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upper and mid chest exercises???

Inclines bech/flies for upper

Flat bench/flyes for mid

Dips for lower.
 
several yrs ago when i got my implants, i was told not to do pressing exercises. supposedly the muscle would press the implants down.

i want my upper and mid chest to look more muscular so i am going to change my chest work out dramatically (within reason of the above mentioned situation). just wanted suggestions as to how you get your best results.

thanks in advance!

serious suggestions please
 
sysopt said:
how did you come to the conclusion that you can force-grow one part of your chest over the other parts?

not sure i understand your question? but you can do certain exercises to help target a certain area of a muscle.

take for instance your bicep. even though your bicep is one muscle, it has two heads. certain exercises work each head a little better (different areas of your bicep). for example, a wider grip will hit the long head and a narrow grip will hit the short head.

for fear of "pushing" my implants down with my chest muscles, i have been working mainly my outer chest for years (avoiding pressing exercises that generally work mid chest, etc.). my chest near my arms is the most cut up. (it is not like my mid chest is flabby and my outer chest is cut...that would look kind of funny! :)it just "looks" a little more cut on the outer) anyway, i want to attain that throughout my entire chest without "pushing" the implants down which i think i can control through reps. just wanted to know what worked for you guys to help me determine my new chest work out!

thanks for the imput!
 
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not sure i understand your question? but you can do certain exercises to help target a certain area of a muscle.
No you can't it's a myth. You can work your chest - not upper chest or lower chest. Your muscle is very stupid, it doesn't know the difference between incline benching and decline - it just knows it's being called to work. It expands and contracts - that's it. You can only change the size of your muscle, not the shape.
 
genarr3...i definately agree that genetics predetermines how someone is going to look!

with what i know about bbing, can you help me make sense of your following statement??? thanks! :)

*you can only change the size of your muscle, not the shape* b/c my ex practiced weight training for years and looked great! but he started working both heads of his biceps and you could see both heads as clear as day when he changed up his workout! he changed the shape of his bicep.

so i agree that you can change the size of a muscle, that is obvious in people everyday. but he also changed the shape of his bicep. in changing his workout, his muscle grew and therefore the shape changed as well in this case.
 
Actually I'm wrong - partially wrong, but more wrong then right in answering your question. In an attempt to give you an intelligent reply I discovered that there is in fact an upper chest muscle - Clavical Head.

My statement - you can only change size not shape, is still correct.

But you can work upper chest or your "Upper Pecs" with any incline movement. Because it's a different muscle.

To answer your biceps question yes you can work different areas; there are different muscles there. I actually knew that, but you probably don't believe me.

There's a good anatomy chart at this website:
http://www.exrx.net/index.html
You won't have to put up with uninformed replies from dummies such as myself.
 
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the shape didn't change, the size changed which gave it the illusion of a different shape. The shape of one particular muscle is not determined by the exercise done. Stop reading worthless bodybuilding magazines and open a physiology text book, you'd be suprised how much bullshit is out there.
 
genarr3 said:
Actually I'm wrong - partially wrong, but more wrong then right in answering your question. In an attempt to give you an intelligent reply I discovered that there is in fact an upper chest muscle - Clavical Head.

My statement - you can only change size not shape, is still correct.

But you can work upper chest or your "Upper Pecs" with any incline movement. Because it's a different muscle.

To answer your biceps question yes you can work different areas; there are different muscles there. I actually knew that, but you probably don't believe me.

There's a good anatomy chart at this website:
http://www.exrx.net/index.html
You won't have to put up with uninformed replies from dummies such as myself.

that's incorrect, the pec clavicle is part of one muscle group: pec major. inclines do a great job of working the front delts...:rolleyes: jeez will people ever learn

burn the muscle mags :mad:
 
2 bicep heads....working them individually?.....(drum roll)......

ah hell, nevermind. i cant win over joe weider.

work that inner head of the bicep, and the inner chest and lower abs.:bawling: :rolleyes:
 
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Well I hate to disagree...

...with you can't change the shape guys, but you can.

Switch to doing nothing but incline (by that I mean 30-35 degrees) work for the next 6 weeks and you will see the difference for yourselves.

