I’m trying to find some new ways to make my chest wider any help
A lot of people will tell you that you can only make a muscle bigger or smaller. This is true.
But there are methods you can use to expand your ribcage and give yourself a bigger frame, which will allow you to develop a wider chest.
The classic way to do this is with breathing squats. Use a weight around 85% of your max and do 15 to 20 reps with it. You’ll become fatigued during the set and by rep 11 you should be thinking that this was a bad idea. If you’re not, then you’re not using enough weight. At this point, you will need to stop at the top of the squat and breathe deeply about 3 times in order to complete the set. If you can do the set straight through without stopping a while to gasp for air during the latter half of the set, then you did not use much weight.
You cannot substitute any exercise. Barbell Squats must be used. These should not be powerlifting style squats. They should be Deep Olympic Squats, but you can use a Low-Bar Position.
After the set of breathing squats, you will do Dumbbell Pullovers. Some guides suggest you only need to use a 25lb plate to stretch your ribcage. But in order to work your chest muscles and get an even greater stretch and expansion effect, use a weight that challenges you for 15-20 reps with good form.
The rest of the workout usually consists of 3 sets of dips and chins and is done 3 times a week as a full-body workout. You could just do The Breathing Squats and Pullovers on your “Leg” days, but you should be doing this at least twice a week so you will need two lower body days if you choose to mess with the 3-a-week program.
As for poundages, you should increase the weight you use for these breathing squats by 5 pounds every single session. Increase the pullover poundages so that the exercise remains challenging. Heck, you’re only doing one set so don’t be scared to move up in weight when you think you are ready.
Squats may not seem like they will make your chest bigger but the combined stress of Breathing Squats for high reps and Pullovers on your trunk will cause your ribcage to expand, especially if you are still in your teens.
Now that you’re doing something to acquire a wider foundation for your chest, the best exercise to make your pecs bigger, in my opinion, is a Low Incline Dumbbell Bench Press. But whatever chest exercise you choose, once you’ve completed it you should follow up with a deep stretch. A good way to stretch your chest is to lie down as if you were going to start a palms-in Flat Dumbbell Bench Press and just let the Dumbbells Stretch your chest for 60 seconds. Get a weight that gives you a good stretch but isn’t so heavy that you’ll rip your arm off.
You probably want wider lats. A lot of times you’ll see someone very wide, and although it may look like they have a wide chest, its likely their lats.
I have had the problem where my chest was “narrow” and the best and only exercise that makes that better is deep stretch flat DB Flyes.
Focus on the outer portion mainly, add them to every workout (i used to like pre-exhaust), along with a grip on the bar of all horizontal presses outside the rings. I am 5’ 8" and that width of grip was great for the “outer” pec - add those and you will get a wider chest.
Joe
[quote]FightingScott wrote:
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These are rib expansion techniques - i thought they were to make the chest/ rib cage more “barrel” like, thicker when viewed from the side, not front…? I could be wrong…?
Joe
You need the illusion of a wider chest. The best way to do this is to make your anterior deltoids larger. That takes a lot of incline bench and overhead presses. Throw in some lateral raises… wait a second!
This sounds like a lot like a regular workout!
Just keep lifting, eating and sleeping. As you grow, you’ll get wider.
Just curious, whats your height/weight/BF?
I’ve got a barrel of a chest, it kinda sucks.
Look at the “motivation from Dante”
thread in T-Cell Alpha. That’ll show you what some extreme stretching can do for widening.
The topic of ribcage expansion was discussed here before. I’ll see if I can find the thread. Long story short, I still think doing an exercise with the intention of permanently distorting your ribcage is a waste of time.
Don’t get me wrong, I like both breathing squats and pullovers, but for other reasons.
[quote]Monster21 wrote:
I’m trying to find some new ways to make my chest wider any help [/quote]
Dante (the guy from doggcrapp training) is very very wide, there is a picture of him somewhere around in the T-cell alpha forum.
Anyway from what I gather he contributes his width to hanging off a bar with weight attached to stretch out his lats, and he also does deep chest stretches (ecc. portion of dumbbell flyes)
Basically it’s just loosening up the fascia around those muscles a bit too give them more lee way to grow.
I haven’t been able to train my upper body for over half a year now, and have been focusing on my legs which haven’t grown for shit since I sat down for 2 years playing PC games.
I blamed this on a super tight fascia from my legs not moving, so I foam rolled them, did really painful long stretches on them and massaged them with a glass massage tool, they shot up in growth after this, my calves too.
[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Dante (the guy from doggcrapp training) is very very wide
[/quote]
Dante also does “Widowmaker” sets of 20 rep squats.
Can anypne explain what it means to make the “chest wider”?
I think the original poster want to make his frame larger horizontally.
[quote]michael2507 wrote:
The topic of ribcage expansion was discussed here before. I’ll see if I can find the thread. Long story short, I still think doing an exercise with the intention of permanently distorting your ribcage is a waste of time.
Don’t get me wrong, I like both breathing squats and pullovers, but for other reasons.[/quote]
Man that is a HOT Debate and don’t want this thread to rehash it…
But to the point of making your chest wider well one word for that: ilushion.
Try to make your delts thick and your waist as small as possible…
Try reading Vince Girona’s “A muscle has four sides”
Seriously, the only thing i can imagine when someone says make their chest wider is just that.
I KNOW you cannot change the shape of a muscle, but for some, without the inclusion of flyes, the chest will lack a certain amount of growth in the insertion point on the humerus.
It does have three attachment points (clavicular, sternal and humeral) and while there is great debate towards changing the shape of a muscle, or more accurately manipulating the proportions of a muscle rather than its actual shape, i believe with a different angle etc you can manipulate tension to be greater near one attachment than another causing more hypertrophy towards that area of the muscle than the area with less tension.
A muscle fibre DOES NOT run the entire length of a muscle, but run in series (and parallel). So it just stands to reason that with more tension, there are more motor units in that area of the chest working to combat the higher resistances, which will cause a greater adaptation response in those specific muscle fibres and not as much in the fibres distally connected. Causing the “Inner, Outer, lower, Upper” pecs to be manipulated.
All i know is the higher the tension placed on the pectoral, when the arms are fully extended and the hands are close, then the more stimulation the “inner” area recieves. And grows. Same is true for the"ouer" pec.
This isnt proven, as many many (maybe the majority) of theories in the sciences, but this is one that hasnt been proven wrong and from anecdotal evidence, stands up to the tests any decent theory must endure…
Joe