trouble training chest.

[corhof60]

alright, as you might have guessed im the guy who changed his routine to build muscle, and posted for help. all the advice has really help out so far.

the only problem i have left now is my ability to train my chest.

no matter what the chest excersise is, my ant. deltoids always fail before my chest, and most of the time it doesnt feel like ive had a chest workout at all.

cant feel anything in chest whether its barbell benching, dumbell benching, push ups or cables, inc, dec, flat, my shoulders are always the first to go.

maybe im using too much weight? no idea.

any suggestions on technique problems which cause delts to fatigue before chest? ive tryed wider grips, tryed fatiguing chest with cables before dumbell presses, but the shoulders hurt first there as well.

[bigben]

You can consciously have a lot of control over which muscles are the primary movers, and how much of the secondarily involved muscles exert during a compound movement. You need to lighten the weight to break your old habits, and concentrate on flexing your pectorals. Just as you can feel your pecs flex when you statically / isometrically flex them in front of a mirror, you can do the same thing with a barbell above you. Start with an unloaded bar and lift the bar entirely with you pecs, feeling them flex and squeeze your upper arms together during the lift. Slowly add weight and repeat. It will feel awkward at first and somewhat artificial, concentrating and flexing your pecs in what feels out of proportion to the weight you are lifting, but you need to reprogram the way you lift. It should be your chest squeezing your upper arms together, not your triceps and anterior delts pushing the weight away from you. As well, on the lowering of the weight, flex your pecs and feel them load with tension like a spring being compressed, then reverse this energy back into the lift.

[corhof60]

hmm, i was thinking of lowering the weight, when i was doing definition workouts id feel some burn on warmup.

thanks for the tip. ill have it a go the next chest day

[Boost]

It is very possible that the small muscles in your shoulders are too weak and fail before your big muscles (pecs) have a chance to be used in the bench press. Once your delts are strong enough they will not get tired before the chest any longer. Things will change over time. One day your delts will be really strong and will NOT get tired before your pecs while doing bench press. Thats when the growth of your delts will slow (in that area) and your pecs will have to take over and start growing. Thats when your pecs will start getting bigger, but not yet.

KEEP GOING HEAVY! This is a step in the change of your body. This is how it is done.

[Boost]

I am saying go heavier. People are going to say that makes no sense if your pecs don't feel it. They might not understand that your delts ar so weak that they are failing before your chest can be used. Once the strength in your delts is there the delt strength will slow because your large muscles (pecs) will take over. Then you will have another problem. Your pecs are getting big and your delts are not growing. This is a very simple fix. Do delt exercises that isolate the delts more.

[Boost]

Oops. Double post.

[bigdaddydrew123]

you could be a shoulder bencher , ill try and dig up a post on good benching technique

[bigdaddydrew123]

A technique that I like to use to lock my shoulders into the position for maximum strength and stability is as follows:

Instead of placing your palms on the bottom of the bar, place them on the back of the bar (this tip also has an accompanying picture).

Now, without removing your grip, rotate the bar down so that your palms are now directly under the bar. This has the effect of placing your shoulders into their most stable and strong position. It will almost feel as though you are "locking down" your shoulders.

As you are rotating the bar and locking down your shoulders, lift your torso slightly off the bench and force your shoulder blades together tightly underneath your torso.

This will force your shoulders back and puff your chest out, placing the pectorals in a position where they have a more effective line of pull. It also has the added bonus of making your torso thicker, reducing the distance you need to press the weight.

Keep your shoulder blades squeezed tightly behind you for the duration of the set.
this should help keep your shoulders out of the lift and put your pecs into it more , this is basic powerlifting bench technique ive used it for years and its kept me injury free after amost 30 years of benching

[corhof60]

A technique that I like to use to lock my shoulders into the position for maximum strength and stability is as follows:

Instead of placing your palms on the bottom of the bar, place them on the back of the bar (this tip also has an accompanying picture).

