If you ever wondered what the real reason your pecs won’t grow is, this is a must watch video. Here I’m going to take you through a series of just a few questions to unpack the exact reason your chest muscles are not responding to your chest workouts the way you want them to. In just minutes you are going to know not only exactly why you aren’t getting good chest gains but, more importantly, what to do to get them started.
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And it starts with the first question. Are you even bench pressing. A lot of times, people with underdeveloped chests don’t even do the most effective exercise for building a big chest - the bench press. This can be for fear of doing the movement, shoulder injury, or even just not wanting to showcase their weakness on the chest exercise in a public gym.
The sooner you learn to bench press properly and safely however, the sooner you will start to kickstart the size of your pecs. The rule of thumb is, if you haven’t incorporated this exercise into your chest workout routine consistently for at least a year and a half, then it is too early to tell if you are truly a chest non-responder. You need to start the exercise again and work to progressively build up your strength on the move.
That said, speaking of strength, what is yours on the bench press? In other words, how much ya bench? If the answer is less than 1.25 times your own bodyweight, then again this is an indicator that you likely haven’t invested enough time and reps into the movement to really tell if you are a pec non responder or not. Do this first. If you have and you still haven’t seen enough chest growth, then proceed to the next step.
The next question I ask is, are you supplementing? No not in terms of the food you are putting into your body but in the other chest exercises that you are including in your chest workouts. The bench press alone is not going to do the trick for most, save for the most genetically gifted or enhanced. You need to do more. The exercises you choose however are not created equal. If your pecs won’t grow then you are going to want to find the chest exercises that help you to engage and activate the chest fully.
Here you’re going to want to include exercises that help the chest to reach a complete contraction - namely those that incorporate adduction of the arm across the midline of the chest. While there is adduction performed during a bench press, pushup and dip there simply isn’t the type of full contraction capable as you can achieve with something like the cable crossover.
Lighten the weights and work on letting the chest do the work on every single rep of this exercise and you will start to build up the mind muscle connection that is necessary for driving not just new gains but the improved activation of the exact muscle you are struggling to build right now.
If the incorporation of this exercise or others that also help reach a better contraction still doesn’t do the trick, then it’s time to look in the mirror. I’m talking about, questioning your genetics. Now before you go and blame mom and dad for your underdeveloped pecs, not so fast. Everyone can have a great looking chest, even if it doesn’t necessarily look as full as Arnold’s or Larry Wheels. The key is optimizing the chest development through carefully selected exercises and techniques.
The length of someone’s clavicles can easily determine the size of their pecs. Quite simply, if someone has a much wider span between their AC joints they are going to have longer clavicles. This gives more opportunity for upper chest fibers to attach and ultimately build - leading to a bigger upper chest and overall chest for that matter. Just because you can’t fight your own anatomy doesn’t mean that you cannot build a big chest though.
That is where the other recommendations really help. My three favorite are to perform pause reps on dumbbell bench press and dips to start. Most underdeveloped pecs are at the expense of dominant delts. If you have access, the cable bench press is a phenomenal way to build a big chest.
Remember, this is not to be done at the expense of the bench press. Instead, compartmentalize the bench press as a strength movement that you are going to continue to do for that purpose.
If you’re looking for a complete workout program that will not only help you build a big chest even if you struggle to build one right now, head to athleanx.com via the link below and use the program selector to find the plan that matches your exact goals right now.
If you’re looking for a video on how to get a better upper chest or lower chest, be sure to click on the links at the end of this video and remember to subscribe to our channel here on youtube via the link below and turn on your notifications so you never miss a new video when it’s published.