The Secret to Building Impressive Pecs and Why Everyone Gets It Wrong

Summary

Highlights

• Jonathan highlights the importance of rib cage volume in pec development. 🥤
• He criticizes the typical fitness influencer's method focusing solely on range of motion. 🚫
• Intuitive engagement of muscles since a young age led Jonathan to strong pecs. 🧒💪
• Emphasizes that less motion can sometimes mean better pec activation. 🔥
• Breathing plays a crucial role in muscle engagement and pec activation. 🌬️

Key Takeaways

• Control your rib cage for better chest workouts and avoid shoulder issues! 🏋️‍♂️
• Oversimplifying body mechanics can hinder muscle development. Think 3D, not 2D! 🧠
• Bodybuilders often have a more intuitive and effective approach to chest exercises. 🦾
• Arching your back too much can lead to tension loss and shoulder problems. Stay flat! 📏
• Engaging the core and maintaining rib cage volume enhances muscle activation. 💪

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction to PEC Training This chapter serves as an introduction to PEC training, focusing on developing a thick and detailed chest. The speaker highlights the popularity of this topic, noting numerous requests and positive feedback from previous discussions. Key techniques emphasized include controlling the rib cage and scapular depression, which have reportedly enhanced pec activation for many viewers.
• 00:30 - 05:30: Common Mistakes in PEC Training The chapter discusses common mistakes in PEC (pectoral) training, focusing on the importance of proper technique to avoid injuries and improve effectiveness. It emphasizes the issues many influencers have due to their simplified view of body mechanics, treating the body too rigidly as a system of pulleys and levers. The speaker reflects on feedback from individuals who have benefited from correct pressing techniques, highlighting the need for comprehensive understanding and application.
• 05:30 - 10:30: Importance of Rib Cage Volume This chapter discusses the importance of rib cage volume in physical training, focusing on how the structure of the rib cage influences muscle development, particularly the pectoral muscles (pecs). The speaker emphasizes their personal experience and success in developing strong pecs as evidence of the concept's validity.
• 10:30 - 15:00: The Role of Breathing in PEC Activation The chapter titled 'The Role of Breathing in PEC Activation' explores the speaker's personal experience with strength training, specifically focusing on engaging the core during presses. Initially, the speaker felt weaker when engaging their core, noticing that peers could lift more, but instinctively felt it was beneficial. Later in life, they understood the physiological reasons for this feeling, confirming their earlier intuition about the importance of proper core engagement in strength training.
• 15:00 - 20:00: Difference Between Powerlifting and Bodybuilding Techniques This chapter discusses the common misconceptions between powerlifting and bodybuilding techniques, particularly focusing on the range of motion during exercise. It argues that a larger range of motion, often criticized by bodybuilders, does not necessarily lead to better gains and may contribute to shoulder dysfunction. The chapter emphasizes that bodybuilders achieve detailed muscle development, like chest detail, without relying on an exaggerated range of motion, and underscores the importance of rib cage positioning in technique.
• 20:00 - 25:00: Correcting Rib Cage Compression The chapter focuses on the concept of rib cage compression and its impact on physical exercises, particularly for achieving good tension and activation in PE muscles. It emphasizes that puffing out the chest doesn’t necessarily lead to expansion but rather compresses the posterior rib cage. For a deeper stretch and effective muscle fiber activation, one should aim for proper rib cage expansion instead. The content corrects common misconceptions about chest puffing in exercises.
• 25:00 - 35:00: Examples of Bad Pressing Techniques This chapter discusses improper pressing techniques in weightlifting. It uses the analogy of a Coke bottle to explain how puffing out the chest reduces volume, impacting performance. The emphasis is on maintaining proper form for muscles like PCS and lats, which are crucial for bodybuilders.
• 35:00 - 45:00: Examples of Good Pressing Techniques The chapter titled 'Examples of Good Pressing Techniques' discusses the concept of maintaining tension and volume when performing exercises, using the analogy of a fully volumized coke bottle. It emphasizes the importance of avoiding excessive arching or compressing of the rib cage, as doing so can lead to a loss of tension and volume, affecting the muscles attached to the rib cage.
• 45:00 - 50:00: Personal Experiences and Final Tips In this chapter, the speaker discusses the importance of proper muscle activation during workouts. They emphasize the role of the rib cage position in ensuring the stretch and activation of muscle fibers, particularly in the pecs. By maintaining a volumized rib cage, a more effective stretch occurs across the entire muscle, enhancing workout efficiency. The speaker references a conversation with Zack Couples on a podcast to highlight these insights, underscoring their practical application in fitness routines.
