If you want to develop huge, beefy pecs like a cartoon superhero, read and watch the following.
Previously I’ve said that in order to maximize growth stimulation for any muscle you must do the following:
- Work along the path of that muscle’s function
- Have resistance at the peak contraction point of that exercise
This is because you can only recruit the maximum number of fibers in a muscle by having it move in harmony with the motion it is primarily designed to produce in the body. That was a bit of a mouthful, you might want to go back and read it again for clarification.
Additionally, maximum muscle fiber recruitment occurs at the Peak Contraction Point (PCP) of such a movement. You therefore need to have effective (or preferably maximal) resistance at this point of the exercise. By not having resistance at this point you miss out on the most productive part of the rep in terms of growth stimulation.
To recap, for the biceps we said that:
the hand must be fully supinated and there must be flexion at the elbow joint (FUNCTION)
we should use a cable and a floor pulley to ensure that we are fighting against the resistance at the peak contraction point i.e. the point where there is maximal muscle fiber recruitment (RESISTANCE AT PCP)
We therefore concluded that cable preacher curls would get the job done to great effect.
So how do we apply this to the chest?
Well the function of the pecs is to bring the arms across the chest, sometimes referred to as horizontal flexion. Raise your arms up and out to the side, then bring them towards each other in front of your body until you can clap your hands, that’s what I’m talking about here.
Immediately you may think of a fly movement to accommodate this e.g. lying dumbbell flies.
While this DOES fulfill the criterion of ‘function’, it has a MAJOR flaw.
When the pecs are maximally contracted (dumbbells are touching at the top), there is virtually NO resistance. You are basically holding the weights above your body against gravity. The hardest part of this movement is at the bottom; the point where there is least fiber recruitment and the opposite of what we need.
There are 2 options here then for maximal growth stimulation. Cable flies and the pec deck.
While performing flies with cables DOES ensure that that there is great resistance at the PCP, you also involve the biceps and run the risk of having the biceps fail before the pecs do. In this scenario you’d reach the end of the set content that you had hit muscular failure and couldn’t perform another rep. However, it WASN’T failure of the intended body part i.e. the pectorals.
We therefore need to take the biceps out of the equation and there’s one way to do it, the pec deck.
This exercise ticks all the boxes.
I shot a video of me demonstrating it, check it out…
(if you liked the video, please give 5 stars on YouTube, thank you 😀 )
Notice that I am pausing at the PCP briefly before lowering. Also note the slow pace with which the negative portion of the rep is completed. You only need to look at your pecs at the PCP for evidence of the great stimulation; those striated fibers are really contracting like CRAZY!
Perform this exercise as shown and do it to failure – don’t wimp out early.
Start as soon as possible and carve out a MUSCULAR, BULLET-PROOF chest for yourself.
In my next article, I’ll cover triceps. Remember, they make up 2/3rds of your arm area, so big arms really depend on you working them correctly.
Stay Tuned & Stay Motivated!
Your Buddy,
Mark
P.S. You can perform these without any elbow flexion i.e. with straight arms. Some people find the regular version painful on the frontal delts. As long as your upper arms are resting against the pads, it doesn’t really matter what angle your forearm is at.
Really lovin the vids Mark. Thanks for all you are doing here!
Very helpful indeed.
This seems out of left field…?
So are you favoring the pec dec over flat dumbell presses, inclined dumbell presses, or dumbell flyes (your TSPA routine) as part of your 7-9 sets for chest? Is it at the top of the list for chest now? Thanks
I’m one of those guys who loves asking “Why?,” so I’m really enjoying these explanations!
As usual, wonderful and very informative article Mark. Great to hear that one of the exercises that stimulates the pecs most can be done individually, and is very much safe. Not saying at all that it should completely replace various bench presses.
I have a question regarding this one though. The gym where I practice, the machine is slightly different than the one you present. What I am talking about is this: https://goo.gl/HhBb Notice the big different in the handles. What do you think about this? The grip and arm overall arm placement will surely be moderately different than what you just presented. Your suggestion on how to handle this type of machine? Hopefully it won’t be difficult for you to explain this in written 🙂
I don’t really wanna waste my precious PCP moments doing the workout the wrong way! Keep up the great work here… you keep me going article by article!
Thanks Mark
As you say, flies are good but at the point of max contraction… no resistance.
Great info but… don’t have a pec deck!
How much equipment have you got?
Perhaps we need a post about equipment.
Starting to look expensive.
@Andy @Ray. Thanks guys.
@Glenn. Yes, top of the list. If you’re on TSPA, I recommend you sub the flies for these.
@Nikola. Unfortunately it isn’t optimal. It’s good but again you’ll involve your biceps. However, if you are sure that when you reach failure that it’s because of your pecs, not your biceps. it’s fine.
To help minimize it, don’t grip the handles at all. Rest your forearms against them with a slight bend at the elbows and perform the movement – try it and see how you go.
