Upper Pecs - Incline Presses or Not?

[Muscle Man]

More importantly, keep your elbows up closer to your ears and you'll start feeling it in your upper pecs. Once I started doing this, my upper pecs started catching up.

Good advice, Ice.

 

[eknight]

How about based on the fact that you can not preferentially work one area of a muscle with a single insertion point over another.

Brb, gonna work lower biceps.

Brb, gonna hit inner chest.

It's called basic Anatomy 101. Stop listening to the bros and hit pubmed. Wait- let me guess- you also do leg raises for "lower abs." Lol.

 

[Littleguy]

How about based on the fact that you can not preferentially work one area of a muscle with a single insertion point over another.

Brb, gonna work lower biceps.

Brb, gonna hit inner chest.

It's called basic Anatomy 101. Stop listening to the bros and hit pubmed. Wait- let me guess- you also do leg raises for "lower abs." Lol.

Well they do work and will continue to work I recommend that you do incorporate them in your chest workout, I will not argue or flip out over the point but you will be shortchanging yourself if you do not use them.

 

[Bigwhite]

How about based on the fact that you can not preferentially work one area of a muscle with a single insertion point over another.

Brb, gonna work lower biceps.

Brb, gonna hit inner chest.

It's called basic Anatomy 101. Stop listening to the bros and hit pubmed. Wait- let me guess- you also do leg raises for "lower abs." Lol.

Disagree. Was out of the gym 4 weeks do to surgery and the first week back had some bad doms. Did all upper chest one day and only had soreness in upper chest to collar bone....

 

[eknight]

So now we're using soreness as an indicator? You're aware that soreness is a neurological feedback not directly related to which "area" of a muscle is being worked, right?

You're also aware that- despite what Flex magazine says- muscle follows the "all or nothing" principle and either contracts fully along the length of its fibers or not at all. It doesn't do it in pieces. Look it up in any physiology textbook if you doubt me.

But just for shits and giggles let's look at it logically. Can we all agree that both heads of the pectoralis major have a distal point of attachment on the bicipital groove of the humerus? Since that's the case, when the humerus moves in any direction under any load, there's no way for one head of the pec major to contract and not the other. What- you think it goes slack while the other contracts more? With a common innervation on top of that? Really? Just...no.

 

[Littleguy]

Well my friend what works for some may not work for others I guess but they most certainly work for me and do INDEED work a different part of the pec you can FEEL it when training as opposed to flat.

 

[Bigwhite]

So now we're using soreness as an indicator? You're aware that soreness is a neurological feedback not directly related to which "area" of a muscle is being worked, right?

You're also aware that- despite what Flex magazine says- muscle follows the "all or nothing" principle and either contracts fully along the length of its fibers or not at all. It doesn't do it in pieces. Look it up in any physiology textbook if you doubt me.

But just for shits and giggles let's look at it logically. Can we all agree that both heads of the pectoralis major have a distal point of attachment on the bicipital groove of the humerus? Since that's the case, when the humerus moves in any direction under any load, there's no way for one head of the pec major to contract and not the other. What- you think it goes slack while the other contracts more? With a common innervation on top of that? Really? Just...no.

You are right. Last time I worked calfs my biceps hurt so can't go by soreness...

 

[Muscle Man]

Well my friend what works for some may not work for others I guess but they most certainly work for me and do INDEED work a different part of the pec you can FEEL it when training as opposed to flat.

You're absolutely right, Littleguy.

And soreness is an EXCELLENT indicator of which muscle you worked.

EKnight's studies are almost 20 years old, and they used six guys. A sample size that small is meaningless. I think the tens of millions of guys around the world who built their upper chest with incline benches and grew their pectoralis majors with flat benches since those flawed studies are a better indicator as to what is accurate. EK, can we see a pic of your pecs based on your training ideas? Here are mine based on my training ideas:

​

 

[hoodlum]

I'm gonna jump in here and say eknight I think your wrong but I solidly applaud your use of science but more importantly linking references. Wish more people that presented science actually showed where their conclusions came from so it could be peer reviewed.

With that said, even muscle contractions don't indicate effectiveness. Everyone here agrees that during a standard bench press, the upper pec contracts. However it's not placed under the same load as the other parts of the pec. The part of the pec under the most load or strain will develop much better than the part just nearly contracting under a lesser load. It's like a squat, your hamstrings contract and extend, but you wouldn't use that to target them, you would pic something that puts it under a larger load.

And muscle man, I like what you say mostly but check your ego at the door. Anyone that has been around for a while knows just because someone is big does not make them more knowledgable so the pic of your supposed pecs is useless. Back your argument up with logic not 'I'm big let's see your pic' - PS. Not having a go brother just saying big doesn't equal right

 

[Fury]

When ever I train chest incline press is always a must along with incline dumbbell press.definitely effective but again genetics is the key.

 

[eknight]

You're absolutely right, Littleguy.

And soreness is an EXCELLENT indicator of which muscle you worked.

EKnight's studies are almost 20 years old, and they used six guys. A sample size that small is meaningless. I think the tens of millions of guys around the world who built their upper chest with incline benches and grew their pectoralis majors with flat benches since those flawed studies are a better indicator as to what is accurate. EK, can we see a pic of your pecs based on your training ideas? Here are mine based on my training ideas:

View attachment 5411​

Good lord, really? Utter cry of the knuckle draggers who can't find any research to back their own idea- they attack the research that is presented. 20 years old makes it irrelevant? Oh, right- I forgot- human evolution has changed how the anatomy and physiology of the body works in the past ten years. And I guess the researchers chose the ONLY 6 people on the planet who would get these results. And the second study chose the ONLY OTHER 15 people who would get the exact same results. Got it. So, then, you should have no problem providing some literature showing how the "tens of millions" of people who built their "upper chest" did so with only using inclines. While you're at it, you can answer how the humerus can be adducted by only one head of the pec major and not the other, when they have a SINGLE, common tendon that attaches in one spot. I'm dying to know as well, how the lateral pectoral nerve can somehow decide to only contract one head, but not the other, selectively, when it innervates BOTH heads of the muscle? I'm tossing out my A&P texts even as I write this, so that you can explain how the body actually works to me, because clearly I'm confused.

Wait, wait, wait- here's the coup de grace- showing me a picture that doesn't actually prove anything. You could have developed the same pecs doing only flat bench, but we'll never know will we? Love a great pissing contest though, so I'll add this- I've bench pressed three times my body weight, drug free, so if we're going to go by performance and results, mine are more impressive than yours. What's that? Lost you at drug-free? That's ok. I expected I would.

Hey- can anyone explain to me how Matt Kroc got such an impressive "upper chest?" He's a powerlifter, and from seeing his routines, doesn't do inclines AT ALL, and his "upper chest" is fairly impressive, so how is that possible??

 

[RedNeck]

All I did for years was flat bench and had a very under developed upper chest so I know for a fact my upper chest absolutely does not grow from flat bench. Not one ****ing bit thats noticeable. But with the magic of incline bench and dips I have a huge ass upper chest to match the rest of my chest now.