• 50:00 - 55:00: Alternating Presses and Their Benefits The chapter delves into the intricacies of lifting techniques, particularly focusing on the importance of body positioning and anatomy in exercises. It highlights a common oversight where lifters only focus on the start and endpoint of a lift (Point A to Point B) without considering the impact of the body's structure, such as the rib cage, on muscle contractions. It emphasizes that muscles do not contract evenly across their structure, challenging a common misconception and advocating for a more comprehensive understanding of anatomy in training.
• 55:00 - 60:00: Conclusion and Final Thoughts The chapter discusses the studies on muscle stretching and application to specific muscles like pectorals. It highlights how certain movements affect the chest muscles, particularly focusing on how to stretch and open them up effectively. The chapter notes an interruption due to audio issues during the discussion.

The Secret to Building Impressive Pecs and Why Everyone Gets It Wrong Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 all right what's going on guys today I'm going to be doing a very highly requested video going to be diving into PEC training we're going to learn how to build fully developed thick detailed chesticles this is by far the most requested video I I get and I think that's because I've touched on this a lot in in past videos and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback people are always writing me messages on Instagram and YouTube saying that they feel so much more activation in their pecs now that they do it the way that I recommend with controlling your rib cage and more scap of depression they talk about being
• 00:30 - 01:00 able to really connect to them for the first time getting sore and also like not having shoulder issues or anything like that and so since I've talked about it like a lot sporadically on different videos I figured it' be good to just have one big comprehensive video to refer to and yeah I mean look at this I mean constantly I'm getting feedback from people about how happy they are to uh have learned how to press correctly so this is something that pretty much every single influencer good and bad gets wrong and it's because they're looking at the body through kind of a a simplified lens we're looking at it like 2D usually as like a pulley and levers
• 01:00 - 01:30 kind of thing getting something from point A to point B they're not taking into account how the structure influences everything especially all the muscles that attach to the ribs like your pecs so why should you listen to me well good thing about what we do in this industry is the proof is in the pudding and I have got some pretty decent pecs and I always have that has always been my strongest body part because I always intuitively connected to it I remember being very young like 16 when I was
• 01:30 - 02:00 really getting into working on like hardcore and I remember doing presses and being like okay if I really like Enga engage my cor is what I thought of it at the time I was like if I really engage my core I feel way more I'm much weaker like I remember kids were pressing like more than me that were my age that weren't as developed and it really bothered me but I was like if it feels so much harder it's it's probably better now later in life I've learned that my intuition was correct and I kind of know the physiological reasoning behind what I was feeling and like I said this is something that pretty much
• 02:00 - 02:30 everybody gets wrong you know who doesn't get a wrong though a lot of times is is bodybuilders and yet people will critique them saying that they should be using a bigger range of motion to get better gains well I'm going to show you why a bigger range of motion for your chest is not going to equal more gains in fact it's going to equal less and it's probably going to lead to shoulder dysfunction so like I said I got some tatas and you're not going to be able to develop this kind of detail in your chest if you're compressed so let's break out the good little rib cage so if
• 02:30 - 03:00 you really want to get good tension on your peex we need your rib cage to be nice and full what happens is a lot of people think that there should be like puffing out their chest for instance if I puff out my chest I'm just compressing through this back area like I'm pushing up through here when you puff out your chest all you're doing is compressing this posterior rib cage you're not expanding anymore what you need to really get a deep stretch and activation on the majority of your PE fibers is is
• 03:00 - 03:30 a volumized rib cage so by extending the back to Puff out your chest a little more you're actually losing your losing volume so I've demonstrated this before and I don't I don't know if it helps anybody but for whatever reason it makes sense to me so let's use the old Coke bottle um all right so coke bottle is my rib cage the label is everything that attaches to it my PCS on one side my lats on the other I mean those are really all we care about as bodybuilders but you got your intercostals
• 03:30 - 04:00 uh your sadus obliques all that good stuff so when this coke bottle is fully volumized in a cylinder it's taut all around it there's a stretch of quaring across the whole thing now if I were to compress which would be like I showed you with a rib cage if I were to try to Arch to Puff out that I'm still losing volume then everything that attaches to the rib cage kind of loses that topness that
• 04:00 - 04:30 stretch okay so now I'm not getting a stretch action across the majority of the muscle fibers maybe certain ones but I'm losing a ton of Activation so compressed rib cage losing stretch tension on the vast majority of the pecs volumize rib cage and then we've got that stretch occurring across the entire Belly of the muscle and this is something that me and Zack couples talked about on our podcast I've shared this clip before but I think it's really helpful and this goes back to guy
