posted Thu, 11/29/2012 - 04:26
936
Lagging chest
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Lagging chest. I've hit a plateau especially with the upper part of my pecs. I have great bottom definition but the top lags. I understand this could be genetics, but I hope my brothas have some tips. I’ve been concentrating on incline lately using dumbbells & a wide grip on the bench.
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guillotine press on flat and incline(like 30 degrees) or neck press what whatever you want to call it. worked better than any other movement. start out light then work your way up. once you have the movement down.
Whats up bro - try evaluating your range of motion...
While sitting down/standing up, place your left arm (this works for your right arm too) directly in front of you, while placing your right arm on your pectoral. Bring your left arm forwards and backwards (to and away from your body), while experiencing your pectoral contraction with your right hand.
Now, repeat this movement, with the same hand and arm in the same place in the same planes of motion. But instead, when your left arm is near-fully extended, move your fist across your body. With this movement, you will notice a greater pectoral contraction resulting from an increase in muscle fibre recruitment.
Now, once you have surpassed the heaviest dumbbell weight in your gym and are achieving a repetition range of 20+ reps, there really is no reason why you should continue to carry on using dumbbells. This is why people move on to barbell chest press exercises, whereby the load amount will be significantly higher than those experienced through dumbbell movements. Additional, from the reduced range of motion in contrast to dumbbell movements, ones joints are cared for to a greater extent - this is why you may see some previously injured gym members opting for barbell exercises.
To conclude, i believe that dumbbell chest press exercises are far superior than barbell chest press movements, up until a certain point - whereby the weights used/needed surpass those supplied by your gym, or unless you have a shoulder/pectoral injury.
Anonone of the most common misconceptions with all of this is that people have been led to believe that muscles can be shaped by certain exercises or grips. this is not true. the only thing that determines a muscle's shape and size potential is dna. thru gene expression it is this genetic code that gives the instructions to the muscles' cells to construct build proteins a certain way. DNA and only DNA has this ability.
not trying knock you bro. just stating some facts. changing up the angle here only distributes the load differently among the pecs, and delts. the greater the angle, the more emphasis is placed on the delts and less on the pecs - the pecs consist of pectoralis major and minor with the minor is underneath the major, rather than above and below. the wider the grip, the less emphasis is placed on the triceps and more on the pecs.
it is possible to place more emphasis from one muscle group to the next by using variations like this, but it is physiologically impossible to alter the genetically predisposed shape of our muscles.