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Just a quick question if someone can please shed some light on this. I use dumbells for my chest. Almost every time I do it my shoulders (the part closest to each pec) is more sore than my chest muscles. As a result my shoulders are very well developed but my chest is not making much progress at all. Ive been working very hard for about 3 months in the gym and each muscle group is coming along very nicely except my chest. Could this be from poor for or perhaps coming down too far with the weights on the lowering portion of the press? Its always been my goal to have a diesel chest. Please, please someone help, lol. Thanks

From what I understand dumbbell flies are not so good, since at the end of the exercise there is no resistance, and as such you only really get a work out at the start of each rep. To get better chest development you should either use a pec dec or use a cable machine.

Hey beebz

I don't think it is poor form that is your problem by what you are describing it could just be the positioning of your arms that is causing the lack of contraction on your chest to more emphasis on your shoulder, i find aim your hands to come on line with your nipple to give you a better contraction and really concentrate to push in an imaginary straight line from there and to really get a good squeeze at the top rotate your hands anti clockwise from about 3/4 way up and rotate them as far as you can to reach the top of your rep, always come down as far as you can on the negative to get maximum benefit, learn to push from your wrist and not your grip hold your d/bells as loose as you can manage and i promise you will feel your chest working alot better, i find a cadence of 2secs up 2secs down work best with chest, hope this helps, OH and dont go flat on your bench either which could be another problem aim between 10 degrees and 35 degress, also as eleischner suggests work with pec-dec or cable cross-over machine for a better contraction instead of d/bell flies, hope this helps

Great response LALA I have a similar problem.
I’m very shoulder dominant and have trouble feeling the chest in cable crossovers I feel shoulder is taking over from the chest?

I do a one arm high cable mid-crossover do you think I should go for a lower cable position any ideas.

I'm going to study this LALA looks good.

However, one small change. . .

i find aim your hands to come on line with your nipple to give you a better contraction

Real men would say "nip".

Cheers guys

Yeah it is such a common problem with chest, too many people listen to an adhere to the gorrilla myth of
( SOOOOOOOO HOW MUCH CAN YOU PRESS ) and don't care what muscles are involved to get more weight up than the guy beside them, form position and time under tension shoud be what you really concentrate on, even when doing barbell benchpress you want to be touching your t-shirt on the negative to make sure you are getting the full range of motion after all it is the 3rd largest muscle group so there is alot of muscle there to try and tear up.

@ stickupkid

If you are not felling it effective try a mid range and push the cable to a lower position like in a downward angle across your body if you know what i mean should help take the play away from your shoulders and try and push as far across your body as possible holding for a one second count, i assume you are using a D bar so again just enough grip, keep it relaxed even when you get fatigued because when you start to get tired the grip becomes more apparent and do you ever notice you are pulling instead of pushing when this happens with cross-overs? thats when you start to bring other muscles into play, dont be afraid to drop the weight stickupkid to get the form right find what works for yourself then add the weight. Also as a finisher i like to do barbell benchpress in the way of a half rep, full rep motion it gives a great pump to the end of your workout totally blasts those last few fibres to pieces, choose your weight and go to failure for a couple of sets IT WILL LEAVE YOU IN AGONY hopes this helps guys

@johnoregon

Your'e funny, i just didn't want to get sexist so i will call it the areola region for all genders

@LALA
"areola region" whoa that's even better!
thanks I'll use that when walking around lecturing all the women at my gym

@ johnoregon

DIG DEEPER DIG DEEPER LALA
HEEEEEEELLLLOOOOOOOOOO CAN ANYONE HEAR ME UP THERE , OKAY OKAY YOU'VE GOT ME JOHN

@ stickupkid.....Sounds like LALA is spot on here as you get more fatigued form will drop even without being aware.

If you are doing one arm crossovers can the pulley be adjusted meaning can you go low mid, and high range?
If you cable system can be adjusted to mid point go with the mid pulley mid crossover try not to bend torso over too much this will encourage shoulders.

If your cable system is like mine only low and high use a low pulley while kneeling and do a mid crossover, if you are shoulder dominant then any high pulley movement shoulders will normannly take over also like LALA said weight is not as important as the form try to concentrate on contracting and feel the muscle instead of thinking I need to get this pulley from A to B you won't regret go lighter and less chance of injury and you will see and improvement in growth.

@ Beebz. Unfortunately Bench presses for pecs is 90% front delt work.

If you are doing bench presses the dumbbells work best by giving a better ROM . Also consider how you hold the bells you can have the bells slighly angled instead of straight as traditional bell presses this places more stress on the chest muscle also you could consider turning the dumbbells in by touching all four bells on the posistive and squeezing the chest muscle and holding that contraction for a second and slowly lower this works well for both flat and incline I suppose it work well for decline also.