How to work the inner pectoral muscles

How to learn to move the pectoral muscles for a man

Beautiful and sculpted male breasts attract attention. But she can impress others even more if a man knows how to effectively move his pectoral muscles.

How to pump up your breasts

• 1.1 Best exercises
• 1.2 Load on different parts of the chest
• 1.3 Optimal training frequency

• 2 Reduce the amount of subcutaneous fat 2.1 How to dry your body

How to prevent muscle imbalance?

Bodybuilding is not just muscle mass - it is, first of all, ideal proportions and symmetry. Of course, mere mortals do not necessarily become sculptures with ideal circle shapes, but acquiring some aesthetic physique would not be bad.

Actually, let's do this.

So, there are two types of movements that can be done - bilateral and unilateral. Bilateral - when an athlete uses two limbs (arms, legs) at the same time, for example, lifting a barbell for biceps.

Unilateral - when one limb is used, for example, lifting a dumbbell with a hammer grip. Sometimes muscles grow more on one side than the other and this is due to the dominant side of the body. The presenter always tries to override and do all the work. If we talk about arms/legs, then for right-handed people the leading one is the right one, for left-handers, respectively, the left one.

To bring balance, i.e. to pull equally on different sides (and equalize the volumes), you must adhere to the following tips:

How to pump up your breasts

Only a person whose pectoral muscles are well trained and pumped up can play beautifully with their pectoral muscles. An untrained man cannot feel or control them, so the first thing to focus on is creating sculpted muscle mass.

It is necessary to develop the whole body evenly, but in this case exercises will be described that are aimed primarily at the pectoral muscles.

Best exercises

To get quick results, you need to focus on the problem area. There are several of the most effective exercises that will help you quickly create the desired volume in your chest. And while doing them, you will be able to feel the necessary muscles in action.

Listen carefully to your sensations - to move any muscles you need to create a load on them. Just understand how to move to contract a particular part of the chest, and you will quickly master this skill.

The best exercises for chest development:

1. Pushups.
2. Bench press.
3. Lying dumbbell fly.
4. Information on blocks.

Start working with light weights and gradually increase them. First of all, focus on the execution technique and accustom your muscles to the load. Working with a lot of weight at once can cause you to strain yourself or get injured.

The most effective thing is the bench press with a barbell.

If you are new to the gym, be sure to contact an instructor. He will help you choose the right load and teach you how to perform the exercises correctly. After all, if you do them with errors, you will not achieve the desired result. And in the worst case, you can even get injured.

Load on different parts of the chest

The pectoral muscles are located on the front wall of the chest and extend to the tubercle of the humerus. Conventionally, the breast can be divided into 4 areas:

• top;
• lower;
• external;
• internal.

For beautiful breasts, you need to apply the load evenly to all parts. For some areas you need to perform the exercises with slight modifications. Keep this in mind if you are not satisfied with the appearance of your breasts.

The famous fitness instructor Denis Semenikhin in the video below will tell you how to properly pump up this or that area of ​​the chest.

https://youtu.be/1ylXKNQnY1s

The outer and inner chest areas develop well when performing the most popular exercise - the bench press with a barbell. But you need to take into account the position of your hands:

• The wider the grip, the greater the load on the outside.
• The narrower the grip, the greater the load on the internal one.

When performing this exercise, the lower edge of the chest is also perfectly worked out; the main thing is to work on a flat horizontal surface.

The inner chest works well during blocking at the point where the hands are as close to each other as possible. In the maximum diluted state, the outer part works. Stay at these extreme points for a while to give additional stress to the desired areas.

The upper extrinsic muscles are worked during lying dumbbell flyes. By changing the inclination of the bench, you can give additional stress to the area with which you have problems:

• an inclination of 20-30 degrees helps to pump up the middle of the chest;
• when tilted at 40-50 degrees, the upper chest works.

Try to use different exercises during your workouts so that your pectoral muscles develop evenly.