• 04:30 - 05:00 Anatomy when most people look at any type of lift they look at one attachment and then they look at the other attachment and they don't look at anything in between that could potentially influence contractility and that's what the biggest mistake is that everybody's making like I was saying they're just thinking about how far is Point a from point B when the shape of your rib cage has a huge influence on what's Happening to all the muscle fibers across it the Dirty Little Secret is your muscles do not contract uniformly across the entire muscle and and that's an evidence-based statement
• 05:00 - 05:30 you they've done studies where they've demonstrated that and so let's think about that in the case of muscles that run along the rib cage I think PEC are an easy example of this like if I do something that brings the chest forward that might put a a stretch locally on the the peck here and if I pull the shoulder down and back that could affect the peck at the you know humeral attachment but what about all this stuff here along the chest how do I get that to expand open up and get on stretch it kind of got cut out unfortunately his his audio went out a little bit but what
• 05:30 - 06:00 he says after that is you have to breathe and that's that's the biggest thing if this rib cage is compressed and you don't get expansion as you inhale then volumize and stretch your pecs from the inside out that's a huge stretcher missing out on on your peeg so all your evidence based neres that love the Deep stretch soon as you Arch and compress your rib cage you're missing out on the vast majority if you don't volumize your rib cage and inhale as you lower so I think it's a thing that a lot of people gloss over um because they're only
• 06:00 - 06:30 looking at trying to pull two ends as opposed to trying to create an action across the whole muscle itself and Zach mentioned Dead Guy anatomy and that's what he talked about we're only looking at pulling something for two ends that's a very limited view something I've been doing a really deep dive in really last four or five months is something called biotensegrity uh I'm reading a couple really good books and it is really enlightening to uh kind of get a different viewpoint on biomechanics and how integrated everything really is and how your shape influences everything so eventually I would like to make a video
• 06:30 - 07:00 really diving into it but it's like some complex stuff and I definitely don't feel confident enough right now to speak about it and so when you keep your rib cage volumized and you don't go into this compensation pattern where you just Orient your rib cage and and compress everything you actually don't need to get a huge range of motion you can go a little bit past 90 and just try to keep your your integrity of your stack and keep some intrathoracic pressure you know a lot of people have like floating scapula because they're they're so compressed in that upper dorsal Rost the upper mid back they're always squeezing
• 07:00 - 07:30 and arching on everything so they don't have the ability to create that space and actually depress all the way with any kind of load and so you might see somebody who's like got this really loose scap and they're getting this huge range of motion they're using one of those bars that allows you to get even deeper that's not doing [ __ ] you're not developing your PCS any better you're getting way less activation than if you just like I said Capt your stack lower a little past 90 feel that stretch as I showed you earlier you can see tons of people have already felt the difference it's really easy to connect to and you
• 07:30 - 08:00 should never just ignore your intuition when it comes to your body when you're working out like my muscle means something when would you want to Arch and compress and get a big retraction if you're a powerlifter if you need to make something easier you know that's all powerlifting is you're trying to get more things involved you're trying to spread the force to your connective tissue you're trying to get anything you can to help that's why you see this crazy extension bodybuilding is the opposite of that we always want to make things harder try to stay pretty flat on the bench a little bit of arch is okay and there's there's very degrees of it
• 08:00 - 08:30 too I think I have some examples later but it's like if you want to get a little bit more Arts you can that's fine you can you can get a little different variations you just don't lose your inter thoracic pressure most importantly by completely squeezing and just like keep a little tension that's fine just don't throw everything up with no regard for intraabdominal intrathoracic pressure so let's go through some examples of what is good and bad pressing technique so let's check out this incline press and so I'm going to start with kind of the arch the way Dr Mike or someone would recommend and you can even just see my PC I'm sure I'm going to get as much protraction as I'm
• 08:30 - 09:00 going to whenever I get a better stack all right and so now I'm going to try to flatten everything out I'm going engage my obliques and a lot more protraction going and I just feel way more another angle so again that's the big arch and again I have decent protraction even like this this hard for me to not connect to my PCS but much better and I just feel way more more with this and when we're on a