Better yet - switch to hacks only for quads and see that sweep pop.
 
okay...thanks for all of the great repsonses you guys! WOW!

my interpretation of all of this info was that there are different muscles that are generally CATORGIZED into a muscles group (pect major, minor, etc. are considered your chest). you can only increase mass and not shape. but by targeting a specific muscle in that group you can change the size of *that* particular muscle in that certain area therefore giving the illusion of changing the "shape" of the CATORGIZED chest.

is that correct? whew!

anyways...back to the question...do you guys have a favorite exercise for the mid and upper CATORGIZED chest? again, just wanted to know what worked for you guys to help me determine my new chest work out! :)

btw, my brain hurts! :(
 
You cannot separately target the clavicular head. You cannot work the "inner chest". You CANNOT work your lower abs. Hack squats will NOT bring out your sweep. Your muscles are NOT special, they work just like everyone else's. Being loud and condescending does not change the fact that you're wrong. Posting a picture of a muscle without understanding even the most rudimentary facts of biomechanics/physiology does NOT add credence to your argument.

You cannot turn lead into gold. There is no such thing as Santa Claus. You cannot change the world. AND YOU CAN'T BUILD YOUR FUCKING UPPER CHEST!





Thank you. Do a frickin' search for god's sake. This has been argued over and over and over and over. And the argument goes something like this:

Questioner) "How do I build my upper chest?"

Person number 1) "It is physically impossible to build your upper chest. It may be a separate muscle, but the degree of stimulation even during incline movements is the same. The indicators/causes of hypertrophy (fatigue, microtears, hormone/enzyme release, etc.) are identical in both the sternal and clavicular head of the pectoralis major, even during incline movements. Under sufficient stress to elicit an adaptive response, both heads will maximally contract. Chest shape is genetically determined, you cannot change it."

Person number 2) "Do inclines!

Person number 1) "Did you not read what I just said????"

Person number 3) "Yeah, inclines and seated inclien (sic) crossovers"

Person number 1) "You're idiots.

Person number 4 (aka 'meathead guru', claim to fame = three cycles) "Hey person number 1. You're an idiot. I can change my chest shape. Arnold said so."

Person number 1) "I give up"

Persons 2-4) "We win! hahaha. *dance around thread in a vaguely homosexual manner before running off to the gym for "lower lat" day.*




:mad:
 
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Excuse me? An asshole? What do you base that on? That I have a little fun with these absolutely retarded arguments? lol. You don't know me... I've been on this board for QUITE some time. The only person who would call me an asshole is gymtime, and that's because he's a crotchety old coot when he runs out of his metamucil.

(sorry bud, had to take a dig. :D )

I can't tell you how many times I've argued this. And what's so frustrating is that people that argue it's possible to work separate parts NEVER back up their argument with anything concrete.

Then what happens is newbies are fed wrong information all over again. You were incorrect with your statement on biceps etc. and several of your other assumptions. I do not flame you for being incorrect, you at the very least showed a willingness to change your viewpoint as new information arose. But what pisses me off is those who stubbornly refuse to admit that they may be wrong, even when confronted by solid evidence/arguments.

As sysopt said, it's hopeless. There IS good information floating around this board. But there's twice as much bad information.

Why I'm justifying myself to a rude twit such as yourself, I'll never know.

Then again, I suppose when it comes to discussion board debates, I'd rather be thought of as an asshole by a few people, and be right. (as opposed to being thought of as a nice guy, yet at the same time being completely wrong)
 
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Belial said:
Excuse me? An asshole? What do you base that on? That I have a little fun with these absolutely retarded arguments? lol. You don't know me... I've been on this board for QUITE some time. The only person who would call me an asshole is gymtime, and that's because he's a crotchety old coot when he runs out of his metamucil.

(sorry bud, had to take a dig. :D )......

*shaking my fist in the air* Why you little.....!!!!! :mad:
 
Simple advice, ashe.

Hit your chest with one or two pressing movements that you can do with good form... Flat dumbbell bench and dips are excellent. Add in an isolation exercise like flyes or cable crossovers. Do three sets of each other those, keep the reps between 8 and 10, and try to increase your weight or reps every week. Your chest will get bigger and stronger, that means the upper part, the lower part, the outer part, the inner part, etc.

There's no magic exercise to help you out here, all you can hope is to make the entire muscle bigger. If you're not supposed to do pressing movements because any muscle growth will push the implants down, then simply don't work your chest. You can't hope to just build the upper part (for reasons that have been mentioned) Crossovers will not push the implants down any less than presses will; by 'presses' the doc probably meant ANY chest exercise. If this is the case, you should avoid ANY pec contraction under load. That means dips, flat bench, incline bench, flyes, cable crossovers, etc.

The upper/outer/lower chest, long/short head of biceps etc. IS a myth, please do believe us here. Go check out ANY coursebook on exercise physiology/biomechanics, or go to misc.fitness.weights, supertraining, or any other truely elite group like that, and ask the same question. They'll laugh if you claim you can make those part grow separately. These are PhDs, MDs, the trainers that train the pros, some of the best known names in the field, etc. So if you don't believe us, believe them. :)

Peace.
 
