I don't feel the BB bench hitting my chest muscles + mind/connection issues with abs?

[UltimateAeroSSC]

Yo. Just got back from the gym. I was doing barbell bench press and I had enough of it today. My triceps/shoulders can be freaking out and I can be semi-shaking during the lift, but it's like my chest is taking a snooze.

I really wanna just jump over to DB's. I know you guys say it takes more muscle control, but is it THAT hard to do? I just wanna try it out and see how it works. Should I start with flat or incline?

And my other question is about abs. I tried cable crunches last time, didn't feel much. I tried hanging leg raises the last few times, didn't feel much. I feel a lot with planks and it started to burn after decline crunches and some cable wood chops, but I'm not satisfied.

As someone who has hardly trained abs, they should be burned out by simple exercises, but they aren't. I think I'm having trouble focusing on using the abs to do the movements. Like during cable crunches, it felt like my arms did all the work. I'm gonna look up the exercises again and try to write down some key points, but is there any advice you guys can give?

[waxor]

I never feel my chest being worked either when I'm doing DB or BB presses on flat bench.

I think I may be doing them wrong, I feel the stretch but that area is never sore, and I have been getting a lot stronger every week.

My abs got really sore for the first time when I did 4 sets of 6 on an Ab Wheel Roller.. try it out.

[chazzy1864]

I really wanna just jump over to DB's. I know you guys say it takes more muscle control, but is it THAT hard to do?

Only one way to find out.


Are you going to rely on people over the internet to give you the green light to try anything new in the gym?

Should I start with flat or incline?

Yes.

[UltimateAeroSSC]

Only one way to find out.


Are you going to rely on people over the internet to give you the green light to try anything new in the gym?


Yes.

I'm not relying on anyone. I was seeing if people with lots more experience would have an idea. I'm saying I have trouble feeling it in my abs. And since most of those exercises seem to work your abs, I'm wondering what I was having trouble with.

I tried the cable chop and hanging leg raise. I'm not asking for your "approval" lol.

[bicepbilly]

. Should I start with flat or incline?

Why not do both? In my experience the best way to find out what works is to just give it a try

[MakeABanana]

How wide is your grip? I didn't feel it in my chest until I widened my grip so that my middle or pointer fingers were on the smooth rings of the bar.

[chazzy1864]

I'm not relying on anyone. I was seeing if people with lots more experience would have an idea. I'm saying I have trouble feeling it in my abs. And since most of those exercises seem to work your abs, I'm wondering what I was having trouble with.

I tried the cable chop and hanging leg raise. I'm not asking for your "approval" lol.

I only referenced your benching questions.
I erased all the ab stuff from what i quoted of you.

Go try DB moves. You might love them. People said that BB requires less effort for beginners to get teh hang of the movement and that is why it is featured in beginner programs. There is nothing that says you can't branch out and try new exercises on your own.

In the end, this game is all about personal trial and error. You need to try things and figure out what works for you. If you are scared to do anything in the gym, you'll never make progress. Don't rely on people on here that don't know you to say whether you can or can not do an exercise. We can offer insight and advice, but we are not your keepers.

Go have a blast in the gym. Try out stuff. Learn from mistakes and take note of when something is good. Get injured, make gains, do you.


Now I'll reference the ab stuff:
With cable crunches, don't allow your arms to move. Try to keep the attachment right near your neck, so you know you aren't yanking on the rope or anything. YOu'll need to focus and picture your abs doing the work.

On hanging leg raises, many have trouble with it, especially early on. It becomes a hip flexor move. Try using the captains chair and bend your legs, so your thighs are parallel to the ground while shins are perpendicular. Then focus on doing knee raises from this point being the bottom and bring your knees up, while your low back rolls off the pad.

[ymenic]

Your form probably off. Are you pitching your shoulder blades together? Pitching mine made benching a whole new experience it really isolates the chest. Make sure your elbows are coming down at a 45 degree, so tuck ur elbows.

