Chest muscle needs reforming

[rfurman24]

I am by no means an expert of this subject, but I can tell you from experience that I did notice a difference in chest appearence by changing from incline to decline to flies. I had more "cleavage" from doing flies and the bottom of my chest got bigger from decline and the top got bigger from incline. I took about five years off because I did not have time to go the gym. Now I only have access to a chest press machine and my chest looks completely different.

[Darkhorse]

I might as well throw in my whole thread dedicated to my belief that a muscle works as a UNIT, not in different sections.. Like I've said a million times already, if you can flex either your upper, lower, or inner chest without flexing the whole thing, then you've got an argument... Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way.

Split Advocates

I think flyes for chest development is useless. Just cannot compare a 300 lb press (whether incline, decline, or flat) to 40 lb flyes. It's either a PRE or POST set exhaustion technique that isn't needed. Same goes for cable flyes. All they do is work to condition the muscle...Which isn't needed for hypertrophy.

Now, if someone compares incline to decline anything, the difference is simply that inclines recruit more anterior delts into the lift.. The end. If you look at an EMG machine, which measures muscle recruitment for different lifts, it'll clearly show that DECLINE anything recruits the most chest mass. The reason is quite clear. The pectoralis has the simple job of pulling your arm DOWN and INto your body. That's the primary mover.

I can say from experience that my pecs grow just fine doing flat bench.. Case closed. Why? A lot of people I find don't care for the flat bench because they are a "shoulder presser". This means they roll their shoulders forward in the lift, taking the stimulus off of the chest, where it's intended. However, if they were to keep their shoulder blades together throughout the press, and learn to arch their chest focusing on chest activation, they'd all be singing a different toon.

If people are REALLY obsessive compulsive about mapping out their chest into a thousand different sections, then I would pick a heavy press (flat, incline, or decline) followed by some rep work with a different angle (flat, incline, or decline dumbbell press), then rotate every 2 weeks. This example works best with an Upper/Lower split.

If people would prefer a full body workout, and are obsessive about the sections , then map out three seperate workouts.. Essentially picking a different ANGLE to press with every other day. So Monday is flat bench, Wednesday is incline bench, and Friday is decline DB.

Doesn't get much easier than that.