@Keith. It’s all in one and a great piece of equipment. I’m not using anything else at the moment at all (besides dumbbells). Looks like this…
https://www.eurocosm.com/Application/images/fitness-equipment/Marcy-MP3100-Smith-Machine-lg.jpg
Hope that helps 🙂
Hi mark, do you mind me asking why you decided to go for the equipment you did i.e. smith machine instead of a power rack? Seems that alot of your new updates seem to be going in the direction of cable exercises but i can see where your coming from! Keep up the good work mate wicked site very helpful!!!
i completely agree with this post – did these exact exercised for years and then switched to dumbbell presses and they just are not as hard, particularly on center and upper chest
however, be warned: if you use the variation on this equipment in which your forearm is not resting against a pad (e.g. a free hanging handle, very common, in which the elbow is free hanging), be VERY careful – i developed a form of tennis elbow using such a machine for about two years, it’s like simulating a very heavy tennis swing so to speak, so stick with the machine that looks like the one in the vid above (where the forearm has support)
Mark, I’m starting to see where you’re going with this and how you’re going to develop this into a full body workout. Can’t wait to see what you have up your sleeves. I have some ideas of my own that I want to try once I’m done with my current program. Thanks
Mark- can’t wait to try this out. The cable preacher curl is working great for me. I really appreciate your advice… I have been working out for years sorta wasting my time. I have been checking in at your site now 2 months and am seeing results!
Hey Mark, today at the gym I tried something a little different; instead of hammering out a set (bicep exercise), I did the whole set (up and down) very slow until I got to 8 and then from there to failure; so usually I got to about 10 or 11; however, the weight I was using was much lower had I just cranked out the set. But the burn I felt was second to none, I have not felt something like this in a while. Would it be better to perform all my exercises like this that you gave in you gave in your e-book?
Mark – thanks for sharing and confirming something I’ve stumbled on in the last few weeks as well! I was doing quite a bit of bench dumbell flyes and dumbell press, but I definitely felt my triceps were being called in to play too much. I have since incorporated pec deck in over the last couple of weeks and now I find that I’ll only use a set or two of bench flyes to “shake things up” once in a while.
Thanks once again for being so damn helpful! Cheers from North Bay, ON, Canada!
Hi Mark
Looks like a great piece of kit!
Looking on the net it is abour £400….
Do you know of any low cost retailers in the UK?
Mark,
Two questions regarding your Bicep and Pec exercises, which also applies to any future exercises that implement the thesis.
1. How do ‘optimal’ exercises fit into larger workouts that involve suboptimal ones (like Glenn’s question regarding bench presses)? Do you do the optimal exercise first? Do you just do more sets of only optimal exercises?
2. It seems like gravity is the problem, as it only pulls down, and so there seems to be a trend towards using pulleys in some way. That seems great for single focal point exercises. How will this play out with compound exercises?
Thanks.
cant we do this exexrcise sitting upright and using dumbbells in the same motion as using the peck deck above?
Hi mark…
If there is 10 stars on you tube will abslte give……..love you and like your practice!!!
Hey Mark, what a timely article! I just read this today and until Monday had been performing lying dumbell flys. It never really hit the mark and and can relate to all the points you raised, so I switched to the pec deck. The difference was immediate and whilst I performed the reps slowly, I missed the pause. So thanks, will build that in on Monday!
“Mark McManus in not using free weights shocker!”
🙂
Well I’m quite surprised to hear this from you but you give great advice so I’ll give it a go and see how I get on. Can’t say I’m a fan of machines though, weird angle on my shoulders and biceps. But you are right about the peak contraction, and this fits in with my aim to maximise the mind-muscle connection.
Greetings,
You are sharing your discoveries with others and I think that is great. I have been recruiting muscle fiber for some time now, 25 years actually, wow I can’t beleive I just wrote that, ti,me sure has a way of being irrelevant until you stop and look at it like I just did, oh sorry I was saying, been recruiting fibers for some 25 yrs and there are few exercies that I have not attempted, or utilyzed for rotations. I like the peck dec myself, at the same time I like cables for a standing low cable, standing out from machine a little and bringing cables up in front of me, if youcombine these two you will find that your work will actually be a lot more exhausting and like two greats who have left before sharing their bigger secrets I beleive, Mike and Ray Menntzer, “it’s not how much can you do”, they said, it is how little can I do correctly and make maximum gains thereby almost completely eliminating overtraining and also halting as much free radicals, such as lactic acid, from your bodies system, as well (check this out) you keep your immune system from breaking down very effectively. Well I don’t want to take anyones thunder, enjoyed sharing my experiences and knowledge as you all have thnks for an easy to follow fast loading and nice layout of your site. Will visit again, share more and learn more, as I say in my book that I will not mention no plugging a respect thing you know, “Your never too young or too old to learn or teach”, isn’t it the truth though!
Sarge
do the Google “Survive and Thrive All”