Optimal training frequency

Wanting to quickly learn how to move their pectoral muscles, men make a common mistake - they exercise every day. But you will get the results of your training not during classes, but between them.

The optimal frequency of strength training is no more than once every 72 hours or 2 times a week. Otherwise, the muscles simply will not have time for recovery and subsequent growth.

During training, listen carefully to the sensations and watch the body's reaction, then later you will be able to contract your muscles at will.

What made a person move his ears?

If now some people consider this ability as entertainment, others use this exercise to help strengthen the skin and muscles of the face, then in the old days, everything was different. And the life of all mankind sometimes depended on how a person controlled his ears. We differ from the animal world in that we do not have tenacious paws, sharp teeth or claws. The man was helpless in front of the large beast until he thought of arming himself with a club. But still, ancient man had a more developed human body than the one he has now.

And women needed various unique abilities less than men, since they could hide in a cave while the men hunted. They needed various skills to quickly get food. They “pricked up” their ears, listened, calculating their prey.

Reduce the amount of subcutaneous fat

No matter how pumped and developed your pectoral muscles are, no one will be able to see their movements under a layer of fat. Even with a normal weight, the chest will look round and too voluminous.

The optimal level of subcutaneous fat is 7-10%. With this indicator, you will have a sculpted body, where every muscle and every movement is visible.

It is not recommended to go below 5% - it is harmful to health.

How to dry your body

Perform the exercises described at the beginning of the article, and at the same time change your diet. You cannot starve or go on strict diets, because in this case muscle mass will suffer. And you worked so long to develop it. To get rid of fat, you need to follow the following rules:

1. Avoid fast carbohydrates. To achieve a beautiful figure, you will have to give up sweets, baked goods, fast food, carbonated drinks, chips and other junk food.
2. Complex carbohydrates until 2 pm. You cannot completely give up carbohydrates, because they are necessary for the normal functioning of the body. The main thing is to consume them in the first half of the day and in small volumes - 1 g per 1 kg of weight.
3. Limit fats - don't give them up completely, but reduce them to a minimum.
4. Eat more protein – To develop muscle mass and gain strength, you need to eat more protein foods. These products include eggs, lean meat, fish, legumes, and low-fat dairy products.

After consulting with your doctor, you can take fat-burning medications. The main thing is to follow the instructions and do not violate the specified dosage.

Soon your pectoral muscles will become more visible.

Muscle asymmetry in the early stages of training

As soon as you begin to perform an exercise, the brain makes an assessment of which side of the body is easier for it to perform the task. The body then establishes a favorable pattern of movement (stores it into memory), as a result of which the increase in strength and volume occurs unevenly - the most frequently used areas increase faster.

Over time, the fine line increases, as a result of which the muscle group constantly “pulling out” the load becomes dominant (stronger, more durable, more voluminous). This is how asymmetry arises.

How to move your pectoral muscles

During training, you will feel your muscles working and contracting. The more they are developed, the better you will be able to feel and control them. To do this, the main thing is to follow two rules:

1. Perform the exercises technically correctly. Be sure to work with an individual trainer at the beginning of your training until you learn how to correctly perform this or that action.
2. Mimic the movements of exercises outside the gym. In between workouts, repeat the exercises at home, without additional load or effort. Just focus on the muscles that are working during your workout. Remember how they move during certain actions, what you feel, how they react.

With these mindful home exercises, you can eventually learn to move your pectoral muscles at will. Just tense them the same way you did during the exercises and they will respond accordingly.

Practical exercise

In addition, you can learn to tense your chest muscles using the following method:

1. Raise your arms to chest level, bend and tense them so that your chest muscles contract.
2. As you become more experienced, raise your hands not so high - place them a little lower. Experiment to see how low you can hold your arms so that when you tighten them, your pectoral muscles contract.
3. Practice to learn how to move the necessary muscles without raising your arms. This is the highest level of mastery of your body.

To summarize the above, the key to success lies in exercise and self-control. During training, listen to your feelings, remember the reactions of your muscles to movements, and then simply repeat them on purpose outside of training.

