Christopher Ball

3 Surefire Techniques—You've Never Heard of—for Making Your Pecs Stronger and More Muscular

- by Christopher Ball, Consumer Advocate

Do you bench press every time you train your chest? Chances are, you're like four million other guys, and you rely on the standard barbell bench press to develop your chest. Perhaps you even refuse to do any other "chest" exercise? If this sounds like you, then you're probably also wondering why your chest doesn't look anything close to the superhero action figures... If so, you'd better listen up.

Why?

Because effective chest training—I mean the type of training that makes every living fiber in your chest beg for mercy after each workout... the type of training that actively stimulates all parts of the chest muscles... the type of training that incorporates specific exercises which lighten the load on your shoulders and keep your joints pain free—is what you must learn and apply if you really want an impressive-looking chest.

In this article, I'm going to heavily delve into the science of the pectoral muscles and then discuss proper training methods for increasing strength, muscular development, flexibility, and balance. After you're finished reading this in-depth report, you'll not only be enlightened on the anatomy of the chest muscles, you'll also be up-to-date on the most innovative training techniques and methods for optimizing your workouts. Oh yeah, and you'll be ready for some serious results too! (Go ahead and start visualizing your superhero chest now.)

Basic Chest Anatomy

In an effort to better understand the chest and how you can maximize growth and strength, we'll first examine the anatomy of the chest; i.e., the pectorals. Most people refer to the chest as having three and sometimes four major sections: "inner chest," "outer chest," "upper chest," and the "lower chest." But contrary to this belief, the chest is comprised of only two muscle groups: Pectoral Major and Pectoral Minor.

The pectoral minor (P. minor) is small in size and flat, and it is connected (via the aponeurosis, which is a sheet-like tendon) to the ribs (intercostals) up to the acromion (the part of the shoulder blade nearest the deltoid).

Much larger in size and lying above the pectoral minor is the pectoral major (P. major), which arises mainly from the collarbone (clavical), sternum, and rib cage, and is attached to the humerus in the upper arm. The P. major can be felt under the breast when the muscle is tensed—just attempt to pull a fixed object sideways toward your midline to tense the muscle. One reason trainers often refer to the chest as having three to four major parts is because these two muscle groups have two main fibers: the clavicular fibers (upper pecs) and sternal fibers (mid/lower pecs).

The upper pecs are extremely important in the functioning of the chest because of their influence on the scapula (shoulder blade), the clavicula (collarbone), and most importantly, the rotator cuff (shoulder). A tiny muscle called the subclavius runs along the collarbone and stabilizes the shoulder during any movement of the pec.

In pressing-type exercises (like the standard bench press), the chest is also assisted by the shoulders, particularly the anterior deltoid (front of shoulders) and the triceps. It's easy to see why much of the function and power of the chest is exerted by the shoulder muscles and the scapula.

For ease of understanding, I've broken chest training into three parts, or what I call Smart Training Techniques:

• PART I: Balance, which is the most overlooked.
• PART II: Pain-free training to keep progress on track
• PART III: Flexibility to increase the range of motion and blast growth.

Part I: Improve Balance to Optimize Your Chest Development

Now that you better understand the anatomy of the pectoral muscles, let me start off by saying, not training the P. minor can make a major difference in the overall development of your chest!

Without a doubt, the P. minor is the most frequently overlooked muscle of the chest, because people tend to favor training the larger P. major. In other words, many of us love to massage our egos by pumping out rep after rep on the barbell bench press. But in fact, what you might not know is that the body protects itself from developing imbalances by either halting or stimulating development. In this case, ignoring your P. minor could be causing your body to stop your P. major from developing—halting your chest development progress altogether. Further, in many instances, I've noticed that by developing the P. minor, you actually increase the rate (and ease) of development of the P. major.

So how do you train your P. minor, effectively, to improve the muscle balance in your chest? Exercise choice is key. Here are a few exercises you want to incorporate into your chest workouts to ensure you're training the "lesser" pec muscle:

Dumbbell pullovers*: This exercise works the P. major while recruiting numerous stabilizer muscles.

What to Do:

• Lay back on a flat bench while cupping a dumbbell in your hands.
• With your arms fully extended above your nose, carefully lower the weight over your head until your outstretched arms are in line with your body.
• Brace your abdominals while keeping the small of your back pressed against the bench.
• Use a limited range of motion.
• Keep your elbows in tight.

Close-grip steep incline bench press*: This unique movement benefits the upper chest and isn't just another triceps builder like many assume.

What to Do:

• Sit on an incline bench.
• Position your hands slightly less than shoulder-width apart on the bar.
• Slowly lower the bar until it touches your upper chest.
• Keep your elbows in.
• Emphasize the bottom of the movement to stimulate the chest instead of doing a full extension, which targets the triceps.

Exercise Your Choices

Although I mentioned that the chest consists of only two muscle groups, it's important to note that those muscle groups contain different muscle fibers, which all need to be exhausted properly. Stimulating these fibers can be done using a wide range of exercise variations. The following is a list of each "zone" of the chest and the correlating exercises that best stimulates each particular zone (i.e., hit all of the angles!):

• Inner Chest: dumbbell and cable flyes
• Outer Chest: wide-grip presses, machine presses
• Lower chest: decline presses
• Overall chest: bench presses, cable crossovers

Changing variables is proving to be THE determining factor for optimizing chest growth and strength. Changing variables doesn't mean switching workout partners or training at a new gym, instead I recommend introducing elements such as grip variations, Swiss balls, unilateral (single armed) movements, and a combination of dumbbells and barbells.