[k9pit]

And my other question is about abs. I tried cable crunches last time, didn't feel much. I tried hanging leg raises the last few times, didn't feel much. I feel a lot with planks and it started to burn after decline crunches and some cable wood chops, but I'm not satisfied.

As someone who has hardly trained abs, they should be burned out by simple exercises, but they aren't. I think I'm having trouble focusing on using the abs to do the movements. Like during cable crunches, it felt like my arms did all the work. I'm gonna look up the exercises again and try to write down some key points, but is there any advice you guys can give?

For Hanging Leg Raises......
Not saying you do.....but most people I see turn this into a Hip Flexor dominant exercise. Make sure you lift your entire lower body up with your abs. Your lower back should round somewhat.
On an unrelated note, doing these the wrong way (hip flexor dominant) may carry over to your squat and make it weaker due to hip flexor tightness.

For cable crunches, I like to do these kneeling...
these can be tricky until you get the form down right for what works for your body....the best advice I can give you is to flex your lats harder (yes, lats), try to shift the weight stabilization to your lats (like when you do seated lat pulldowns).
This helps me to shift the weight/stabilization away from my arms, so that when I curl over during the crunch I can concentrate on MMC for the abs.

[ghattanj]

below is a compilation of posts that i've copied down about mind muscle connection with chest... i have tried some of these things and they help, u should experiment and see what works best for you.

Same for me... I feel like my chest and shoulders are lagging behind. I start each Chest day out with incline DB or incline BB. Little nitch I picked up from some guys I lift with; when doing incline DB rotate them together vertical with your body at the peak and squeeze the peck muscles together for 2 to 3 seconds, then rotate back to normal position as your going back down (You can really feel the tops burning after 5 to 6 reps). (I wouldn't steer clear of the flat bench; just hit it later on during your routine as it is still beneficial.)

I also like to start each day (regardless of what day it is) with 3 sets of push-ups till failure on each. I've noticed some good gains by doing this. Good luck!
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showth...hp?t=120629601
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=103747
I'd have to agree with all that. Wide grip I mainly used to do on barbells (but don't go so wide that it stresses your shoulders unnaturally). Dumbbells helped out a lot cus they give you a nice stretch and you can use a more natural ROM while still having a larger ROM than a barbell.

Also, when you do flyes, feel your chest working and doing the movement. When you're done with your set, keep in mind how that felt and then without any dumbbells or anything in your hands, lay down on a bench and do a flye movement by just flexing your chest. Get the feel of that and then move your hands as if you're doing a pressing movement while still flexing the chest.

Make sure you flex the chest FIRST before any other muscle. This helps you use it through the whole movement. I guess it's just the way we're wired(or at least I've noticed it and so have lots of other folks); if you start the movement with your arms, you're probably gonna be emphasizing your arms the whole way. The same applies to back movements. For back movements, pull the shoulder blades first and let the arms simply follow along. This will help you use your back muscles more and your biceps less.

edit - on a side note, another possibly unconventional thing to do is when you're sore try flexing your chest without moving your arms. Start slowly then build speed till eventually you can do that "pec bounce" thing that you see some folks do (for example, I think Arnold Schwarzenegger does it in Pumping Iron). This might seem kinda funny but it helps build your mind to muscle connection, and by being able to more easily flex your chest you'll be able to contract it more easily during your chest exercises because you'll know which muscle to initiate the movements with and you'll be able to feel it more easily.
I recently address this issue myself. Grip that bar as hard as humanly possible. Then when you think you're gripping hard enough grip harder. And maintain that grip the entire set. While gripping like that try and twist the bar into a horseshoe shape. Worked great for me. Have never felt like chest while benching until I did that
I have this problem sometimes, which is why my chest is a little under-developed. However, lately I seem to be on to something...

Firstly- Dumbbells are much easier for mind muscle for me as it is a natural movement and bigger ROM

Secondly- Maybe try using a wider grip. I find it targets the chest a little more other than the tri's.

