This
exercise is a nice way to hit the
upper/inner chest area that is extremely
hard to target with pretty much every
other movement! This is an excellent
one for men and for women looking
to enhance the upper chest cleavage!
All
you need is a single dumbell and an
incline bench and you're all set.
It's
done in a partial range of motion
and for fairly high reps (you'll see
why once you see the exercise in action
- I'll explain it then).
Set
the dumbell on the ground in front
of the bench. Lean over and pick it
up with both hands.
Now
set it on one thigh.
While
it's resting on your thigh, get your
PALMS underneath the bottom of the
top plates of the dumbell (like a
goblet position). You'll be pushing
with the heels of your hands for this
one.
Lean
back into the incline and bring the
dumbell up with you.
Hold
the dubell directly over the top of
your upper chest.
Now
lower the dumbell down to your chest
until it's just touching, then press
back up, squeezing the pecs HARD at
the top.
As you'll
see in the video, I use a fairly fast
"pumping" movement with
this one. The idea is to ram as much
blood into the area as possible...it's
not an easy area to hit and part of
the problem may be blood supply (if
you have trouble developing it). This
type of pumping training can help
with that.
You'll
see with the dumbell position why
it's a partial range of motion...the
physical size of the dumbell prevents
you from coming all the way down.
No problem, though, because it's the
top that's the valuable part here,
which is another good reason for a
partial range of motion.
So as
you come to the top, focusing on not
only squeezing the pecs but also on
forcing the elbows together as closely
as possible while squeezing. This
targets that upper/inner cleavage
perfectly.
The
higher reps will help keep the tension
on the area longer, help increase
the blood supply to the area with
improved circulation (which will help
with muscle-building in the long term)
and because the heavier the dumbell
you use, the shorter your range of
motion, you're not going to be able
to go TOO heavy on this one.