• 09:00 - 09:30 incline we can actually like since your arms are higher you can get more depression than like on a flat bench so one more time we're extended and um engag my obliques and this is the fly and it would be the same for like a cable or machine I have some examples of other people later doing that so I'm just showing the dumbbell so this is a big arch and I'm actually using orientation pattern to
• 09:30 - 10:00 kind of close it down I see people do this I also see people just go down really open and not like close and just stay open actually if you Orient and close even though you're compressing you're still getting a little bit better PEC than if you're just staying flar like I didn't even demonstrate that on here and then this is the way you'd want to do it so anytime you're doing a fly you are going to get some more retraction but you can see my ribs are excellent rotating but they're not orienting like crazy I'm not going there you don't see my belly pop up and again you just feel way more tension like
• 10:00 - 10:30 right away if you do this correctly uh so for flat press I'm going to just kind of review a video where I'm critiquing Jeff Nipper who I honestly think it's pretty on point with most things besides pressing like like I said like every other uh evidence-based influencer there is but let's check this out first set up your arch for bodybuilding create a okay so don't set up your arch you should not even think about your arch your arch is going to be a consequence of you setting your shoulders into that depressed position you're only going to Arch as much that is necessary so if we look at
• 10:30 - 11:00 the comparison here you can see he's got really flaring ribs big arch a lot of space there here just a minimal Arch only what is necessary and that's because I want to keep my rib cage volumized as soon as we throw up that rib cage we lose stretch tension on everything that attaches to it cuz we lose the ability to expand on the inhale to volumize from the inside out and that's that's what Zach couples was talking about earlier by tucking your shoulder blades in you would never want to tuck your shoulder blades in like that that is absolutely Ely ridiculous
• 11:00 - 11:30 unless you're powerlifting you need to create a huge Arch that is not what you want to do you're going to really take away tension from your PEC and your shoulders are not any more of a safe position when they're retracted we need them depressed I mean think about all the powerlifters you ever seen have you ever seen a powerlifter that just had like super detailed pecs like usually they don't have that good of pecs even though they binge a Crazy M they're they're a lot of triceps when they're sitting back in that full Glen humo depression you're good they're safe we don't need the shoulders overly retracted just this going to take away
• 11:30 - 12:00 your ability to have the slight protraction that we need to to actually get your pecs really involved so don't do that okay this is what it should look like right there that and a lot of you guys might not be able to do that you have to have like a pretty good thoracic rib cage to be able to get that amount of depression and so if you're super compressed back there your scal is not going to postly tip it's not going to go down your back and I talk about this a lot on the video I did about how to get 3D dealt so definitely check that out if if you haven't seen it because I cover a a lot of posterior expansion techniques
• 12:00 - 12:30 that will help fix this and I have an example of one later but I have a lot more in that video as depression so that is ideal right there that's too much I'm going to close down my ribs and that's what it'll look like from the back that is what we want so this is one of my favorite ways to get posterior expansion which will make it easier to get that depression of your scapula and this is Connor Harris who's great to follow he's got really good stuff he Dives deep into all this so we need to decompress this space Jacob's going to take a p full it in half and wedge it in between his upper hips and his lower ribs now Jacob
• 12:30 - 13:00 is going and I really like this because the pillow gives you like a little something to push your ribs against to connect to that sensation of them being in that depressed position most everybody who's a pretty avid gymgo they they're kind of they're pretty flared in that rib cage separate the space in between his shoulder blades and spine by trying to reach his elbows away from him a little bit more but not at the cost of shrugging his shoulders or overly depressing his sternum too much now Jacob's going to Exhale fully through his mouth 5 to 10 seconds he's going to feel low ribs come down he's going to
• 13:00 - 13:30 pause and he's going to inhale silently but fully through his nose and he's going to feel that space in between the shoulder blades and the spine expand I also like to cue a little soft reach with the elbows um kind of the whole time maybe a little bit more on the Excel like a three or four out of 10 but like a or two or three out of 10 on the inhale and if you that's because like what you don't want to have happen is as you inhale you don't want to have any concentric activity of these back muscles at all so you got to really make sure these don't pull back you don't want to get a ton of like activity on the front either but we just want to
• 13:30 - 14:00 make sure that we don't have any kind of pullback on the inhale do that for 5 to 10 breaths okay and then let's cover declines so decline is a lot different than a flat bench or a incline where the goal is to really depress your scapula we're on a decline press or if it's like a kind of a decline fly where we're really getting the clavicular fibers involved we will have some some freedom to move and it's going to be natural and that's going to be good you don't have to hit crazy extension or compressor rib C to do it so there's a couple ways to
