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  • What's up, guys?

  • Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.

  • Today I want to talk about one of the biggest problem areas for guys.

  • It's the lower chest.

  • A non-defined lower chest, or saggy lower chest.

  • We can fix it.

  • I'm going to show you eight exercises here that are going to allow you to better target

  • this area.

  • But it starts by asking you a question.

  • Of these two pictures right here, if you're one that's dealing with one of those issues

  • with your lower chest, which one is it?

  • Are you looking more like this guy over here?

  • Or more like this guy over here?

  • Because if you're looking like this guy over here, the first thing you're probably

  • dealing with is an overall high body fat level.

  • Which means your diet is really not in check at all.

  • You need to be much more on point when it comes to your nutrition to be able to drop

  • the lower levels of body fat, to be able to see what you're really working with.

  • I can probably guarantee that this guy, when he does drop down, he's still going to be

  • lacking muscular development of the chest.

  • That's what this guy is dealing with here.

  • The body fat levels are low enough, but the muscular development is just not there.

  • Meaning, he doesn't have this defined line that creates that definitive chest.

  • But again, we can target this.

  • Then what we have to do is apply a little bit of anatomy.

  • You guys know that on this channel I like to break out the anatomy, and sometimes the

  • muscle markers help us do that.

  • I've done this in a previous video that I'll link at the end of this for a little

  • bit more in depth, but the key is this: we know that with the pecs themselves we have

  • a couple of options here.

  • We know that the pec is pretty much divided into two main areas.

  • At least from a nerve innovation.

  • We have the sternal area of the pec, which is the whole area of the lower pec here.

  • The whole pec.

  • Then we have up here, running off the clavicle, we have the chest fibers here that are separately

  • innovated and can actually be targeted a little bit differently because of that.

  • But more importantly, what I like to say here to keep things nice, and simple on this channel

  • is, if you follow the fibersmeaning the direction of the fiberswhen you go to

  • move your body, you're going to effectively target that area better.

  • You can contract the area with more focus and attention by following the direction of

  • the fibers.

  • So, the upper chest, running in this direction, out toward the arm would mean that anytime

  • you're bringing your arm up, and across your body you'd be hitting them more effectively.

  • The sternal area of the pec, we notice here, runs from the sternum out, toward that same

  • area here on our arm.

  • So, when we do things that come across our body in adduction we know that we can get

  • this main, beefy area of the chest a little bit more.

  • But what people don't realize is the abdominal head, which is this very small area right

  • here, when I contract you can see right there.

  • That little break of the line here, and then this underneath, and around.

  • A little hard to draw on here with this marker, but it comes up, and around, and again, heads

  • toward this same area.

  • What are the directions of those fibers?

  • Those fibers are running up, and out.

  • So, if we want to work that area more effectively, following those fibers in a consistent manner,

  • we would take our arm from this position and come down, and across.

  • From here, to here.

  • Not from here, to here.

  • But here, to here.

  • So, any exercise that we did, that allowed us to replicate that, and even add the adduction

  • which we know the chest is cravingwe know that we're going to be able to target

  • that area more effectively.

  • Now, the decline bench-press is the hallmark exercise that all of us use to try and hit

  • the lower chest.

  • Why is that?

  • Well, if you look a bit more closely what you might think is actually just pressing

  • away from your body, if you sit up the angle of your arms is actually not directly perpendicular

  • to your chest.

  • It's actually angled downward a little bit.

  • What is that?

  • That downward angle here is doing exactly that.

  • It's following that same direction that we're after.

  • But I'm not going to stop with the decline bench-press, guys.

  • That's something you already know.

  • What I want to do is give you eight other exercise options to really, really hit this

  • area hard, and to get your lower chest looking better than ever.

  • So, let's start with another one of the classic lower chest exercises.

  • The dip.

  • The dip, we should know by now, is going to hit that lower chest more effectively because

  • it's actually doing what we just said.

  • The movement of the arm during the exercise is actually following that same movement that

  • we're trying to get to.

  • But we know we can actually make this better.

  • We call this a Dip Plus.

  • What we're doing here is not only including another muscle that likes to work with the

  • lower chest, but we're actually angling our body a little more appropriately to make

  • sure we're hitting this lower chest area.

  • So, it means you're going to angle your body forward, but not too much.

  • If we were to go all the way over the top we're almost turning this into a horizontal

  • pushup, which is going to keep the arms more in this angle here, hitting more of the mid-chest

  • area.