Well, at the fear of incurring Belial's wrath, I'd just like to put in my 2 cents. It is physiologically impossible to stress different parts of a single muscle fiber, i.e. it's impossible to work your inner or outer pecs. But there is some evidence to suggest that-- despite the fact that most text books will say a muscle is either completely contracted or not--it *may* be possible to stress different portions of the pectorals. Nothing very convincing, mind you--mostly just EMG stuff, which isn't all that accurate. In my experience, incline chest movements will affect upper chest development. Still, follow Belial's advice and your chest will look just about as good as it possibly can.

<ducking to avoid punch from Belial>
 
I'm not looking to get into a flame war here, belial, sysopt, etc, I respect your knowlege and experience, but I wanna get my .002 into this...
So what is being said, is that you can build a fully developed upper chest solely by doing flat bench work, ie, flat bench, flat flyes, etc. I disagree, there is no way that you can build a fully developed upper chest strictly by doing flat bench work. I don't have a degree in physiology, only in social work, but I do have 12 years of training, research, and a lot of anecdotal evidence to back up what I'm thinking.
Best example I have is me, those of you that have seen the pic that i posted on here know that I have managed to build a well developed chest over time, but that wasn't always the case. For years all I had done was flat bench work, and my chest looked terrible, all lower thickness and nothing in the upper. So I switched my routine and concentrated almost solely on upper chest for a long time. Over time, my upper chest gained a tremendous amount of size, but the lower did not gain any. So it's not like the whole muscle grew bigger, and as a result of that the upper portion grew; the only place I gained any size was in the upper.
So how could that have happened if I can't target certain areas?
 
B&I- that's my chief problem with EMG- the stress may be different, but it's never been shown to be different enough to elicit differing degrees of adaptation. So while perhaps one angle would require comparatively near 100% fiber recruitment of one muscle, and only 95% of another, that is NOT statistically significant, and not enough to prove that one group will undergo a greater degree of hypertrophy. Unless the difference is 100% versus "x%", where x% is not enough stimulation to cause growth/adaptation, or unless it's possible to maximally contract one muscle without also maximally contracting its neighbor, then you simply cannot cause differing degrees of growth.

Add that to the fact that EMG studies are fundamentally imperfect in their assessment methods (either a superficial 'surface' measurement of activity, or a very localized deep muscle probe which may negatively affect muscular contraction), and you don't have something that's going to make anybody raise their eyebrows... or flex their clavicular pec, for that matter.



............




*Punches Blood & Iron in the ear*
 
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Belial said:

*Punches Blood & Iron in the ear*
Dammit...that hurt. Boy, those cable crossovers have given you a wicked hook.

I noticed you made sure to include them in your recommendations.

<Holding bleeding ear, but still laughing>
 
Make fun of my foo-foo exercise one more time and I'll peg you with a swiss ball! Worse yet, strangle you with one of those pink toning bands. Then you'll be sorry.




lol. :D
 
Belial said:
Make fun of my foo-foo exercise one more time and I'll peg you with a swiss ball! Worse yet, strangle you with one of those pink toning bands. Then you'll be sorry.




lol. :D

leggo of my pink toning band, without it, how am i supposed to do single leg, opposite arm shoulder presses standing on a half foam roll with my eyes closed?:fro:
 
bignate73 said:


leggo of my pink toning band, without it, how am i supposed to do single leg, opposite arm shoulder presses standing on a half foam roll with my eyes closed?:fro:
I thought you were one of the guys that advocated that sorta stuff, though?(Obviously, not as silly as what's above, but the stability training, etc.) I'd like Poliquin and some others a lot better if they didn't.
 
*stomping foot*

that's not fair! i want to jump in and punch somebody too! :D and i promise i won't make ya bleed!
 
Punch gymtime when he comes back. B&I's already looking pretty beat up.

As for the mud wrestling, hell, I'm in. :)
 
Belial said:
You cannot separately target the clavicular head. You cannot work the "inner chest". You CANNOT work your lower abs. Hack squats will NOT bring out your sweep. Your muscles are NOT special, they work just like everyone else's. Being loud and condescending does not change the fact that you're wrong. Posting a picture of a muscle without understanding even the most rudimentary facts of biomechanics/physiology does NOT add credence to your argument.

You cannot turn lead into gold. There is no such thing as Santa Claus. You cannot change the world. AND YOU CAN'T BUILD YOUR FUCKING UPPER CHEST!