• 14:00 - 14:30 actually do this so this is how I usually do this and I mean I love this this move this is one of my favorite moves I connect to my pecs so good on anything but especially this and it's like I could do three sets of this and I'll be [ __ ] sore for three days like I I never do a PEC workout where I'm not sore that definitely is the easiest muscle for me to get really sore on right here this is how I normally do it where I'm got a little bit of Engagement in my abs and making sure I have some uh thoracic pressure and but you can also there's some
• 14:30 - 15:00 benefits to doing this where you Orient a little bit so now I'm letting my rib cage Orient up and then Orient down and like I said your pecs attached to your ribs so they actually have a role in getting that depression so from this angle a little bit of orientation can actually be okay so this is how I normally do it but sometimes I do it now this actually this is how you wouldn't want to do it this is the example of the bad way if you if you Orient up you need to orient back down and that's pretty good activation and I know I talk about the rib cage a
• 15:00 - 15:30 lot but it's because it is so influential on everything if you're compressed whether it's a top or whether it's you know asymmetrically that's really going to affect the peripheral structures so if you have a really compressed rib cage that changes the orientation of your scapula which means the glenoid fossa is going to be in a little bit different position meaning you're you're not going to have full Excursion of your shoulder because that humoral head is not going to have a complete freedom to move there's going to be some kind of bony blockage because because the attachments been reoriented
• 15:30 - 16:00 based off the rib cage position so rib rib cage affect so many things in the upper body like I said the pecs attach directly to it um your lats also attach directly to it so that's another muscle group that really benefits from working with a volumized rib cage position all right so let's look at some examples of bad pressing technique and we'll start with the worst of the worst Paul Carter and so this is just dog [ __ ] I mean that is a P compression he is just up
• 16:00 - 16:30 elevated there's there's no depression of the scapula this he probably doesn't connect to at all like I guarantee you he doesn't feel any pecks on this yeah this is pretty pretty horrible it's probably why he has to use the elbow wraps as well I'm sure he's got issues with his elbows shoulders everything again because like I talked about they're in a really [ __ ] up position cuz his rib cage is so thrown off he probably doesn't have a lot of options all right is it any better light maybe he doesn't have to compress as
• 16:30 - 17:00 much light no still just as shitty so I would say that's probably the worst technique out of any of the big influencers and you can tell no packs at all and this is a competition photo I mean literally it looks like he's missing pecs like he's like had some accident on his left one where it's been removed so and this is also just a super compressed look I'll show you some examples of what it looks like to not be compressed you're going to have way better separation you're going to have way better like round to your muscle bellies and a lot of people think this
• 17:00 - 17:30 kind of stuff is genetic it's it's not the way you work out really has a huge influence on what your structures and how you appear you can have a really big fat gut and it can be in part because your your pelvis is descended so you have like the belly poo your visceral is getting pushed forward this isn't something you can blame on genetics you also whenever you compress and you work out like a powerlifter you're getting way more like connective tissue involved there's really no benefit to press in that way except for being able to produce more force in competition so not more Force coming from your PC though it's coming from everywhere I mean honestly I don't know why anyone follows
• 17:30 - 18:00 Paul Carter or listens to him at all I mean anyone who's that disconnected from their body automatically I'm riding off and like every good take he has he gets from somebody else all right next we have good old Dr Mike and he does a little different technique than Paul Carter it's still [ __ ] but maybe less [ __ ] slightly and you can see he kind of does this thing where he Puffs his chest up and then he kind of brings it back down thinking that that's getting a better stretch but it's not he's got those floating scap he's so compressed
• 18:00 - 18:30 he's not getting good tension you can't see any protraction and it's like when you move away as you press you're not getting more tension you're not getting a better stretch you need to keep that volumized as you're pressing you're losing tension if you do that it's kind of like so in my gym we have a hyperextension like a normal 45 degree hyper and it's it's kind of low so if I have someone holding a weight they can't lengthen their arms all the way they got to kind of like bend it just slightly and as they're going over if they come up and they lengthen their arms as they're coming up they they lose tension they're moving away as those arms are going forward if they keep it fixed then
• 18:30 - 19:00 they get tension constantly but if that's the same concept just kind of moving away from the weight you're not creating more tension you're moving in space as the weight's coming up so you're actually taking off a lot of tension this huge rib cage flare yeah not very ideal and it's crazy that he gives advice on technique that that's like one of the main things he does him giving advice on biomechanics is like me giving advice on how to avoid mentally unstable chicks I mean I I just love crazy [ __ ] CU I can't help it yeah this