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Part II: Don't Let Shoulder Pain Hold You Back!

Trainers around the world will agree the most common roadblock to building an impressive chest is shoulder pain. Chest work, especially particular exercises like incline presses, can cause chronic shoulder injuries. These injuries are a result of a number of complex factors... But there are some preventative measures you can take to alleviate the pain or stop it from happening in the first place.

Look around your gym and notice the guys with hunched over postures with their shoulders pulled forward. They probably bench way more than they do back work, and they work biceps much more frequently than they train triceps and rear delts, but worst of all, if you asked them, I bet they probably complain about intense shoulder problems quite frequently.

Here's why chest work can cause shoulder problems: along your shoulder blade (scapula) sit four small muscles that comprise the rotator cuff. These muscles are responsible for a number of functions, including stabilizing the shoulder. The shoulder joint itself is a very unstable joint, and the rotator cuff is, in my opinion, a very poorly designed (with respect to bodybuilding) ball and socket joint. Although a ball and socket joint allows a great deal of movement, its instability can cause problems.

When the pecs move the upper arm across the body, or rotate it, the top of the humerus (upper arm bone) gets pulled in its socket. If there is nothing to resist that pull, the top of the humerus will pop out. That's where the rotator cuff comes in: it counterbalances that pull and makes sure the humerus stays where it belongs.

So as you can see, the rotator cuff plays an integral role in your chest development, and if proper training techniques are ignored, you'll find yourself with serious shoulder pain.

On another note, too much chest work or too much reliance on problematic exercises like the incline bench press, and/or too little back work can result in a rotator cuff weakness and shoulder pain. The purpose of working the back with the same intensity, if not more, as the chest is to balance out the weight-bearing distribution with the chest. An over-powering chest can actually bear much of the resistance designed to be handled by the back. The result is an underdeveloped back and an overdeveloped chest, which stresses the rotator cuffs to the brink of injury. Training the back (particularly the rhomboids), which pull the shoulders back, improves posture and results in less stress placed on the small muscles making up the rotator cuff.

Pain-Free Principles—The following exercises place the least amount of stress on your joints and reduce the chances for injury:

• Smith Machine bench press, incline press, and decline press.
• Hammer Strength machine presses.

• Use a shoulder-width grip… Spreading your hands out too far could result in too much stress placed on the shoulders, while a close grip increases the stress on your elbows and other joints.
• Use a spotter!
• Be aware of your elbow placement: keep your elbows out to the sides on pressing movements.

Part III: Flexibility Increases Range of Motion and Blasts Muscle Growth

Back in the day, six-hour training sessions were thought to be the only effective way to build serious size. But now we know that just isn't the case, and anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes in the gym is sufficient. Although many old-school practices have been forgotten or just plain thrown out, we know one certain practice was extremely effective—stretching.

Overlooked all too often, stretching plays an integral role in maximizing growth potential. Arnold is probably the best example of how stretching substantially benefits muscle growth and muscle aesthetics. Genetics played the largest factor, but Arnold was able to build on his amazing chest by lifting with broad eccentric movements and stretching in-between sets.

As seen in Pumping Iron, Arnold frequently flexed in the mirror between sets, thus stretching muscle fibers and leading to greater flexibility and muscle aesthetics (insertion points, striations, etc.). If doing a few double biceps poses after an intense set of curls isn't your idea of gym etiquette... although less effective, you could try doing a posing session immediately after training.

It's obvious we use the pecs more frequently than other muscle groups, which is why they're overdeveloped. The pecs need to be stretched so our shoulders do not rotate forward. As for what stretches work best for the pecs, here are a few to try:

• While standing up straight, grab a hold of a bar, a wall, or some sturdy piece of equipment with one arm. Keeping your arm straight, move your body forward slightly until you feel the stretch in the biceps and pecs. You can also perform this stretch with your arm bent at the elbow so your hand and lower arm is against the wall or bar and you're moving forward to stretch the pec.
  
  
• Stand facing a corner and extend your arms out to the sides in a big T. Bend your elbows and place your hands on the walls on opposing sides. Then press your body into the corner. Vary the placement of your hands to stretch different parts of the pecs. Place your hands high to stretch the costal division (rib area), place your hands near your belly button to stretch the clavicle division (upper chest).
  
  
• Play with your hand width when you bench press. Try a closer grip, then shoulder width or wider. Try this using only the bar for a few reps.

Conclusion

These chest hints and tips are definitely innovative and might not be something you want to do all of the time, but they're just my way of introducing you to different ways of building an impressive chest, and as mentioned, training variety is the secret to continued progress. Regardless of which chest exercise or technique you try, remember to increase the work load each successive workout. This may involve either increasing the weight or doing more reps per set than you did the previous workout.

Also, as I pointed out, it's just as important to pay attention to the muscles that support your chest. Ignoring some of these supporting muscles could be the sole reason if you suffer from chronic pain and poor chest development. Now, get to the gym!

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