Can everyone move their ears?

Not everyone. Children can easily make their own ears move, because their muscles still have sufficient mobility. An adult can practice and develop this ability. But many will say to themselves: “I don’t need this!” But in vain! There have already been people who have created face-building clubs, where they teach the ability to develop facial muscles and the ability to move their ears.

It turns out that men learn this much faster than women. There are no studies yet to explain this fact, but it can be assumed that the roots of the reasons go back to antiquity.

Exercises without special equipment

Set of three push-ups

This complex will help pump up all parts of the pectoral muscles one by one. Lifehacker discussed each of these exercises in detail in this article.

• Do push-ups with your feet elevated. This exercise puts stress on the upper pectoral muscles.

• Immediately after this, do push-ups on the floor with your arms wide. The arms are positioned at the same level as the shoulders. This type of push-up will pump up the middle part of the pectoral muscles.

• The last push-up in the complex is with your hands on a hill. It provides stress on the lower part of the pectoral muscles.

If you want to complicate the complex, put a backpack with dumbbells or other weights on your back. The main thing is that the backpack fits tightly to your back and does not move during push-ups. A tourist one, which is fixed on the body with the help of additional fasteners, is well suited.

Push-ups with body weight on one arm

This exercise is much more difficult than classic push-ups; it provides a serious load on the pectoral muscles, but requires training and arm strength.

• Stand in a lying position, shift your body weight towards your right hand.
• Lower yourself into a push-up and at the bottom point transfer your body weight to your left hand.
• Push yourself up, leaning primarily on your left hand, and then transfer your body weight back to your right hand and repeat the exercise.
• Repeat the approach with the other hand. In the second approach, lower yourself with emphasis on your left hand, and rise with emphasis on your right.

Raising arms on the floor

For this exercise, you will need a fairly slippery floor - tile or smooth linoleum - and two towels or pieces of cloth.

• Stand in a lying position, place your hands on towels.
• Carefully spread your arms out to the sides as wide as possible so that you can then stand up.
• Collect your hands, taking the starting position.

Perform the exercise as consciously and carefully as possible: spread your arms only to the width from which you can rise.

Lateral push-ups

• Lie on the floor on your right side, place your right hand on your left shoulder, and place your left hand on the floor in front of you.
• Push yourself upward with your left hand so that your body rises from the floor. The pelvis remains on the floor.
• Lower yourself to the floor again and repeat the exercise.
• Repeat on the other side.

Dips

For this exercise you will need parallel bars. These complexes are sold with a horizontal bar and parallel bars for home use, on which you can perform many exercises. If you're not in the mood to spend money, you can find bars at any sports field or school stadium.

• Jump onto the bars and keep your body weight on straight arms. Lower your shoulders, cross and slightly bend your legs.
• Lower yourself down, bending your elbows, until your shoulders are parallel to the floor or slightly lower. Try to keep your elbows close to your body, pull your shoulders back and down, and squeeze your shoulder blades.
• To work the pectoral muscles, and not the triceps, during push-ups, tilt your chest slightly forward - at an angle of about 30 degrees.
• Push yourself up, tensing your abs, and repeat the exercise.

Muscle asymmetry: what, why and why

Human movement and function require a person to balance muscle length and strength between the opposing muscles surrounding the joint. Most joints in our body have two or more separate and opposing sets of muscles acting on it.

Muscular balance is the equal amounts of opposing forces between muscles that are necessary to maintain a concentrated (centered) position of a bone in a joint during movement.

On the other hand, muscle imbalance occurs when opposing muscles provide different directions of tension due to tightness or weakness.

To understand what we are talking about, look at the following images.

As for the general asymmetry, it can be different, in particular the following:

- front and back - for example, the back lags behind the chest; - left and right - one arm/leg is larger than the other; - upper and lower body - massive upper body on chicken legs.

Regarding muscle groups, asymmetry is most often observed between:

- lower leg and arms; - biceps and triceps; - trapezius and shoulders; - heads of deltas (anterior, middle, posterior); - triceps heads (lateral, medial, long); - forearms and upper arms.

Exercises with free weights

Dumbbell Bench Press

• Lie down on a bench or the floor if you're working out at home, and hold dumbbells in your hands with your palms facing each other.
• Extend your arms in front of you.
• Extend the dumbbells so that a right angle is formed at the elbow.
• As you exhale, press the dumbbells up and repeat the exercise.
• While performing the exercise, press your lower back to the floor, do not arch your back.

Dumbbell raises

This exercise works the pectoral muscles well and does not involve the triceps.

• Lie on the floor on your back, pick up dumbbells and lift them in front of you.
• Extend your arms, slightly bending your elbows, wide enough to touch your elbows to the floor. Do not bend your elbows too much so that the pinch does not turn into a dumbbell press.
• As you exhale, bring your arms in front of you and repeat the exercise.

If it is possible to perform the exercise on a bench, use it. This will increase your range of motion and allow you to better stretch and load your pectoral muscles.

Semicircle with dumbbells

• Lie on the floor or bench on your back, grab dumbbells with an overhand grip and hold them next to your hips.
• Move your arms, slightly bent at the elbows, over the sides of your head, turning your palms up.
• Bring your arms back along the same path, connecting the dumbbells at hip level.
• Perform the exercise without stopping at the extreme points: as soon as you put your hands behind your head, immediately return them back, touch the dumbbells to your hips - immediately begin a new semicircle.

Is it possible to learn

The very definition of “moving the ears” is somewhat incorrect, since the auricles are cartilages immovably attached to the head. And they will not bend from our desire. The ears can only rise or fall if the muscles control them. And they are located between the tissues of the scalp on the skull and the ears. It is these that you need to try to bring into a tense state in order to make your ears move. In fact, the same nerve endings that can affect the muscles responsible for ear movements are responsible for our facial expressions.

These are the muscles you need to try to develop. There are few people who can make these muscles contract without making much effort. And only those who have mastered this skill perfectly can then move both ears or each one in turn.

Resistance Exercises

For such exercises, you will need an expander and a vertical stand or handle to hook it onto. Resistance bands can be purchased at any sports equipment store.

If you work out at the gym, these exercises can be performed in a crossover.

Lateral pull of the expander

• Secure the resistance band at shoulder level, stand with your right side to the counter and take the loop in your right hand.
• Overcoming the resistance of the expander, move your hand forward. The final position is opposite the chest or opposite shoulder.
• Return your hand to the starting position and repeat.

Lunge Row

This exercise works the lower head of the pectoral muscle.

• Secure the resistance band just above shoulder level.
• Take the loop in your right hand, step back a little, stretching the expander, and turn your right side towards the counter.
• Lunge forward with your left leg, place your left hand on it to make it easier to maintain the position.
• In the starting position, the right arm with the expander is extended to the side and slightly bent at the elbow.
• Overcoming the resistance of the expander, move your right hand forward and down so that at the end point it is located above the bent knee.
• Return your hand to the starting position and repeat.
• Perform the exercise with the other hand.

Two-handed row

This exercise will work the middle and upper parts of the pectoral muscles.

• Secure the expander at hip level, grab the loops with both hands and turn your back to the rack.
• Step away from the rack while pulling on the resistance band.
• Take a step forward and transfer about 70% of your body weight to your front leg.
• Raise your shoulders until they are parallel to the floor, bend your elbows at an angle of 90 degrees - this is the starting position.
• Overcoming the resistance of the expander, move your arms forward and up so that the palms of your outstretched arms are at face level.
• Return your hands to the starting position and repeat.

Push-ups with an expander on the back

This is a regular push-up, made more difficult by using an expander.

• Take the resistance band by both ends, passing it behind your back.
• Stand in a lying position, pressing the ends of the expander to the floor.
• Perform push-ups against the resistance of the expander.

As for the number of approaches and repetitions, choose it yourself based on your capabilities, the resistance of the expander or the weight of the dumbbells. The main thing is that the last two or three times in the approach are really hard for you.

And don't forget about food! Even the most rigorous workouts won't help you build voluminous pectoral muscles if you don't have enough protein in your diet.

Increasing the strength of the weak side

When performing exercises, try to consciously place a greater load on the lagging muscles, as if pulling them towards the dominant ones.

For example, if there is asymmetry in the chest, you can perform a bench press with different weights on the sides, the larger one is 3-5% on the lagging one. For example, your left chest is larger than your right, in this case we throw 52 kg on the left, and 50 kg on the right and press in this mode.

You can do the same with dumbbells. Regarding biceps asymmetry, you can do this. When doing a barbell curl, move the arm with the smaller biceps muscle closer to the center of the bar and leave the other one in place.

Best Weight Exercises

Almost always, exercises with dumbbells for the pectoral muscles are more effective when it comes to developing the chest. They allow you to create a clear outline, peak bulge and shape of the chest plates. Exercises with a barbell act more as a locomotive that moves forward strength indicators and the general level of training. Of course, this bears fruit when working on mass and strength, but the most competent would be a combination of exercises with a barbell and dumbbells. Let's move on to the list of the best weighted movements that you should definitely include in your training program.

Bench press

The movement should be the foundation and ideal start to a workout, but it is more of a general exercise that involves many other muscles. In order to make it useful specifically for the chest, you need to concentrate the load on the desired area, which many athletes master 1-2 years after starting training. Therefore, use the bench press as a basis for progression, and then move on to other exercises to target the chest.

It is important to remember that you need to alternate between flat and incline bench presses. Moreover, it is better to give preference to the latter option, because for 90% of athletes, it is the upper chest that is the most lagging area. By starting it, you will provoke muscle imbalance, which will certainly result in stopping the growth of strength and progression in the future.

Dumbbell Bench Press

With this exercise, everything is simple, if the barbell press “spreads” the tension on different muscles, then the dumbbell press focuses it on the chest. This is why it is best to do this exercise immediately after the barbell bench press. It is important to remember the following rules, failure to comply with which will make the exercise ineffective:

• The dumbbells should not hit each other at the top;
• To increase efficiency, you can use a larger amplitude by moving your arms a little further than to the level of a right angle at the elbow;
• During execution, the shoulder blades should be brought together, and the back should be pressed into the bench. The lower back should fit snugly against the bench;
• Hands should move only in a vertical plane;
• You must use an overhand grip (palms facing down).

Also remember that you can and should perform bench presses in different planes. Increasing the angle of the bench (30 degrees) will shift the main load to the top of the chest, and lowering the bench down, on the contrary, to the bottom of the chest.

Dumbbell flyes

This exercise most often completes the top three movements for the growth of the pectoral muscles (dumbbell press, barbell press and fly). The exercise is isolating in nature and stretches the pectoral muscles very well, making it best done after bench presses. When doing this, it is important to remember the following rules:

• Try to spread your arms as wide as possible (but not below the level where the biceps are parallel to the floor);
• When performing the exercise, you need to straighten your chest as much as possible, and also bring your shoulder blades together. The neck and back should fit tightly to the bench;
• The arms should be slightly bent at the elbows, but remain motionless (when extended, movement occurs only in the shoulder joint);
• At the top point, you cannot beat the dumbbells away from each other, this will relieve tension from the pectoral muscles.

As with other exercises for this muscle group, try doing flat and incline flyes, alternating between days or weeks.

Pullover

A very useful exercise that will help not only increase strength in bench presses, but also stretch the pectoral muscles. This is very important, since the predominance of pressing movements in the program will also contribute to the growth of muscle mass. As a result, the pectoral muscles will become more rigid and begin to “pull” the shoulders forward. This can often be seen in beginners whose posture changes for the worse (front delts are forward, rear delts are weak, which leads to slouching).

A pullover is an ideal way to stretch your pecs and also avoid muscle imbalances. It is also important to remember that the exercise involves not only the chest muscles, but also the triceps, latissimus and rear deltoids.

