Q: Doug Brignole says that the incline press is worthless for upper chest. I’ve read your explanation, and you agree. Then why does my upper chest get sore when I include it?
A: It’s not completely worthless for the upper pecs; however, it is limited and almost totally front-delt dominant.
The only upper-chest benefit you get from incline presses is at the bottom when the fibers are fully elongated. That will get you sore, plus…
In Old Man, Young Muscle I discuss a study that produced “significant hypertrophy” with only stretching. So inclines can possibly produce some muscle mass due to that initial stretch; however…
Once your upper arms start driving toward your chin, right after full stretch and into the important max-contractile-force point, it’s all front delts and triceps.
So it’s an inefficient exercise if you’re looking for extra chest mass (I’ll have a better upper-pec add-on move in a moment). On the other hand…
If you look at the decline dumbbell press, the bottom stretch elongates the the entire chest complex—even the upper fibers are stretched (there was a study a we had in Iron Man years ago that showed declines activate more upper chest than incline presses). That’s one reason it has ideal-exercise status.
You can see that in these screen grabs of Doug Brignole from his training videos—he makes a concerted effort to stretch the pecs at the bottom of each rep…
Plus, with the dumbbell decline press, you maintain pectoral engagement throughout the range of motion…
If your upper chest is a weak point, try adding low-incline flyes after your DB declines. Only do the bottom half of the stroke to emphasize the stretch range and keep your chest engaged…
From the recent studies, stretch overload is finally moving to the forefront as a key hypertrophy trigger. It’s one reason powerlifters have such massive traps; heavy deadlifts, an exercise that puts those muscle in a max-stretch struggle from start to finish…
Speaking of power, I’ll discuss stretch overload and how it helped a strong-AF Mr. Olympia pack on shocking mass tomorrow. Stay tuned.
New: Get the ideal exercise for each muscle, the best add-on moves for ultimate mass, complete 35-minute workouts, exercise start/finish photos, and details on building muscle fast and efficiently in Old Man, Young Muscle.
And you still get The Muscle-On, Belly-Gone “Diet” ebook FREE for a limited time when you add Old Man, Young Muscle to your mass-building library. Go HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
Recommended
ELIMINATE SHOULDER PAIN
Shoulder pain can affect your workouts forever. That’s not good!
That’s why we’re recommending advice from injury specialist Rick Kaselj, MS. His tips can help make your shoulders nearly bullet-proof.
Here are a few general tips from Rick (he goes into more detail in his program)…
Top 5 Tips To Bullet-Proof Your Shoulders
- Build Tension in Your Lats. When doing shoulder exercises, activate your lats and keep your shoulders happy.
- Prime Up Your Muscles. Most people do a warm-up that just lubricates the joint, but you need to activate and turn on all the muscles in your upper body.
- Technique, Technique, Technique. This is the number one reason why people injure their shoulders. You can’t go to the gym every day and work on your max lift.
- Watch Out for Fatigue. Cooking your smaller muscles in your shoulder complex, and that increases the risk of shoulder injury and pain.
- Work on Your Shoulder Blade Muscles. Many strength coaches will say you’re wasting your time on this, but if you want to have bullet-proof shoulders, you need to work on them.
Get all of Rick’s tips and tricks for pain-free workouts below: