Chest Fix: The Outer Chest Solution

The outer chest or pec muscle is one of those hard to develop areas that many guys become frustrated with.

In the following video, you will learn how to build wider outer pecs that will stand at attention when looked at from the side. I will give you exact chest exercise techniques that you can use to broaden those pecs and give you a more defined look.

Many will say that you cannot specifically target the outer chest, and anatomically they would be correct. The pec major muscle contracts all or none and there is no way to isolate a specific region of the pecs. You can, however, increase the development of the overall muscle by taking it through a full range of motion and increasing the length of time that the muscle is under tension during the exercises you are doing in your chest workout.

When you look at the origin and insertion of the pec major muscle we have to look to the arm and the sternum. The pec originates on the humerus or upper arm bone and inserts on the chest bone. In order to increase the amount of tension the pec muscle undergoes you want to increase the range of motion that it contracts through on every rep. This means you want to safely move these two points as far apart as you can on every chest exercise.

In the case of the dip, this is easy to see and more importantly feel. Most of us will perform the dip with our shoulders rounded forward. This limits the range of motion of the pec and most importantly decreases the amount of stretch that you will feel on the exercise. Shift your shoulders back into a safer position and stick your chest out and then perform your dips. This will increase the overall range as well as the tension that is applied to the chest muscle in its longest and stretched position.

From here, you want to learn to now increase the time under tension on the muscle in the elongated position. This can easily be accomplished by holding the stretch position for a second or two on every repetition. This doesn’t always have to occur on just dips, however. As shown, you can apply this to bench press, crossovers, and even pushups as well.

When doing bench press, it helps to not think about the motion of your hands moving up and away from your body during the rep but rather what is happening with your arms. When you concentrate on moving your arms down and apart and then back up and together at the top you will find that you get a wider arc and more range of motion on the pecs.

Pushups can be done exactly the same way. Don’t just lower your body up and down during each rep of the pushup. Look to spread your chest as wide as you can on every descent and retract your shoulder blades. You will instantly feel the increased tension at the origin of the pec major. Remember once again to hang out a bit in the bottom-most stretched position of the exercise and you will definitely see the results start to manifest in better outer chest development.

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