If you find that your chest is the one body part you are struggling to make profits with, Australian Bodybuilding Coach Eugene Teo is here to help. While previously outlining his favorite breast-building exercises, he now shares five of the most common mistakes he sees people make when it comes to breast exercises and what you should do instead.
These are all important things to know “if you have struggled with the growth of your chest, or perhaps feel that your front deltoids or triceps are taking over on pressure exercises, or you just feel like you have these gaps in your development,” says Teo. “Maybe it’s your lower chest that’s really well developed, but you have a lack of the upper part, or maybe you have an audience time to fill in that middle part.”
Here are five reasons why your breasts may be missing, according to Teo.
Reason 1: You are using the wrong “arm path”
“When you see people pushing, you usually see them taking a very high elbow angle and a wide armrest,” says Teo. “There are even presses that were popular a long time ago like the Guillotine press that deliberately made you pull your elbows wide.”
He explains this type of approach is flawed, because if you look at the actual direction of the chest fibers of the chest and the role they play, a wide armrest – to keep your elbows straight out of your upper body – is a poor choice. Teo says the best working position is one that fits your muscle fibers.
For the upper chest, this means an angle of 45 degrees in line with the direction of those fibers.
“When I pull my arms super wide, the fibers are no longer in good alignment from the insert (in your arm) to the one on my collarbone or sternum for my arm across the body,” he says.
By doing this, you will get breast stimulation, as well as stimulation by the front particles and the coracobrachialis, a small muscle that lies under the chest that is stretched when your elbows flare wide.
The solution: choose a tucked-in elbow position for all your pressure. Teo aims for a 45 to 60 degree position, with a grip that is close to a neutral palm.
Reason 2: You choose the wrong bank angle.
Teo notes that your incline bench angle will depend on how much of a bow you naturally take when you push, as well as structural differences in rib cage size and your sternum angle.
“A simple rule of thumb is to try to place whatever region you are trying to work perpendicular to the direction in which gravity is pulling the weight you are using,” says Teo. “So when we do an upper chest press with dumbbells, gravity pulls the dumbbell straight down in a vertical line. You want your bench to be slanted so that your upper chest is approximately perpendicular to it.”
For the upper chest, he notes that it can be between 30 and 60 degrees of a slope, possibly lower. Your ideal position also depends on your own structure and mobility.
“Someone who prefers to bend his back more and has a larger rib cage (like me) will probably find that a slightly higher incline is better for the upper chest,” says Teo. “Since I put my upper chest in a flatter position relatively speaking by arching my lower back more.”
Reason 3: You do not prioritize any exercises for the chest head of the chest.
According to Teo, this region of the chest, which you might consider the lower chest, is widely neglected in typical exercise plans.
“We always focus on the upper or middle parts, and not this coastal part that attaches to your upper abdomen,” he says. “You will hit it off by doing things like dips and take-off presses that follow your arm along the same fibers of that head of the chest. So make sure you include at least one variation of this in your routine.”
Reasons 4 and 5: Do not do any exercises that have a converging direction from wide to narrow, and do not do any exercises that emphasize the upper exclusion position of this range of motion.
Teo combines the last two reasons because he notices that they are connected.
“When you think about most chest exercises, like your bench presses, dumbbell presses and dumbbell flies, it makes you work along this one movement level,” he says. “There is no force to pull you outwards, and there is not much tension placed on your muscles when they come into this shortened position. Even if you have brought your arms closer to the top of the movement (as in a dumbbell), there is no tension on the muscles … so it’s kind of useless. “
To correct this, start doing exercises that not only push you straight up and down, but slightly over your body.
“This is where things like cables and machines are invaluable,” he says.
You should also use exercises and variations that become more difficult as you reach the top position, such as using straps or chains to increase the tension (commonly known as variable resistance). He notes this is a very undertrained position of flexion (the exclusion position), and a big reason why so many people have poor breast development.
“My favorite variation is to use a cable press, and to resist it with a belt press along the same pull line,” says Teo. “The same rules apply to your armpit and corner of your chest in different sections, so make sure you don’t skip past there.”
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