Inzah Dude
Member
When doing close grip bench, do you come right down to your chest? If not, how far down do you go?
Close-grip Bench
- Thread starter Inzah Dude
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windwords7
Well-known member
I come down to my chest.
windwords7
Well-known member
This is a tricep excercise bro. You want your triceps in play.
Blindfaith
New member
i too go down to the chest...i usually dont do this because it puts your wrists at a very unfavourable postion.
sage
Well-known member
R.I.C. said:
points been made has the ideal techinques (ie no pause at the bottom of movement, the ROM) here are some more. To really stimulate the tris and take out the chest as much as possible, limit your ROM from your chest, up to only 1.5 feet up (not even coming close to a lockout) the top of your motion is where the "inner" chest is brought in the most and doing a slight smaller range will do two things....(1) you can pile on more weights to really hammer them triceps (2) less stress on chest, more on tris. Another point, keep in your elbows as much as possible (to your body....another tip in keeping the focus on the tris) ok...one last pointer. this i feel is a "feel" exercise more than lets say the bench or other movements where momentum comes into play (even though most of us try not to admit that) so a steady tempo, with strict form and visually imagining your triceps doing most of the pushing, will give your Tceps a good burn man. Sage
windwords7
Well-known member
I really love doing at least the last 2 sets at half reps so that I am no where near lockout. This EXHAUSTS the triceps and gets them so pumped its incredible. I just did this on Tuesday and had an amazing workout!
Sir Savage
Board Sponsor
You "tappers" better not bounce that motherf*cker off your chest!
Inzah Dude
Member
R.I.C. said:
You can't target the inner chest with any particular exercise.
sage
Well-known member
Inzah Dude said:
oh no....here we go on the "cannot target" a particular part of the chest. the infamous "there is no upper/lower/outer/inner" chest. (ha) aight...my feelings are so so strong on this topic man. Nothing against you inzah or anyone who think the same but you can easily seperate particular exercises for different portions of the chest. as for this case with the closegrip, the top of the ROM definetly stresses the inner pectorals than a wider grip similar press motion. Technically, the body part can be seen as one muscle (sure) but c'mon fellas, you guys know from lifting throughout the years, if you want a particular region of the chest to be hit, you work at different angles (whether it be the seat itself, where your arms plane of motion goes through, the various grips you can use on push/dipping/fly movements) to say you cannot work a particular section of the pectoral muscle is bogus....and thats the truth. To say the pectoral group is one large muscular region of the human body is fine (if not 100% true) but to say you cannot dictate what areas of that muscle group is being used more and stressed upon....is just not true. Sage
Inzah Dude
Member
sage said:
Thats how I always thought. But everyone told me you can't target a certain part so I guess I just started to beleive them. I thought you could target a certain part becuase, incline bench is to hit the upperchest right, well when you move yer arms up to where they are in the incline bench position and flex, then feel your chest, it is flexed more at the top and not at the bottom. Same with decline bench, it is flexed more at the bottom portion of the chest. Am I right?
Biggs
Well-known member
Yep, I'd say so. Otherwise, there would only be one exercise necessary for optimal pec growth/appearance etc. Ain't the case. Take two guys, one who only does incline bench, another who only does decline, and they will develop quite differently I promise. Cable crossovers, db fly, pec dec type movements really allow your arms/hands to come together and gives me a very different sensation than the tension provided by pushing on a bar or even db's.
Big H
Banned
sage said:
Well, sage, INZAH is partially right and so are you. The confusion comes when people say "do close grip bench for your inner pecs." The assumption is that you can isolate (key word here) your inner pecs by using close-grip, when this is not the case. I don't believe in "hit the chest from 3 different angles, (incline, decline and flat) because I believe that each one of these exercises hits the chest equally. Ok, so you are saying that incline focuses on the upper chest more, because of the angle. Well, the chest is 'one' muscle, it's not like the triceps where the angle plays a role; it is the only bodypart (really) that is not subdivided into 4,3, or 2 parts (I know there is pec minor, but that's not really important here. Therefore, the confusion lies because every other muscle you HAVE to hit at a different angle to stimulate growth in all of the heads.. Like quadricept, hamstring, bicep, triceps, deltoid etc. Therefore, people thought the same was true for chest; which it is not. Granted, decline or incline might hit it at a different angle, but the results are minimal. Why do you think decline recruits the most muscle fibres, when it is fact only suppsoed to "focus" on the lower pecs? Because it hits the whole muscle, and therefore causes stimulation.
sage
Well-known member
again, this a topic where both opinons arent wrong. (i know this pretty hard to agree with but i think thinking logically, both views are correct in some respective ways) Im speaking shearly from results and not the physical aspect of what makes up the human body and how to target a specific group/region. B/c this thread is dealing with the chest, i will talk about it. Ive always had a dominate inner/upper regions of the chest....having a definete weakness with the lower parts, from the nipple area down. After incorporating dips, which have progressed in weight and reps over time, the result have been a look of a more rounded and equal proportioned chest and this i contribute to dips (a specific exercise) in bringing up the lower part of it. Now, i would agree that the chest is somewhat, ONE muscle but my point im trying to bang out is that anyone who truly believe that an exercise which has emphasis using angle/grip as its unique feature, does not exist....is wrong. Yes, the decline movement for chest has been studied to incorporate/stimulate the most muscle fibers...but hey, its stimulating the lower region most dramtically, and the mid/upper portions secondaryly. this is a fact from personal experience. and thats where my feelings come from. Good topic though. Sage
Big H
Banned
\sage said:
Well, personally I think that dips focus on a whole, and are excellent mass builders. I see your point though; but couldn't you attribute the new growth as part of muscle maturity, as in your chest grew faster with the upper/middle region and then when you threw in dips, it hit the whole chest, but you focused on the change in your lower chest, because the change in your upper wasn't as noticable?
BIGPOPPAPUMP
Banned
i come down almost down to my chest,if i go to low my arms start to really hurt.
BIGPOPPAPUMP
Banned
Big H said:
Suck it , suck it..
i dont move that way h
deaconbill
Member
I, too, see this as a tri exercise and I try to keep elbows in, I bring it down to base of the pecs and stop just shy of touching the chest. I found that keeping the elbows in lightens the strain on the wrosts but if it still impinges your wrists just go to an easy curl bar. A great compound exercise of this to really hammer your tris is to combo a close grip bench straight to a skull crusher (that's one rep) and do this for 12, 10 and 8. I try to do this as a second or third exercise for my tris and it burns em up.
sage
Well-known member
deaconbill said:
thats a good one. getting the benefits of the stretch down during a skulls, using a heavier weight than you normally would with straight skulls (do to you pushing the weight up rather than extending it up). i believe these are called california presses (or have the same use of both exercises) always good to put two sound exercise, into one
Inzah Dude
Member
sage said:
I think they are called JM presses arn't they?
sage
Well-known member
This is an extremely popular triceps exercise over here in sunny California!
Here are the desriptions of both JM and californica presses...as you can see, very very similar exercise.
CALIFORNIA PRESS
Implementation: (A) First, get in the same position as you would for a close-grip bench press with the hands appropriately close together for that movement. (B) Lower the barbell to the upper pecs as if you were doing the eccentric part of a triceps "Skull Crusher" (lying triceps extension). However, instead of lowering the bar to your forehead, you're actually lowering it to your upper chest. (C) In the bottom position, the forearms should come into contact with the biceps and the bar will be lightly touching the upper chest. From this position, push the bar away from your chest as if you were doing the concentric portion of a close-grip bench press. Extend your arms all the way up.
Note: A good starting weight would be about halfway in between what you might normally use in the lying triceps extension and the close-grip bench press. As an example, if you normally used 100 pounds for a lying triceps extension and 200 pounds for a close-grip bench press, you might use 150 pounds for California Presses.
JM PRESS
The JM press works all three heads of the triceps.
Implementation: (A) This exercise is like a close grip bench press mixed with a triceps extension, but with variations on both. Start the exercise the same way you would a close grip bench press except make sure the bar is set in a direct line above the upper pecs. Its vital that you follow this line throughout the pressing movement. (B) beginning from a fully extended position lower the bar down till you reach the half way point. At this point let the bar roll back about one inch, then press the bar back up.
Here are the desriptions of both JM and californica presses...as you can see, very very similar exercise.
CALIFORNIA PRESS
Implementation: (A) First, get in the same position as you would for a close-grip bench press with the hands appropriately close together for that movement. (B) Lower the barbell to the upper pecs as if you were doing the eccentric part of a triceps "Skull Crusher" (lying triceps extension). However, instead of lowering the bar to your forehead, you're actually lowering it to your upper chest. (C) In the bottom position, the forearms should come into contact with the biceps and the bar will be lightly touching the upper chest. From this position, push the bar away from your chest as if you were doing the concentric portion of a close-grip bench press. Extend your arms all the way up.
Note: A good starting weight would be about halfway in between what you might normally use in the lying triceps extension and the close-grip bench press. As an example, if you normally used 100 pounds for a lying triceps extension and 200 pounds for a close-grip bench press, you might use 150 pounds for California Presses.
JM PRESS
The JM press works all three heads of the triceps.
Implementation: (A) This exercise is like a close grip bench press mixed with a triceps extension, but with variations on both. Start the exercise the same way you would a close grip bench press except make sure the bar is set in a direct line above the upper pecs. Its vital that you follow this line throughout the pressing movement. (B) beginning from a fully extended position lower the bar down till you reach the half way point. At this point let the bar roll back about one inch, then press the bar back up.
Inzah Dude
Member
shady said:
Good luck.