Question about chest training

[FitFossil]

When I train chest, most of my soreness is in my upper chest. I get very little soreness near the midline (where I'd like a little more mass and depth - of the muscle variety). Does this mean I'm not hitting the mid-chest enough?

When I'm doing dumbell presses, I really try to concentrate on just using my chest muscles to move the weight and squeezing hard at the top, but still I get more sore in the upper chest than in the middle. What exercises are best for getting deeper muscle cleavage? Thanks!

 

[JJFigure]

Do you decline bench? That form of bench tends to hit the mid-lower chest a little more. You can also bench PL style, which really hits the mid-chest. Spatts put out a video showing the PL form in a separate thread.

 

[JJFigure]

And dips are awesome for building chest muscle cleavage. Gotta dip!

 

[Realgains]

The function of the pectoral muscles are to bring the upper arms towards the midline but also DOWNWARD.

Please try this...put your arms straight out in front of you while standing and then contract the pecs. Now do the same thing but hold your arms downward on a 45 degree angle. Notice how much stronger the contraction is!!

The best exercises for overall chest developement are those exercises that place ones arms in this downward position.....Dips with elbows flaired to the sides, hammer decline bench and regular barbell declines are the best activators of the pectorals.
If you are a powerlifter then you need to stick to regular flat benches for the most part since you are most concerned about the amount of weight you can lift in the big three lifts.....but as a bodybuilder you will find that declines or dips work the entire pec region better.

Focus on increasing the weights in tiny amounts every week or two(like a pound a week) and after a few months your entire chest will be stronger and bigger.

www.fractionalplates.com

Soreness is often only felt in certain regions of a particular muscle group no matter what combo of exercises one trys but that doesn't mean that only the sore area is getting heavy stimulation.


RG

 

[StRoNg_WoN]

You might want to try cable cross-overs or flyes as well...

 

[MS]

Mmmmmm, wide grip DIPS with an extra contraction at the top. Enough said.