What I am doing wrong/pec deck??

K

Karma

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Whenever I train my chest- especially on the peck dec machine I tend to feel the stretch mostly in my shoulders rather than my chest, even when I squeeze and hold during the contraction. I have adjusted the seat height, thinking perhaps that I am sitting too high or too low, but I can't figure out what I am doing wrong. Any thoughts? I have also had this problem when I do incline bench press as well (with dumbells)...Any suggestions would be appreciated
 
Don't quote me on this (Evo, Bear, Adler, Man of Steel can probably answer this better than I can, They're more into the whole strength training/ bodybuilding thing than I am) either your right and the form is incorrect, or the strength of your pecs has surpassed the strength of your anterior delt. The incline bench press with DBs hits more of your upper pecs where they meet the anterior delt head.
 
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Aevans, you've kinda hit the subject right. If you're looking to recruit less of your delts, then you'll want to focus on decline work. When working in an incline position, we recruit more synergists (i.e. anterior delts) to help with lifting the load. A lot of lifters think that by doing inclines they are hitting the upper chest, when this is just a myth. The pectoralis major is one muscle and once the muscle fires, the whole muscle fires, not just part of it (I don't think you were asking for a phys lesson--sorry).

My question is why are you doing the pec dec?
 
Don't use the pec deck, it moves your shoulder through an unnatural plane of movement and the exercise begins with the shoulder in a very weak unloaded position. Some of the best pec exercises are dips, dumbell bench press and cambered bar bench press (if you can find one).
 
Evo: Agree 100% about the muscle firing. A muscle is a muscle. However; that does not mean doing incline bench is without merit. Personally; I feel decline bench is a pretty useless exercise; rather than declines try dips...either machine dips (hammer strength or weight stack) or body dips.

Man of Steel: Again; I agree that the pec dec puts undue stress on your shoulder.

Karma: Drop the pec dec, it's rather useless for chest development. Focus on big, complex movements - bench, pushups, dips etc.

So I guess the whole point of this post was to say I agree with everyone; and to tell Karma that the pec dec isn't so great, so any worries about improper form are resolved by default.
 
Adler1983 wrote: "Personally; I feel decline bench is a pretty useless exercise..."

Really? Why? For some reason I just love the way those feel. I feel like I'm using my chest more on the declines than on the flat or inclines.
 
Some of us have builds that make hitting the chest a little more difficult-the shoulders get too much emphasis, some of it injury-causing. Stay away from anything that causes this-pec deck, some pressing motions.

Find and use exercises that are better-dumbbell flys, dumbbell presses, pulley crossovers, etc. Keep the reps at or above 10. Warmup thoroughly.
 
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Squattin:

The decline bench limits your range of motion. The position of your body prevents you from getting a deep press; limiting the synergy of the body. If you like declines certainly keep them in your routine; but don't rely on them solely.
 
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