”. also, how much do you deadlift, if you bench 300 and deadlift 300 the obvious weakness in your posterior chain could be having a referal effect on your upper body slumping due to weak hammies and low back and their inability to support your upper body to stay erect against gravity. you might need to go on a deadlift routine and boost that son of a bitch up. go figure that one out, bigger deadlift equals a bigger chest due to creating better muscle balance between the front and back of the body. try this out and let me know if it helps you, this exact solution helped cure me of a nasty thoracic outlet syndrome due to poor posture and a forward head. funny thing is that now i bench more then i ever have in my lift and yet have not problems with thoracic outlet syndrome probably due to better balance in my upperbody musculature due to my following the aforementioned recommondations.
sincerely, mike cruickshank