[Music] although chest is one of the most frequently trained muscles by most people it's also the one muscle group that people tend to have the most trouble developing when it comes to developing an attractive chest symmetry becomes more important than shear size so it's vital that you target each portion of your chest appropriately and we can do this by first understanding the anatomy of the chest anatomically the chest is divided into two main parts the clavicular head of the pec major also known as the upper chest and the sternal head of the pec major which
divides into both the middle chest and the lower chest because of the way the fibers run although all portions will be activated during all chest exercises certain portions can be emphasized since the upper chest fibers run upward they are best activated with chest exercises where the arms move upward since the middle chest fibers run horizontally they are best activated with chest exercises where the arms move directly horizontally and since the lower chest fibers run downwards they are best activated with chest exercises that involve the arms moving downwards so in this video i'm going to show
you guys a well-rounded chest workout that's optimized based on current scientific literature and our anatomical understanding of the chest before we get started it's important that you establish a solid mind to muscle connection with your chest otherwise you'll be working secondary muscles and your chest won't grow as much as it could in fact one study by snyder at l actually showed that verbal cues helped boost chest activation by 22 percent during bench press and trained athletes compared to when no cues were used some helpful cues you can use are to depress your traps and squeeze
your shoulder blades back into the bench before starting any pressing movement and think less about pushing the weight and more about moving the weight by squeezing your biceps together and back out again during every rep as a main function of the pecs is this exact movement through the added shoulder flexion of this movement incline dumbbell presses put more emphasis on the clavicular head of the pecs and work several other secondary muscles as well the main reason for starting with this exercise is to prioritize the upper chest which is often the lagging portion of the chest
in most people but i'll further discuss exercise order later on in this video now the great things about this exercise are one it allows a more full range of motion for the pecs which leads to more hypertrophy which is something that has been supported by many range of motion studies and two it's very effective at activating the upper chest for example an extensive emg study by brett contreras analyzed chest activity with 15 different chest exercises and inclined dumbbell presses were found to be the most effective compound movement for the upper chest and three it more
effectively prevents muscle imbalances from forming since each hand is responsible for an equal amount of weight as for the best bench angle to perform these with this is something that will vary based on your anatomy emg studies have shown that an optimal bench angle is somewhere between 30 degrees to 56 degrees and showed higher anterior delt activation as the angle got higher i personally find that a 30 degree and 45 degree angle best activates my chest which also seems to be the case for most people so i'd suggest performing a couple sets at both angles
in order to hit your chest most effectively the next exercise which is the traditional barbell bench press is going to put the most emphasis on the middle chest and just help with building overall chest thickness this exercise is something i had to include in this workout because of the overwhelming evidence supporting its effectiveness at building the chest it has been shown in several studies to be the best exercise at activating the chest and additionally the exercise that you can lift the most weight with also studies like this one by akage et al also show a
positive correlation between one rep max bench press with the size of the pectoralis major indicating that a strong bench does indeed equate to a big chest in many cases and regarding form you definitely want to come down to your chest for a full range of motion since as i mentioned earlier this is more effective for hypertrophy than shorter ranges of motion however the main problem i find with the bench press is that some people respond very well to it yet others tend to overcompensate with adults regardless of their form and various use of activation cues
which i personally think comes down to their individual anatomy if this is the case for you consider alternatively using an exercise like the dumbbell bench press which has been found to have similar chest activation to the barbell bench press but less triceps activation which may be a plus if your triceps are overactive when benching and in fact dumbbell bench press was actually shown by brett contreras study to elicit the best activation for the middle chest and another plus is the greater range of motion with dumbbells since your range of motion isn't limited by the bar
like it is in bench press but as you can see even in the literature there is a lot of individual variation so try them both out and see which works best for you the next exercise is going to be dips which was shown in brett contreras study to be the most effective exercise for hitting the lower chest which makes sense given that your shoulder is put in an extended position i personally prefer this variation called straight bar dips as i feel it a lot more in my lower chest probably due to the added internal rotation
during the movement which is another main function of the lower chest and it also gives my core a really good workout you can do these on a smith machine bar or any barbell that's set up on a rack you want to lean your upper body slightly over the bar and bring your legs forward under the bar as you descend to stay balanced and then use your lower chest and triceps to push back up and try to keep your elbows from flaring out too much and make sure the bar doesn't drag against your body throughout the
movement to be honest it is a pretty tough exercise for most people but i guarantee if you perform them properly and start using weight on them you will see huge improvements in your lower chest but if you're struggling with that then stick to regular dips for now with a slight lean forward to hit your chest more as opposed to the triceps and you want to eventually start adding weight to keep progressing it this exercise is kind of a finishing movement but it's something i highly recommend you include in your routine all you do is you
put a band around your back and hold each end of the band with your hands then perform regular push-ups with the added resistance a study by anderson at al compared banded push-ups with the bench press they had one group perform only banded push-ups for five weeks and another group performed only bench press for five weeks and compared how their bench press strength changed after the five weeks were complete the researchers found that not only did banded push-ups exhibit nearly identical chest activation when compared to the bench press but both groups resulted in very similar bench
press strength gains over the five weeks the fact that this exercise has a potential to improve your upper body strength as much as a bench press does and the fact that it has been shown in multiple studies to activate the chest especially the upper chest very well is why i chose to include this exercise an easy way to progress this exercise is just by using bands with higher resistance as you get stronger the last exercise is going to put more emphasis on the sternal head of the pecs so both the middle and lower chest will
be emphasized high to low cable crossovers have been shown in a few studies like this one by shanked l to be almost as effective as a bench press at activating the pecs so it's definitely a great finishing movement that you can perform the failure another bonus with this exercise and something that you can't do in most other exercises is it enables you to cross your hands over at the bottom position to allow greater horizontal abduction at the shoulder which will better activate the chest so to conclude here is a sample chest workout that you can
perform using the exercises i previously discussed but one thing to keep in mind is the order that you perform the exercises in several studies have shown a trend where lifters get better gains in hypertrophy and strength for exercises that are done early in a session meaning you want to order exercises based on what your strengths and weaknesses are if your upper chest is lagging then perform the workout in this order if your mid chest and overall thickness is lagging then perform the workout in this order and if your lower chest is lagging then perform the
workout in this order this will help prioritize weaknesses and help balance out your chest more thanks for watching guys i hope you enjoyed the video one important thing to keep note of and something that i noticed in both my personal experience and my review of the literature is that there is a lot of individual variation when it comes to the best exercises for the chest for example anatomical things like how far down your pec inserts onto the humerus can actually determine if bench press will be a good option for you or not although results from
studies may apply to most people they don't account for each individual which is why i highly recommend that you guys just try out a bunch of different chest exercises and see which one best activates your chest and with that being said i put in a lot of time and effort into this video so if you could please support me by giving the video a like leaving a comment and sharing the video i would really appreciate it and as always please don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications from my channel as this will really help
me out anyways that's it for this video guys i will see you next time [Music]
