From what I’ve gathered upper pec and lower lats seem to be the hardest area for almost anyone to develop. I’m too experiencing difficulty building muscle in these areas. Any thoughts on why is that? What’s your weak point?
Do you do any focused exercise or just keep doing generic exercises and building muscle till you fill out those areas? Or is it just pure genetics and there’s nothing you can do?
I’ve had some weakness and lack of recruitment in glutes and pects to some extent, and also lower lats.
I think it has a lot to do with activation, then playing catch up for who knows how long.
Meadows is the activation/recruitment master.
I’d say calves are the number one bodypart people where just say “LOL, well I tried, but nuthin’ works.”
Genetics, in the sense of unique individual muscle origins and insertions, are a huge factor. Mind-muscle connection and exercise choice/technique is probably the next most influential factors.
Dennis Wolf was notorious for having “high lats” and no amount of Meadows rows would’ve filled out his “lower lats” to any major degree because there was nowhere for the muscle to go.
For something like the upper pecs, I’d say a large part of that (no pun intended) is the muscle-section size. Think of how relatively small the upper pecs are on the body, then think about how muscle (actual muscle, not total bodyweight) most people gain in a year.
There’s only so much it’s gonna grow without spending investing a ton of time into figuring out how to target it and then getting lean enough to discern upper pecs from moobs.
We also kinda need to realize that this type of bodybuilding-focused perspective matters much more to you than to the majority of other people. Unless there’s a glaring discrepancy or shortcoming, a truly jacked dude is going to look jacked whether or not he has a quad sweep, a full upper chest, or whatever fine-tuned criteria we’ve pulled from competitive bodybuilding.
@Chris_Colucci covers most of the bases as usual. I would only add that, with regard to lagging upper chest, in my opinion and experience this is often the result of poor prioritization regarding exercise selection and sequencing. Most guys (raises hand) start off as gym bros who spend way too much time and effort flat-benching, and not nearly enough time and effort on upper chest. Further, flat bench is always done first, with a few half-hearted sets of inclines thrown in at the end as an afterthought.
Want to make sure upper chest isn’t a lagging bodypart? Do it first on Chest day, and spend 2/3 of your time and energy on it.
Yeah, I agree with all your points. For calves though, I think most people just don’t prioritize/train them enough (i mean 3 sets of calves raise after every workout when you’re super tired isn’t gonna cut it, just like 20 reps sit-ups after workout arent gonna build your abs, it is heavy ab pulldown or hanging leg raise that are going to build them). I have genetically weak calves, but when I was training them heavy and consistently every week, 2 exercise and 3-4 sets of calves raise & calf press with heavy weight and progressive overload, they grew. Now, I don’t care about calves anymore and just train it when I remember, and they shrink dramatically.
You also see people with crazy calves that never train before, but you never see people with crazy upper pecs/lower lats that have not been lifting for a while. and you see lots of guys prioritize lower lats or upper pecs but they still look maybe the same. That’s why I ranked calves lower
Upper pec for me. Completely unresponsive. I dedicated a year to increasing my incline bench by 100 pounds and saw zero improvement. EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING!
Genetics matter more than anything else. More than drugs, training, food, anything.
I’ll use myself and a friend of mine as examples. I have trained for 22 years, cycled AAS, and eaten so much food that I personally caused world hunger. In that time, I have more than tripled my strength in the main lifts and tried every arm routine mankind has thought of to grow big arms. They have never been over 16.5” cold.
I have a friend John who eats like a 12yr old gamer, rarely steps foot in a gym, and has an office job. We were at a friend’s party one night and the friend wanted to show me and John his home gym. With no warmup, John put 315 on the bar and benched it for reps. Afterward, we stood around flexing and talking trash and the friend ran inside to grab a tape measure. John’s arms were 17”. It’s all genetics.
Sure you can improve upon what you have but genetics are everything.
I couldn’t get anything out of my calves until I started intentionally manipulating the tempo including explosive work.
It causes tons of soreness but seems to be the best to spark some growth is doing a jump with only ever so slightly bent knees most of the force coming from the calves and then stick the landing on my toes and very slowly lower myself back down, calf raise with a squeeze at the top and back down and then repeat the rep.