Thank you. Do a frickin' search for god's sake. This has been argued over and over and over and over. And the argument goes something like this:

Questioner) "How do I build my upper chest?"

Person number 1) "It is physically impossible to build your upper chest. It may be a separate muscle, but the degree of stimulation even during incline movements is the same. The indicators/causes of hypertrophy (fatigue, microtears, hormone/enzyme release, etc.) are identical in both the sternal and clavicular head of the pectoralis major, even during incline movements. Under sufficient stress to elicit an adaptive response, both heads will maximally contract. Chest shape is genetically determined, you cannot change it."

Person number 2) "Do inclines!

Person number 1) "Did you not read what I just said????"

Person number 3) "Yeah, inclines and seated inclien (sic) crossovers"

Person number 1) "You're idiots.

Person number 4 (aka 'meathead guru', claim to fame = three cycles) "Hey person number 1. You're an idiot. I can change my chest shape. Arnold said so."

Person number 1) "I give up"

Persons 2-4) "We win! hahaha. *dance around thread in a vaguely homosexual manner before running off to the gym for "lower lat" day.*




:mad:


nothing like a little comedy in the training forum! :D
 
The Nature Boy said:



nothing like a little comedy in the training forum! :D

Yah man. I'm liking this thread now, especially since mud wrestling has been mentioned. The male/female ratio kinda sucks, though.
 
*can you smell what the ashe is cooking!*

Belial said:

As for the mud wrestling, hell, I'm in. :)

bend over baby because you're about to get an ass kickin! (please don't rip my swimsuit off though, i need to leave at least a little to the imagination! :p )
 
Belial said:


Yah man. I'm liking this thread now, especially since mud wrestling has been mentioned. The male/female ratio kinda sucks, though.
Too many girls for ya, huh?

<Uses masterful ninjutsu skills to avoid another blow>
 
Re: *can you smell what the ashe is cooking!*

ashe said:


bend over baby because you're about to get an ass kickin! (please don't rip my swimsuit off though, i need to leave at least a little to the imagination! :p )

I don't mind a little ass kickin, as long as it's not TOO rough... ;)
 
Blood&Iron said:

Too many girls for ya, huh?

<Uses masterful ninjutsu skills to avoid another blow>

Why not use those skills and get the heck outta my thread. I got some business to take care of.

:fro:
 
I had to double check the name of the forum, for a second I thought I was in the chat room........

Doesn't anyone want to argue with me?
 
needsize said:
I had to double check the name of the forum, for a second I thought I was in the chat room........

Doesn't anyone want to argue with me?
Frankly, I'm just making a bunch of useless posts, so I can get a nifty avatar.

I pretty much agree with you. In my experience, you are right. It's just there's not much in the way of science to support the conclusion. I think Belial's too preoccupied with his mud-wrestling to care.
 
needsize said:
I had to double check the name of the forum, for a second I thought I was in the chat room........

Doesn't anyone want to argue with me?

can't we all just get along?!?! :)

i personally tried to lighten the mood b/c i felt like too much testoterone was flying around! damn men!! ;)
 
i still have my own opinion on the matter and no matter what i have heard/read i still haven't changed my mind yet. i think everyone made some great points, and i can find one thing that anyone said and agree with it. also, i am pretty sure everyone can agree to disagree.

by all means, if anyone wants to continue to bring up anymore great points, please do so. i have enjoyed reading everything thus far. i didn't know this simple thread would cause such a stir....although i have heard that women are good at that! :p
 
ashe said:
didn't know this simple thread would cause such a stir....although i have heard that women are good at that! :p

They are, but intelligent controversy just forces people to think and re-evaluate what they think they know, not a bad thing.
Big difference between that and arguing about whether or not bodybuilders are stronger than powerlifters....
 
By the way, it's great to see female trainers on the board to help balance out the monsterous amounts of testosterone here!
 
Now I'm just being a dick, but this is what I built after I started concentrating on inclines..(btw, this was 15lbs ago)
 
Looks like your upper chest could use some work, bro.



;)

I'm not doubting that you've gotten excellent results from inclines... but just keep in mind, even the upper part of your flexed chest there is still the STERNAL pectoralis major. The clavicular head is downright tiny compared to the rest of the chest, and if it was that head that was growing, you'd have a skinny, elevated triangle on top of your pecs. :) It could honestly be that inclines are better suited for your particular mechanics... for whatever reason, flat bench was simply not working your chest enough. Could be grip, different technique, you name it.

And I'm all for intelligent controversy. But what came before the silliness in this thread did not really fall under that category. I think it's taken a turn for the better, though. Lemme wash this mud off, and then we can continue the argument. lol

And yeah, at the end of the day we're all on the same team here.

