The recent rise of popularity of SBL has me confused on how exactly do i train the upper pecs. SBL guys on social media suggest a tucked elbow is the most important thing to training the upper pecs as they insist that the upper pec is largely or even predominantly a shoulder flexor but i heard from a youtuber named Ben Yanes that a more flared grip is better in line with the upper pec fibers and after checking my own upper pec fibers in the mirror by exerting force onto my palm with my fist (kinda like if i punched my own palm) and then changing my elbow flair from perpendicular to the floor all the way to parallel to the floor, they do seem to be much better in line with my upper arm with a more flared elbow.
I am really confused on how im supposed to go about upper pec training. At this point with all this science stuff getting more and more confusing with all this past stuff that was widely accepted getting debunked and all this new stuff being debated and clashing with old beliefs over studies, many with questionable reliability, im starting to regret choosing to do bodybuilding/aesthetics where im concerned about all this convoluted stuff so that i can properly bias a part of my chest into growing instead of just getting strong on SBD
Do some type of incline press and don't flare your elbows a huge amount. Or a low-to-high cable fly.
That's it.
It's all one big moronic circle jerk you should stay far, far away from.
Dudes have built big chests with tucked elbows, dudes have built big chests with flared elbows. Some say you need to bench press to build a big chest, some never used bench press at all. Some guys built big chests with machines, some with free weights.Â
Genetics determines what your developed pec will look like at the end, not bunch of fuckin dildos arguing about what kind of exercises "best stimulates the upper pec".
All big chests were build with something that involves the chest and training hard for long enough with a bulk and blah blah blah, you know the rest lol. Well said
Ive been rewatching Ted lasso and I read this comment in Roy Kent's voice. It fit perfectly. Well said.
You are right and it goes for all parts. I would only add that posture plays a huge role as well. Many people have a slouched posture where the shoulder girdle doesnt allow the chest to fully show off. Posture classes sounds weird but used to be very common, it is definetly worth it.
Go with what feels better in the gym and makes more sense to you
Anybody can go to Wikipedia and repeat muscle actions as it makes them an expert or just go off 1 study and repeat frontal plane lats 🙄
But in my personal training I feel upper pecs best on a 30-45 degree incline with arms not too tucked or flared like 45 degrees
I like Ben Yanes but you gotta try some stuff in the gym and feel it out
Ignore people that say you shouldn't consider sensation at all in your exercises
I don’t hate Ben Yanes, but he always talks about line of pull as if fibre orientation is the most important aspect influencing the biomechanics of a movement, which is a huge oversimplification.
Tendons often wrap around a bone rather than attaching directly to it, which in turn changes which fibres are best suited to which joint action. There are lots of muscles which are maximally activated even though the fibre orientation is practically perpendicular to the direction of movement.
TLDR fibre orientation isn’t that useful as it applies a simplified 2 dimensional model to a 3D structure which doesnt have nice 2D point A to B attachments.
I'll take thoughtful application of an imprecise model anyday(hypertrophy coach, kassem, etc...) vs thoughtless parroting of muscle functions out of an anatomy textbook or over leveraging data from a single study every time (e.g. prescribing front raises for upper pecs, or parroting frontal plane for lats)
Do you got any examples of where this is the case? If I had to guess, I'd hedge my bets that maybe you would consider the glutes a good example of this given how big they are and how they change when wrapped around the hip joint.
Absolutely, I’m not saying fibre orientation is to be ignored, just that it’s not quite as simple as Ben presents it.
Yeah the glutes are great example, theres also numerous muscles with degrees of pennation which do not align with their joint action.
What educational resources do you refer to?
Just realized you're GAS, I'm IMHello fellow Dr who lifts!
I used a msk anatomy/physiology textbook years ago, but can’t for the life of me remember what it was now, as well as Acland’s videos. Nowadays i use physiopedia if i need to check something.
I also don’t mind Yanes or Kassem compared to others in this space, Paul Carter and Mundy being the biggest examples of guys who suck.
But I do think they really overstate the importance of biomechanics and make things sound more complicated than they are.
I don't even know what SBL is lol. Great advice in this sub already. Someone fill me in on what SBL is please :)
Nowadays "Science based lifting" refers to the instagram/tictok coaches and lifters that take Chris Beardsley's work uncritically as lifting gospel in reaction to the "stretch cult" associated with Israetel and Nippard.
Before they blew up in popularity I guess people would've considered Mike and Jeff the "science based" guys.
What's actually science based is to keep learning and apply what you learn.