• 19:00 - 19:30 is awful and here we see him on the incline super Arch he probably loves this bench that helps him get even more arched and that is what I demonstrated earlier it's like you can get more depression to get a stretch from from a an incline and you can on flat so you you want to pull down don't Arch to create that though yeah just ugly and also like use some [ __ ] weight push yourself dude Jesus so let at Dr M I've obviously critiqued his physique um in other videos like after his show so here
• 19:30 - 20:00 we go not a lot happening even at this lean body weight not super thick no definition and here even with like the most goon lighting him being super lean not a single striation to be found at all and again this is somebody who takes copious amounts of gear here is Eugene tell who I'm a big fan of just like Jeff nippit I think he's on point with most things just not how to press but I do think he's a little bit better than Mike
• 20:00 - 20:30 and some people just connect to protraction a little bit better even if they are kind of using compression I feel like he does better protraction without as much orientation of the rib cage but it's still way too flared and it's still way too compressed again he's fighting for range of motion so Eugene you know I know he's Natty but doesn't have the most developed pecs of all time even when he was like pretty jacked they weren't like that good like look at this we've got really good shoulders good arms but again not a single detail in pecs and
• 20:30 - 21:00 this is something I see all the time anyone who presses with this kind of compression that flared rer cage those completely retracted shoulder blades I see no details no striations and I wonder if he's like covering up his pecs on purpose because he knows they're not back great so let's look at some more presses and again that you should never see that kind of flare that is something that would really never be a good thing on in any movement unless you're just at Absolute failure you got to get it up so you don't get crushed all right so let's check out one more example we'll
• 21:00 - 21:30 look at good old Milo who man I don't even know what this is this is pretty much on point with Paul as far as being just as bad it's just a different kind of bad crazy extended rib cage again like just shoulders are so squeezed together no protraction I mean the elbow position all that's pretty weird and I I've never seen someone do a side chest with so little side chest haming actually looks pretty good here big guy but yeah I'm
• 21:30 - 22:00 not a fan of these pecs and I wouldn't expect you to have any pecs when all you do is weird lengthen range partials and super weird things that require like very light load so let's look at some examples of good pressing technique and people with good packs so I talked about this guy before um I just saw him randomly and I was like Blown Away with the level of detail and just how full his pecs were and this is what I mean by like having a not compressed look this is somebody who does not I can just
• 22:00 - 22:30 before I even saw any of his vids I was like oh this guy's going to work out the way I like he's not going to squeeze everything and try to fight for some crazy range of motion and sure enough when I looked at his videos we work out our pecs exactly the same I mean look at that that is [ __ ] crazy so here's a couple clips of him doing his Peck Day and oh look we're not really going past 90 and all you guys want to [ __ ] on my buddy Joel Seaman he's right pretty
• 22:30 - 23:00 much and so yeah this is really good tension you can see the protraction going we don't see a crazy rib flare these look good there's a reason this guy's pecs look the way they do and everyone else that I showed before really didn't have that kind of definition and definitely didn't have that kind of roundness and again look at the kind of protraction he gets look at the range again Dr Mike would make a video [ __ ] on this while this guy's pecs are on a whole another world than Dr Mike's but look at that protraction look at that rib cage that's how you develop pecs you can just visually see it and I guarantee you he's like me he
• 23:00 - 23:30 feels every single fiber when he's doing this he probably gets super store the same way I do peex should be the easiest muscle group to get sore and on this we have a close grip press same thing nothing crazy with the range of motion but look at all that tension on the pecs could he go deeper yeah but it's going to lose tension on the pecs I mean that's crazy you can just see how good they fire lot different looking than when we saw Paul Carter doing a similar move and here we have a cable fly and Milo would be really critical of
• 23:30 - 24:00 this saying you're not going nearly deep enough you'll get better development but I would not take that dude's word over this guy again we're going to perfectly acceptable range of motion with that rib cage intact that looks awesome and here we have some of these kind of decline flies and like I said anytime you do a decline motion where get the cicular fibers more involved you will have just more shoulder GLE movement you don't try to like tack them down let them move up and then depress them down because again your pecs they have a role in getting that orientation of your of your sternum
• 24:00 - 24:30 back down now one thing I really love that I saw this guy do that I incorporate myself and that I have all my clients do is he was doing like one armed and alternating dumbbell presses and I love doing this for shoulders and for pecs and for back too and it is so beneficial because especially when you're not going like Max effort you're getting expansion on one side as you're getting compression on the other so you're not getting that complete anterior to posterior compression so you're able to keep a lot better tension on the muscle than if you were to go