  • But if we get ourselves back up just a little bit, but forward for vertical now you can

  • see that we actually have our arms following in the same direction that we're supposed

  • to be looking to do.

  • However, I mentioned another muscle we can include here.

  • The Serratus can actively be included as well.

  • This muscle right here, that likes to work in concert with the lower chest, by doing

  • what we call a 'plus' at the end of every, single rep.

  • That means when you get to the top of the dip you press away.

  • You try to protract your shoulders, get your shoulder blades around your body, push your

  • arms away with your arms straight, and you start to get this muscle to fire up, too.

  • You'll feel a much different contraction than you ever have, if you've never tried

  • this before.

  • But the combination of both of those elements makes the regular dip not just a good lower

  • chest exercise, but an even better lower chest exercise.

  • Okay, let's stick with the theme of the dips here and actually do an old-fashioned

  • dip exercise.

  • It's the straight-bar dip.

  • This is something I was actually doing in my basement as a kid when I had nowhere to

  • do dips in my house.

  • The thing is, it's actually a pretty good variation to allow us to hit our lower chest

  • again.

  • What we do is, we have to hover over the bar, and we have to actually do this to balance

  • on the bar because you'll see the second you try to execute this exercise, if you're

  • not angled forward appropriately, you're going to feel like you're falling off the

  • bar backward.

  • So, you have to lean forward a little bit.

  • Well, what it actually does is puts your arms right in that sweet spot of where you want

  • them to be.

  • Not to mention, a little bit of internal rotation so when you come to the top of the exercise

  • in a full chest contraction, we know that internal rotation is another element of a

  • full chest contraction.

  • So, you have that working in your favor as well.

  • So, the straight-bar dip, if you haven't tried it, is going to not only give you another

  • dip variation to do, but a little bit of a different feel than the dip we've already

  • covered.

  • Now I'm going to throw you a curveball because this exercise people think is for the triceps.

  • But it's actually a poorly performed tricep pushdown.

  • But it becomes an effective lower chest exercise if you do this properly.

  • This is our jackhammer pushdown.

  • Now what we're looking for here is, again, proper execution of an exercise that some

  • people do in a bad way for the triceps.

  • Look again at what's happening with the arms.

  • They're following the same direction that we've been targeting here all along.

  • But I want you to make a couple of tweaks.

  • You don't just stand here and move the elbows.

  • You're not just bending the elbows and straightening them.

  • Then you're going to be working the triceps a little bit more than you are working your

  • chest.

  • Instead what you want to do is open your chest up by getting your elbows out to the side

  • and let them ride up.

  • So, if they stay the same level here you're doing it wrong.

  • If they go up and down, then you're doing it right.

  • What we do is angle just a little bit forward over the top of the bar so when we press down

  • it almost becomes a very close cousin of that straight-bar dip.

  • Again, it becomes another exercise in your arsenal for hitting that lower chest.

  • This next one here is one that I actually love, and I did an entire video on it.

  • I'll link it again at the end of this video, so you can watch that because it goes into

  • great detail about why this is so effective.

  • What we're actually doing here what we call a Standing Cable LC press.

  • I talk about focusing in this video on the elbow riding high, and going low, and trying

  • to make contact with the sternum here, at the end of the exercise.

  • But what we also do is, when we get to the top we just twist a little bit to open up

  • this shoulder, get it into external rotation, so when we come back, and in, we get internal

  • rotation as that elbow drives toward that lower chest.

  • Again, following the fibers, using science, letting our anatomy dictate the exercise,

  • and making another effective option here when we're trying to hit that lower chest.

  • Now let's take that exercise one step further because we can actually do better.

  • We can get a little more adductionprovided we have access here to a cable machine, or

  • maybe a set of bands that we could anchor up to a pullup barbut this is the kneeling

  • ex-press.

  • What we're looking for here isthe two advantages are more adduction, as we can actually

  • crossover our body here through midlineand we can also get a better stretch, because

  • we can allow that arm to drift up even higher and get more of a separation here on this

  • chest muscle from origin, to insertion.

  • That is what we're actually looking for.

  • If you try this, again, position yourself down on your knees and focus mostly on the

  • angle of your arms because that is really dictating how effective you're going to

  • be able to hit this lower area, and start to get it to respond.

  • Guys, the problem is, you don't have a good mind-muscle connection with this lower chest

  • area.

  • You probably don't even have a good mind-muscle connection with your chest in particular at

  • all.

  • You're probably trying to just press, press, press with a lot of heavy weight.

  • Go a little bit lighter here.