I still learn from these guys but when someone is making dogmatic claims I take it with a grain of salt. I read/listen to Greg Nuckols, Stronger by Science, Eric Helms made me realize Chris Beardley's is just going around believing his theories are fact without doing the heavy lifting of proving or designing experiments to show support for them.
Even listen to some of the researchers discuss their papers.
I still listen to Milo Wolf(I really dislike the guy) and Dr. Pak(he's cool)
There are actually others outside of both dogmatic "camps". For example, the following don't really parrot Beardsley or Mike Israetel: TNF, Elijah Mundy, Jackson Hooper, Scientific Snitch, MuscleMechanicsLab, thesciencebasedlifter. No one's perfect, but, IMO, as far as SBL goes, creators like them have the most sensible advice.
I don't know anything about MML or TSBL but the rest IMO are Paul Carter(I know he had a falling out with Beardsley over the 3 times a week stuff)clones.
The one I like the most is Ryan Jewers followed by TNF, (personally can't stand snitch and her boyfriend).
Even though someone like Ryan's not agreeing with everything Beardsley says I still find he over leverages particular studies to inform training decisions like studies in internal moments arms, especially the ackland study
MuscleMechanicsLab and thesciencebasedlifter have criticised the over-emphasis on neuromechanical matching/IMAL data
Thanks, I'll check them out
Both are right. Broadly, "Upper pecs" are the clavicular portion of the pectoralis major.
Within your "upper pecs" there are different lines of force. Some of the lines of force will be favored with wider elbows, adducting them across your upper chest.
Some of the lines of force will be favored with the elbows coming up from about 45 across the opposite shoulder (or, at least towards that).
Every person is going to be different. Try different angles of each and see which feels best.
Man try both and see which one feels better lol. If I tuck my elbows on any pressing movement my triceps will fail first. Meanwhile yesterday the only chest work I did was 2 sets of incline bench with a decently flaired grip and my upper chest is sore today. That’s all I need to know.
it literally doesn't matter, anything with transverse shoulder adduction at an incline will hit the upper pecs. it's basic biomechanics that the "science based lifters" seem to ignore
Noob here but idk if it matters too much in the end. Jared Feather does it with a pretty big flare and big arch iirc. Cbum does it even more tucked than standard. Low to high fly motion seems to bias it most for me. As far as chest presses go, I don’t like the flared version because that becomes very front delt dominant for me.
Keeping your elbows flared puts more stress on the rotator cuff muscles and can lead to injury. I don't keep my elbows at my side but about 30 to 40 degrees away from my side. This protects the cuff muscles but still hits the upper pecs.
Do it a few ways and see what works your chest, what fries your triceps, what hurts etcÂ
Do inclines keeping your elbows in the position you feel the most comfortable and push heavy weights. Makes no sense to do something that feels awkward for your shoulders just because it technically activates more upper pec. Focus on dumbbells first, it helps getting a better idea of what's comfortable for you without the constraints of a bar.
It's not a big mystery that if your upper pecs get a pump and feel sore the next day that you did indeed hit the upper pecs.
SBL is sometimes bullshit-based lifting because these guys are acting like the mechanics are the same between every individual or that optimizing a muscle activation is something done in isolation. You're doing a compound lift in a movement that can put your shoulder into positions where it's more fragile. There are many times where listening to how you feel is actually more science-based than whatever trendy thing these guys might say.
honestly dude just do any variation of an incline press or flye but make sure whatever variation you do can be easily rep standardised and is fun for you
So yes the upper chests main function is shoulder flexion. This means that if we wanted to bias it, we should do some sort of press or low to high fly with a tucked arm path. Bench angle doesn’t matter a ton, so you could do this on a chest press with a neutral grip
Granted though this is only 1/5 of your whole chest, so instead of doing a separate exercise to bias the upper chest, I just do a sagittal shoulder press (neutral grip, decent amt of shoulder flexion)
You're worrying way too much. There's no actual evidence about your questions. Just do something that plausibly trains your pecs and stop worrying.
I've always benched with tucked elbows and my upper pecs are trash, while lower pecks are good. I'm not about the start flaring elbows and risking injury.
Sometimes I really feel the upper pec working when unracking for a heavy overhead press. Literally just the lifting the bar off the rests portion of the lift. I wonder if a set of heavy unracks would do anything?
Just dinking around and feeling my pec while my arms move, it seems like a movement where the arm moves cross-body and roughly in the ballpark of shoulder height works my upper pec good. Some sort of cable crossover with arms out in front of the body might be good.
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Two different things:
The flared grip will train the clavicular head of the pec major.
The tucked elbow trains the pec minor
Ben yanesđź’”
Tucked elbows feel better for me. Do what feels better for you.