Robins Lifting Advice Time: Chest exercises. PART 2: TL:DR? Very much so. Apologies again for the muddled nature of the information... Those of you who have spoken at length with me about anything remotely technical will sadly be aware of this trait of mine. Back to the flat bench dumbbell flyes... Your range of motion is determined really by what feels comfortable. Always start with the eccentric part of the movement in order to gauge your suitable range and prepare your brain/joints/muscles for the movement (it sounds bloody obvious... but Ive noted some people like to start at the bottom, which I imagine to be asking for trouble). Keep a slight bend in the elbow and then keep the joint locked. Once the arc within gravity is complete; tense even harder at that point (focus upon squeezing your inner chest).. then begin your steady descent. You should aim to have your scapulae pushed as far back (and down) as you can muster. This should have the effect of rolling your shoulders back and pushing your chest upwards too. This is the most stable position from which to perform all upper body exercises. Lower the dumbbells as far as your shoulder joints allow without pain. Only you know what feels best for your joint structures. Despite this, you are looking for that feeling of stretch upon your outer pecs at the bottom... I dwell slightly longer in this region. As you move through the concentric range of motion, your muscles will contract most strongly in a wave starting from the outer pecs and moving in. Focus HEAVILY upon this as you move. I find it very helpful to imagine that someone is pressing a finger into the muscle and you are trying to repel that finger from making any indentation. That sounds really bloody weird but it is how I forged the mind-muscle connection in my pecs. I pressed upon different parts of them and isometrically tensed, then moved through my range of motion and felt the contractile wave, transforming tactile sensation into a mental plot. The more you forge this connection through focus and repetition, the better it gets. Your potential for muscle growth and strength increases will follow. After my physiotherapy, I am under the strong impression that superimposed atop of your genetic affinity to grow certain muscles (with their certain insertion points, lengths of bones etc), connecting properly with any muscle mentally is extremely important to its future strength and size. I mainly have just my personal experience to back this up but before my physiotherapy I couldnt really tense my pecs at all (my connection still isnt as good as most other muscles). As I train with friends, they often dont know how to tense certain muscles or create various postures and the muscles involved in these movements/positions are concurrently weak. My conclusion seems to make sense: your brain is largely responsible for your musculature! If you do feel some instability of your shoulder joint at the bottom of the movement, you can mildly pronate the wrists to help. [pronated means if your arms are out straight in front of you, your palms would face downwards. As this is your natural position, I assume the Latin etymology is from pro, meaning before... supinated means your palms would be faced upwards. Once again, I assume sup is Latin super referring to beyond... However, I like to tell those that easily forget: a pro basketball player dribbles the ball with his palms down... and you hold a bowl of soup (sup!) with your palms up. Rather childish, but bloody easy to remember] Flyes would be brilliant in a cable rack because your inner chest would get targeted and worked a lot more. This is due to the extra range created with constant-force cables, rather than relying on gravity. Ive never liked machines because although they theoretically allow you to expend more energy upon the isolated muscles (as your stabilising muscles are far less engaged), unfortunately, it feels like I use up a lot more energy battling against the odd path that the machine prescribes. My limbs are longer than most, this may contribute to my extreme distaste/unsuitability for most machines (pull-down, pull-over, leg-press and hack squat being notable exceptions) but I see little benefit anyway. Triggering as many supportive structures as possible seems like the best idea to me. LOWER CHEST VARIATION You can perform flat bench flyes in a way that better targets your lower chest. The fibres that terminate higher on your humerus terminate lower on your sternum at their other end. So in order to most strongly contract those fibres, you can perform the fly as normal, except start with your hands in-line with your ears (rather than your chest). Attempt to contract your lower chest in tandem. Second exercise... SUPINATED DIAGONAL INCLINE FLYES?! It has no name because I made it up! It may exist already, I simply havent seen it nor searched for it. This exercise would be best with cables once again. I dont have that luxury. Now that your pecs should be beautifully warmed up, I like to focus upon the upper pecs. Mine are bloody rubbish. The reason being, when performing the prescribed exercise for upper pecs, its extremely difficult to tense the upper chest. Id go as far to say that incline pressing for your upper chest doesnt fully make anatomical sense (someone is welcome to correct me but please refer to anatomy, not how well youve managed to tense your upper chest or grow despite your physical structure). Surely an incline fly or press engages the front deltoids... not the upper pec?! Your pectoral muscle fibres that run along the top of your chest attach to the humerus in a downwards direction. You can poke around your tendons and feel where it travels. So, in order to flex your upper chest, your arm must be pulled in a diagonally upwards and inwards arc towards your face. This is the complete opposite of the prescribed movement (incline presses and flyes). My method is to position the bench in an incline position, around 60 degrees or so. Then with continually supinated wrists, perform a diagonal fly movement, starting with your hands in-line with your hips (with arms fully extended), then bringing the dumbbells (in a straight, diagonal motion) over your face. Focus upon and tense your upper chest. You will likely be a complete fanny with this movement. Dont expect to go in the slightest bit heavy. Just focus instead. You will get stronger. Perform these sets in the same manner as described in PART 1. Warming up is very important for this exercise. You possibly havent performed this motion in your entire existence! Third exercise... CHEST PRESS, in the no-doubt equally tedious part 3 x
Posted on: Sun, 01 Dec 2013 15:36:29 +0000
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