Now, without removing your grip, rotate the bar down so that your palms are now directly under the bar. This has the effect of placing your shoulders into their most stable and strong position. It will almost feel as though you are "locking down" your shoulders.

As you are rotating the bar and locking down your shoulders, lift your torso slightly off the bench and force your shoulder blades together tightly underneath your torso.

This will force your shoulders back and puff your chest out, placing the pectorals in a position where they have a more effective line of pull. It also has the added bonus of making your torso thicker, reducing the distance you need to press the weight.

Keep your shoulder blades squeezed tightly behind you for the duration of the set.
this should help keep your shoulders out of the lift and put your pecs into it more , this is basic powerlifting bench technique ive used it for years and its kept me injury free after amost 30 years of benching

thanks, ill give it a shot

[oharad]

ya i am with big daday drew

soulds like u are pushing with ur shoulders.... focus on keeping shoulder blades tight and flat against bench.... u will likily need to drop weight at first till you get the hang of it

[carlc]

One more thing you can try if you want - and although you will have to deal with people telling you all the time that you are doing the excercise "Wrong", give it a try, and if you don't feel your pecs working that day I will be very surprised. The technique is very simple. What you do is, change nothing about your workout (in terms of weight, reps, etc.....), keep going heavy, because your goal is to build more muscle right?

The only thing you are going to do differently, is that when you perform any press movement (i.e. - bench press), DO NOT extend fully, DO NOT lock out your elbows, in fact, you want to be a good 6 plus inches away from a full extention when you return the bar to your chest. I always train my chest this way - of course I warm up using full extentions, I do a set at the end of each excercise fully extending, but the majority of my sets are performed with the goal of isolating my chest as much as possible, which means that at the point where my delts and triceps would normally take o9ver to finish the motion, I end the rep and begin again.

I do this for the same reason that I do not raise my chin above the bar when I am doing chins......because I do wide-grip chins to isolate my lats, why would I want to exhaust my delts at the same time? This would just make things more difficult and tire me out before I really have a chance to train my lats to failure - works the same way with every muscle group - it is near impossible really, to fully isolate a single muscle group, but you CAN get pretty close - you just have to trust what you FEEL a little more than what people tell you is right or wrong - play around with it, remember that everybody has a different body structure, different things work differently for different people.........holy shit, that's enough I guess......

[bigdaddydrew123]

One more thing you can try if you want - and although you will have to deal with people telling you all the time that you are doing the excercise "Wrong", give it a try, and if you don't feel your pecs working that day I will be very surprised. The technique is very simple. What you do is, change nothing about your workout (in terms of weight, reps, etc.....), keep going heavy, because your goal is to build more muscle right?

The only thing you are going to do differently, is that when you perform any press movement (i.e. - bench press), DO NOT extend fully, DO NOT lock out your elbows, in fact, you want to be a good 6 plus inches away from a full extention when you return the bar to your chest. I always train my chest this way - of course I warm up using full extentions, I do a set at the end of each excercise fully extending, but the majority of my sets are performed with the goal of isolating my chest as much as possible, which means that at the point where my delts and triceps would normally take o9ver to finish the motion, I end the rep and begin again.

I do this for the same reason that I do not raise my chin above the bar when I am doing chins......because I do wide-grip chins to isolate my lats, why would I want to exhaust my delts at the same time? This would just make things more difficult and tire me out before I really have a chance to train my lats to failure - works the same way with every muscle group - it is near impossible really, to fully isolate a single muscle group, but you CAN get pretty close - you just have to trust what you FEEL a little more than what people tell you is right or wrong - play around with it, remember that everybody has a different body structure, different things work differently for different people.........holy shit, that's enough I guess......
thats right i bench the same way , use plifting ttechnique, but dont quite lockout , keeps constant tension on muscle not allowing them to rest, were not here to rest right. same with all presses and squats too.try doing same technique with dumbel presses. or for a real chest screamer prefatigue once in awile with flyes