📌 FIX YOUR PEC DEVELOPMENT

 📍As some of you read yesterday there are a few things that could be limiting your pec development such as weak scapular stabilizers. Here are a few exercises that will help you improve your bench performance in the long run. Stretching may decrease your power output temporarily BUT in the long run it will lead to better results in strength and hypertrophy.

💪 The firs thing we want to focus is opening the pecs, tight pecs will draw your scapula forward and internally rotate your shoulder. This changes the length of the fibers and how they’ll look and perform. The doorway stretch is great for initially opening your chest doing 3 sets of 30 seconds 3x a week. The next thing we’re going to add is external rotations with either a band or cables, this exercise will help stabilize the shoulder during benching. For these we want to focus on higher reps as it is an endurance muscles 3-4 sets 14-16 reps.

The exercise is my favorite for improving shoulder blade stability and control. The banded pull apart focuses on using the mid and low trap retract the band into the final position. These muscles work against the pec when benching and must be equally as strong. Again, we’ll focus on endurance in the beginning performing 3-4 sets 14-16 reps. This exercise is great as a warmup before performing any pec exercises. Lastly, we’ll add a serratus muscle exercise to help keep the shoulder blade glued to the thoracic spine. This exercise is the serratus punch, done with a moderate to light weight focuses on protraction of the shoulder blade which is performed by the serratus. This exercise can be done for 3-4 sets 10-12 reps.

The last thing we can focus on is cueing of pec exercises, when doing any sort of chest exercises walk your shoulder blades down and back and squeeze them to create a stable base of support. The next thing to focus on is the movement of the arm, focus on moving the arms in an arch path to avoid protracting the shoulder blades.