• 24:30 - 25:00 together now when you go real heavy you might not get expansion on one side but you're still not going to get nearly the amount of compression so again you'll still connect better to it yeah these look awesome and again people really should be doing these kind of things I don't see bodybuilders do this at all I was so happy when I saw him do this we literally do all the same [ __ ] and here's example of how you can do this pretty heavy I'm doing this for shoulders those are some 120s and I always like doing this stuff because it looks super impressive in the gym but I mean going alternating is not
• 25:00 - 25:30 that hard whenever you connect to it it actually is a little easier than doing them together and so I really like doing the alternating presses because like I said you're going to limit the compression force you're going to keep better tension on on the muscle man I don't know if I could do that again I haven't that was like six months ago I don't I hit that and I was like okay goal accomplished I don't think I want to try that ever again and if we see him on a flat press again stopping about 90° letting his PEC do
• 25:30 - 26:00 the work so check this out I know I showed him earlier but this is just [ __ ] crazy this guy's a a physique competitor I would love to see him like put on a little bit more muscle and jump into the classic super freaky Jesus Christ what the [ __ ] am I looking at he knows it those are wild another example of somebody who knows how of press is my man Ken Jackson who I did a podcast with and bodybuild get this right way more often than
• 26:00 - 26:30 evidence-based nerds who supposedly know everything and they [ __ ] on bodybuilders when they're actually doing it better I used to hear Jay Cutler talk about how you shouldn't arch your back stay completely flat as you can on on a bench press you know he wasn't being super technical he wasn't talking about rib cage and why that influences everything he's just felt it more and intuitively knew was better people should stop writing off bodybuilders for their intuition cuz almost always there's some bi biomechanical reasoning behind it they just they don't understand but they can connect good enough to feel it all right so my man doing a four-plate press
• 26:30 - 27:00 and beautiful range of motion rib cages down you see the protraction notice how he's not moving like Mike was puffing his chest and moving back again here we have a chest press machine super good protraction look we're not hitting a crazy deep range of motion and again this is just a look that is not compressed you will not look like this if you are arching your back and squeezing shoulder together on every single press look at the fullness he's
• 27:00 - 27:30 really going to do some damage in 212 uh in the next year I think and then let's look at one more example from somebody here's my former coach Robin strand who gets super shredded look at the details he's got in his PEC fibers and he is somebody who we actually did a podcast together he talked about how he he changed the way he trains his chest and after having a lot of injuries and working with his his new kind of movement coach he really focused on the ribs a lot that was really cool to hear him talk about because not a lot of bodybuilders ever talk about ribs and so let's look at Rob him all right this kind of Peck press fly thing and perfect
• 27:30 - 28:00 tension ribs under control not excessive range of motion here we go same thing ribs under control on this press on like a little bit of like a slight decline angle and on this it' be really easy to just completely lose everything but he's still keeping it really engaged and he's still moving in a relative motion Manner and getting really good protraction and then I guess I'll show a couple examples of myself because I know I'm not the best body build in the world but I've
• 28:00 - 28:30 got some good pecs all right so here I am doing just the flat Atlantis press and look I'm not arching my back I'm not flaring my ribs I'm just really connecting to tension on my pecs range of motion a little bit beyond 90 I love this machine and look I'm doing length and partials and I was doing this before I ever got involved with social media knew that that was a thing I didn't need a study to tell me that was a good thing I just like it and I don't need a study to tell me not to
• 28:30 - 29:00 do it either which I know one just came out and everyone's losing the [ __ ] poor Milo his whole world's probably falling apart but uh I'm still going to do it because I still like it and it feels good I don't base a single [ __ ] thing I ever do on any kind of evidence-based study all right we're getting heavy still got good rib cage position good protraction again if when that rib cage flares you're going to miss on a lot of protraction this is a really cool machine if you guys never use it the Rogers pendulum chest shoulder press and again small range of motion from
• 29:00 - 29:30 this angle this heavy look at all the pecs firing and I'm sure Legions of Mike's fans would see that and run to critique me and they all look like [ __ ] pretty kind of similar angle here you can see a little bit different making this a peck move and I'm not squeezing I'm pushing down my sword blades you want them to postery tip to depress against your back and on this clip this is a good example of how any system that's brought Clos to his