Except B&I. I'm not sure what team he plays for.



:D

(j/k, bro)
 
Belial said:


Just because he finally said what you've been too much of a wussy to say all this time.

:D

WUSSY!?!?!!! :mad: How dare you. You want the shaky fist again? I'll do it, I swear I will....
 
My new policy on Elite is that henceforth I will contribute nothing, and make short, terse statements that have nothing at all to do with the topic at hand. In this way, I will quickly reach 500post and get to have my own avatar.

BTW, like my new sig. The old one was ace, but it was time to retire it. I'm planning on keeping my new one a LOOOONG time.
 
B&I, if you want to get your post count up that much, just bump everything, seems to work for most people around here who are questing for stars under their name, j/k

Belial, you certainly do present an intelligent enough defence of your beliefs, I don't know if I'm just too stuck in the "old school" thinking, but I can only buy into the concept so much.
 
Blood&Iron said:

BTW, like my new sig. The old one was ace, but it was time to retire it. I'm planning on keeping my new one a LOOOONG time.

Cool! I'm gonna go abuse my mod powers over at that other board. muahahahaha.

j/k. That's cool. I know I'm not an asshole. So it doesn't bother me.


dick

:fro:

People are gonna think you're obsessed with me. Having me in your sig and all.


Needsize- it's all good, man. Regardless of the piddly details, you've obviously got your shit together. So upper/inner/outer chest be damned, that's the small stuff. Whether or not I agree with you on this particular point, and whether you're right or wrong on this point does not change the fact that your personal experience (and results) speak volumes. Old school or not. So we may disagree somewhat on which exact route to take, but we got the same destination. Or... something like that.
 
Belial, i couldn't agree more. I know what has worked for me and others that I've helped train, but at the same time I freely admit that I don't know all the physiological reasons why it worked.
Plus, like I said earlier, I do like the intelligent debating. I have been doing this for so long that I don't accept other thoughts/approaches very easily when it comes to basic training, but these types of threads challenge what I think I know, and that is a good thing, cuz I know there is no way that I know it all. Unfortunately this type of debate has been absent from this board recently, and as a result, so have I!
 
Belial said:


Cool! I'm gonna go abuse my mod powers over at that other board. muahahahaha.
Shit. I forgot about that. I feel my body getting tingly. I may be going into shock. My beautiful journal.

Okay...'Tis gone.
 
B&I- I'd never screw with your journal, man. This is a personal thing, I'll get you back on equal footing. :)

needsize- Well said. So let's go start some more fights. hehe.
 
needsize- Well said. So let's go start some more fights. hehe.

Sure, where's SSAlexSS????
 
I'll make him a deal, I'll totally leave him alone if he puts up a picture of himself, and that may be hard as I imagine his pic would give us more ammo than his thoughts...

I feel kinda bad that we stole ashe's thread, but this did help work pass a lot faster.
 
It's funny how we've all been tossing insults at SSAlexSS and we haven't seen him in days.....
 
Don't tell me you miss him?

Ashe doesn't mind that we hijacked the thread, I don't think... In the end, nobody was convinced. lol
 
you can.

are you thinking that the chest is separated into two portion: the top part being the minor and the lower part being the major? if so you're wrong.

The pec major is the whole 'top' muscle sheath, if you will - including the distinct upper and lower regions. The minor is a muscle that runs underneath over the 3rd and 5th ribs.

Any press or flye uses the entire chest complex so you can work the minor.

Also, using inclines puts slightly more stress on the minor, and a well developed minor can 'push up' giving the appearance of a thicker upper chest. Only problem is that the degree of significance that inclines have on the pec minor is so miniscule it's not even worth doing such a worthless, over rated exericse that recruits more shoulder involvement than i'd prefer.

I'll stick with my flat presses and weighted dips thank you very much :)
 
Not to mention the pec minor itself is a tiny muscle in comparison to the pec major, so even a 100% size increase (difficult to achieve for any muscle under any circumstances) would probably not have ANY noticeable effects. It's more akin to the serratus anterior muscles in size, but unlike them, it's covered by a much larger muscle. (The serratus can be seen when bodyfat is low, even though their size is small, because there is no other muscle on top of them. But feel for yourself... the serratus anterior will never get 'big'.)
 
1. I say u cant beat a nice set os deep incline flys
2. deep flat bench flys
I guess u can i say i am a fan of DB flys but they have really helped me alot so i enjoy doing them
 
here's the thread about targetting specific areas of the chest, saves us a new debate.
 
Just saves us having to retype the same stuff over and over again...
 
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