Today I'm going to give you a full walk thru of my workout and give you 5 areas you MUST focus on to build a bigger chest and triceps.
The chest is separated into the pec major and pec minor.
The pec major is the bigger of the two, and what we want to focus on when building a bigger chest.
The fibers run at different angles from the sternum and clavicle to the humerus as you can see below
The angle of these fibers is important in understanding muscular development, which we will get into later.
Here are 5 things you must be doing to build a bigger chest:
Orientating the motion in line or perpendicular to the fiber orientation - when doing chest presses, the elbows must be tucked in order to create a perpendicular line from the humerus (upper arm) to the pec fibers...specifically the lower ones. Try this: take your arm (with your elbow locked out) straight across your body from top to bottom with your hand on your chest and feel the chest activation. Do the same thing but at a diagonal from bottom to top and across the chest. Which do you feel more activation in? If you answered down to up and across, you are right.
Focus on tempos - Slow eccentric (the motion where you are lowering the weight and stretching the muscle) loading has been researched to build a ton of muscle. Pausing on the bottom takes out the stretch reflex. And holding the contraction at the top gives the muscle maximal tension. All things that will build muscles. I like 5111, 3112, and 5312 the best (1st number is eccentric time in seconds, 2nd is whether their is a pause, 3rd is concentric, 4th is a pause). I'll get into the 5312 tempo next (holding the stretch position)
Loaded stretching - have you ever noticed your weakest body parts are usually your least flexible? Have poor pec development, you shoulders are probably jacked up and you have poor upper body mobility. Not only are you loading the pecs eccentrically when doing loaded stretches like loaded pec flies, but you are also increasing mobility and thus increasing muscle belly size.
Varying rep ranges - different rep ranges (and thus different weights) will stimulate tension in the muscle in different ways. Keeping the tension high by varying rep ranges is key to muscle growth. Muscle growth is less about activating the muscle but rather increasing tension (action-reaction measure of force which increases tension in the working muscle)
Technique - you'll need to watch the video for technical breakdowns of chest presses, chest flies, and overhead triceps...but there are key points that will allow you to leverage more tension in the muscle. Definitely watch the video. Function follows form, and if you're even off a tiny bit, the tension will not be fully in the muscle you are trying to work. Technique is an art form.
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