Bringing hands together in crossover

This exercise is isolating in nature and is well suited as a final movement on the day of working out a muscle group. It creates a good tensile load and targets the lower and inner parts of the chest plates. It is important to remember that when performing, you need to try to relax your back as much as possible and concentrate the tension on your chest. You also need to consider the position of your hands. With perfect technique, the arms will be bent in a symmetrical arc. This position must be maintained throughout the entire exercise, moving only in the shoulder joint.

Asymmetry may appear

- in a specific sport (for example, tennis, golf), where one side of the body is involved more than the other; - when an athlete performs the same type of actions over and over again - this is the so-called biomechanical reason for repeated movements in one direction or prolonged poses; - due to neuromuscular imbalance due to the predisposition of individual muscle groups to be strong or weak; - people with limbs of different lengths.

These are some of the possible causes of muscle asymmetry; the curvature of the spinal column also makes a significant contribution - deviation of parameters from the norm. Look at the physiological signals corresponding to muscle activity (EMG) and heat maps of the human body of the ideal and standard case.

Such images help doctors identify patients with soft tissue injuries, imbalances in muscle development, and the degree of spinal curvature.

It is worth saying that there are no ideally “even” people and this is due to the intrauterine development of the fetus. We are all initially in a curled-up position in the womb, and already there the degree of “curvature” of our spine begins to be established.

Therefore, if you think that scoliosis (lateral deviation of the spine from the normal straightened position) is purely your thing, then this is not so, almost everyone has it, only its degree varies.

How to pump correctly - neuromuscular connection

Why do muscles feel different or why is the mental connection between the brain and muscle important? There are many parts of the brain that are responsible for performing different functions. The part that is primarily responsible for muscle action during lifting is called the motor center.

When you train, of course, it is this center that mainly works, but this does not mean that the others have switched off. In most cases, multiple parts of the brain are active at once, which means your head is full of tasks - even during strength training.

Human muscles can be in three states:

1. relaxed (relax);
2. stretched;
3. contraction.

There are two main types of muscle contractions - isometric and isotonic . With isometric, the length of the muscle during the movement remains constant (does not change). With isotonic, a change in muscle length occurs when working against external forces. There are also two types of isotonic contractions - concentric and eccentric. With concentric, the muscles shorten and compress, for example when demonstrating biceps. When eccentric, the muscles lengthen through the process of contraction.

The brain is responsible for contractions and muscle function in general through neuromuscular connections . The impulse from the brain is transmitted to the so-called motor neuron, which are located in the spinal cord. From the motor neuron to the muscle fiber, the impulse moves along the axon - a long nerve, the end of which branches and each hair of which is responsible for a separate muscle fiber.

Muscles are made up of bundles of muscle fibers. So one motor neuron is responsible for several fibers - all this together is called a motor unit. And for the entire muscle there is a set of motor neurons. Motor neurons can innervate any number of muscle fibers, but each fiber is innervated by only one motor neuron. When the motor neurons fire, the muscle fibers contract.

And this is where the fun begins. Different motor neurons respond to impulses from the brain of different frequencies. Our body tries to complete any work with as little cost as possible . The higher the frequency of the impulse sent from the brain to a set of motor neurons, the greater the number of fibers we can control or use for work.

So training or the development of neuromuscular communication is the adaptation of our brain to control motor neurons. The better this connection, the more muscle fibers we can force to work, and therefore train.

When you just start exercising, the neuromuscular connection between the brain and the muscles is still weak, so the “orders” that the brain gives to the muscles are poorly executed. That’s why the knees tremble, the elbows wander, and the leg doesn’t lift as high as we would like. With experience, the neuromuscular connection becomes much better, which is especially evident in the first few months.

Usually, beginners make great progress in strength indicators, although the muscles do not seem to grow. This is because progress occurred due to an increase in efficiency, the neuromuscular connection became significantly better, which led to an increase in strength indicators. In the first months, beginners usually get the impression that they are just super pumped up (this is not true