  • Leave the ego aside and start aiming for great contractions, one after the next, after the

  • next.

  • If you have to do 10 sets of 1 I'd rather see you do that, than one of 10 crappy ones.

  • This next one actually comes in handy.

  • Especially if you didn't have access to a cable machine, and maybe only have access

  • to one band.

  • If you can anchor that to something high, like a pullup bar, and get your arm in this

  • position here then you can do what we call this D2 Flexion pattern.

  • This is from PNF, a classic physical therapy technique.

  • But it actually works great when we're trying to train our chest because it's following

  • all the same rules that we're going for here.

  • That is, you start your arm up high, and you're aiming for your opposite pocket.

  • In order to get there, you have to go from this externally rotated position of your shoulder,

  • to an internal rotated position, as if you're going to take a sword out of that opposite

  • pocket.

  • Again, the other benefit here is, let's say you are stuck with using a band and you're

  • afraid that you don't have enough resistance by increasing the moment arm, and keeping

  • your arm out straight.

  • You can make that band feel a lot more difficult than some of these other exercises we've

  • already done here.

  • You take that arm all the way across, keep it nice, and long, turn it in, you're getting

  • adduction, you're getting that same downward and across angle that we're going for here,

  • and then of course, you go back nice, and slow.

  • So this is one of those home-friendly versions that are still going to let everybody here

  • no excuses, everybodystart to work on getting a better lower chest.

  • Sticking with that 'home' theme, because I've got you all covered here, I promise.

  • We have an incline twisting pushup.

  • We know that the incline pushup is actually going to hit that area again.

  • Why?

  • Because of the angle of the arm.

  • So, a little bit counter to what you might think, incline is actually going to hit more

  • of that lower chest.

  • But what we can do is, we've got to make it better because this exercise, by nature,

  • is going to be a little bit easier because you're taking away some of the force of

  • gravity down in your body, as it would be in a regular pushup.

  • But we can make it a little bit harder with this extra twist.

  • So, what we do here is, as we get toward the top we twist our body away, which is actually

  • creating something we've talked about many times on this channel.

  • That's relative motion.

  • We're getting relative adduction of our arm across our chest under load.

  • We still have gravity pushing down on us.

  • This is still creating a loaded adduction as we turn into every, single rep.

  • So, we're adding an extra element of contraction.

  • Again, we have our arms at that appropriate angle, and we've given you another exercise

  • here to use when you might be training at home, or even if you're at the gym and you

  • just need another option.

  • Last, but not least, guys.

  • We have another option here.

  • This one I actually debuted on Instagram.

  • If you haven't followed us over there already, I kind of do a lot of unique stuff over there

  • that we don't do here.

  • It's @ATHLEANX over on Instagram.

  • You'll want to check us out over there.

  • This is something we call a decline cable dip.

  • Again, we're going back to that whole theme of 'dip', because the dip is really putting

  • us in that position we need to be in.

  • But we setup a decline bench, and then we lay back on it, and slide forward.

  • Now we grab the cables, and you can see that we've automatically put ourselves in that

  • position.

  • Almost like we do with the jackhammer pushdown where our elbows are up nice and high.

  • Then when we press we're almost trying to go right down, along the line of our body.

  • Again, you can see that by doing that we're actually getting this really focused contraction

  • here and feeling it really intensely down in that lower chest area.

  • Now you can try to bring your hands together here if you're able to, in order to intensify

  • that contraction a little bit more, with a little bit more adduction, but the fact is,

  • you can load up this exercise a little more than you can some of the other ones.

  • That is its main benefit over the others.

  • The bottom line is, it's just another option.

  • You don't have to do all eight of these, guys.

  • You've got to start mixing some of them in to start developing that better mind-muscle

  • connection with this area, the better development of this area, and if you need to work on that

  • diet, you need to do that too, to be able to see this area better.

  • But I promise you're going to see better results here, once and for all.

  • There you have it, guys.

  • Eight new weapons in your arsenal for getting that harder to hit lower chest area.

  • Guys, remember, it's not all about the lower chest.

  • If you want to get a complete physique you've got to hit everything.

  • We overlook nothing here at ATHLEANX.

  • All of our programs make sure we guide you through step by step to give you the science.

  • Put the science back in strength, but to help you develop a complete body.

  • Those are all available over at ATHLEANX.com.

  • In the meantime, if you've found this video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up

  • below.

  • Let me know what else I can cover for you and I'll do my best to do that for you in

  • the days and weeks ahead.

  • All right, guys.

  • See you soon.

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