• 29:30 - 30:00 threshold becomes more rigid it just reduces the degrees of freedom and this is true for any any system of your body and so here I am I'm doing a double with 365 in the first rep I'm able to really keep my stack and keep some relative motion and not just Orient but my second rep I'm going to get crushed if I don't so I have to a little bit and name drop look who is spot of me that is my man Alex horoi so really good stack I was like that was easy I'll try one
• 30:00 - 30:30 more and now I'm starting to Arch you can see my rib cage go up I had to make it easier I had to take tension away from just the pecs to get it up and that's why you want to do that if you're a powerlifter you will be able to move more weight but I felt less of my PEC the second rep than I did the first I'm a pretty good example of what someone looks like when they're not compressed full PEC separation detail like once you develop an i for it's like really easy to see I mean you can just look at a powerlifter versus a body Builder typically never going to get that level of detail in your pecs if you press the
• 30:30 - 31:00 way that all these evidence based guys are telling you to and I know I'm in hand so like people might take everything I say with a grain of salt I don't have a ton of pictures from when I was Natty but I looked really good people thought I was on juice all the time this is me when I was uh 18 in college I didn't start any any gear till I was 23 and so still had a little bit of the serrated in peack fibers thickness even though I was only like a buck 60 here and this is a little blurry but you can
• 31:00 - 31:30 still see and then I actually went on a four and a half month bulk I got it was the first time in my life I didn't have to work it's the only time in my life I didn't have to work my first semester of college and I just ate [ __ ] everything I could eat whatever I ate I ate a pizza on top of it that was my meal plan and I gained 40 lbs and this was me at the uh at the end of the four and a half months little bit of body fat gain but man I was full and I was thick and I was tight and everybody thought I was on gear and and I had never touched it at this point I never done any proone
• 31:30 - 32:00 or anything I was about 194 here so I gained about 35b in those four and a half months now there is um something else to consider I do see some people use a little bit different style it's not what I like necessarily but it it definitely works and here we see B omn man who has some of the best pecs out of any of these natural guys I think he's Natty I think that's the thing and I I think he probably has the best PCS out of everybody then and I wanted to see how he pressed because I was curious
• 32:00 - 32:30 cuz he kind of looks extended and like compressed in some ways but usually don't get those full pecs if you're compressed all right so when you see him pressed look at the amount of protraction he throws up he does totally retract his shoulder blades it looks like but he like like bounces out of the bottom real quick with protraction and that is a technique I've seen bodybuilders use really effectively and I think it actually really helps bring out details like he's got a lot of details in his packs for Natty I mean look at that level of protraction
• 32:30 - 33:00 and somebody else who does that is Andrew jacked look at that same thing he's getting completely squeeze but then he's proch cheting out of that bottom pretty fastly and Andrew Jack has some crazy [ __ ] detailed packs same style as Bal ofne man so I think that's effective I just don't do it myself but uh but obviously it can work so let's review cuz really it's pretty simple if I'm doing a flat press or an incline press I want to get as much depress press as I can most of the
• 33:00 - 33:30 time there's nothing wrong with pressing from here and doing things just to get a little bit of different feel get a little different fiber recruitment but you're going to get way more bang for your buck in general if you get as much depression as you can need to be able to activate your low lats and your low traps to do that and make sure your rib cage doesn't excessively flare you know if you if you need to a little bit as you're getting close to failure that's okay but don't let it get crazy again on an incline you can get even more depression that doesn't mean you want more Arch at all you'll just be able to get more posterior tipping of your
• 33:30 - 34:00 shoulder blades just cuz your arms are a little bit higher on flies make sure to keep some Integrity in that stack okay don't immediately flare then on a decline kind of thing just think about keeping some abdominal pressure but let everything move okay you don't want it to immediately go like anytime you're doing a press like that's that's really what I look at first is as soon as you lower how soon before your rib cage starts to flare some people it's right away your goal is to keep it tell you as you get to the bottom it's going to go a
• 34:00 - 34:30 little bit that's normal you want them to actually rotate you're not trying to use all your abs and keep everything crunched in you really don't want to orient that way you want to keep them down more with like your obliques but they're going to move your goal isn't to keep them from moving it's just to keep them from moving excessively so on a decline you can kind of just get that nice control or you can kind of Orient and then Orient back down and let that whole shoulder gordal move a lot of times I'll do both within a set I might start pretty strict and then I'll get a little bit of that orientation because
• 34:30 - 35:00 again your pecs are having a role in that orientation closing it down so that's good all right so I hope that this was helpful for some of you guys if you have any questions or comments um just put it below and I always try to do my best to respond and let me know which body part you would like me to cover next okay all right appreciate it guys