Lastly - Even though people say gripping the bar hard works. For me, when I barely grip it a use just my palms to push it up(of course still safe) I feel it more in the chest. For me the tight grip puts more emphasis on Forearms and arms. Whereas with this grip, I'm more pushing it up.
i don't get how you can do it with other muscles and can't do it with chest its just straight up just flexing a musce as hard as you can during youre set
try pre exhausting the chest with an isolation exercise such as cable flyes or pec dec, then move onto your heavy pressing movements. this technique has helped me a lot
what i do is bring the dumbells together at the top and squeeze the **** out of ur chest...


one way to do it also is just simple put ur hands together and push them out from ur chest and flex ur muscle.. do this untill u get the flexing down.. then imply it to ur bench press.....
Try and imagine moving your hands in towards each other as possible. I recently read an article , I believe by Lyle Macdonald (though could be wrong) instilling this technique, emphasising the fact that one of the chest/pec's main function is to move the arms across the chest.
Put your left hand on your right pec (whilst squeezing your chest to enhance the MMC) and put your right arm out straight ahead in front of you. Move your right arm across your body to the left side. Feel the contraction on your pec.

With this in mind, if using a barbell, squeeze tight on the bar and when lifting up/away from the chest, try and actually move your arms across each other. Imagine you are actually trying to cross your arms.

You can actually move the arms in toward each other/across the chest with Dumbbells which helps to establish a MMC with practice.

This might sound a tad ambiguous, but with each rep, actually visualise your chest is THE ONLY muscle working in your body and your life depends on you lifting that bar up with your chest muscles.
This may sound a little obvious and vague, but this is something I often think to myself and it helps ALOT. The only muscle that is working in your body is the one you are targetting and your life depends on you lifting that weight for whatever reason - ie, I often think when doing pullups/chinups that I'm on a cliff-edge and I MUST reach the top to save my life! It's actually amazing how many more reps I can do thinking like this!
Concentrate on retracting your shoulder blades. That is, make a concerted effort to keep your shoulder blades drawn together which will keep your shoulders back. I don't mean they literally have to be touching - this is a mental thing. Some have a tendency to roll shoulders forward to involve the anterior delts as much as possible. I've found that keeping the shoulder blades back reduces this problem and maximizes pec activation. Your mileage may vary.
One of my fav techniques to get bench back up is german volume training. Back off on the weight abit, and do 10sets of 8reps with 1min rest in between. Twice a week at the most, if you do 2xweek, do just bench by itself, or do variation like incline, and DB work. So if once a week, 10sets + 1-2 sets of 2 other chest exercises, if twice a week, 10sets first time, 10sets of bench or variations the second time. Work triceps hard, add a different power exercise for tris, like dips/overhead ext/ close grip. And do some rotator cuff exercises after benching.

[UltimateAeroSSC]

How wide is your grip? I didn't feel it in my chest until I widened my grip so that my middle or pointer fingers were on the smooth rings of the bar.

That might be it. My grip is pretty narrow, definitely not that far out. I figured a shorter guy like me would have a more narrow grip. Guess I'll have to widen it next time.\

Thanks to everyone else. I'm gonna experiment with these and others on Monday.

[chazzy1864]

Watch this video, repeatedly. One of the best videos on bench press form on the interwebs, IMO.

[Mur218]

Yo. Just got back from the gym. I was doing barbell bench press and I had enough of it today. My triceps/shoulders can be freaking out and I can be semi-shaking during the lift, but it's like my chest is taking a snooze.

I really wanna just jump over to DB's. I know you guys say it takes more muscle control, but is it THAT hard to do? I just wanna try it out and see how it works. Should I start with flat or incline?

And my other question is about abs. I tried cable crunches last time, didn't feel much. I tried hanging leg raises the last few times, didn't feel much. I feel a lot with planks and it started to burn after decline crunches and some cable wood chops, but I'm not satisfied.

As someone who has hardly trained abs, they should be burned out by simple exercises, but they aren't. I think I'm having trouble focusing on using the abs to do the movements. Like during cable crunches, it felt like my arms did all the work. I'm gonna look up the exercises again and try to write down some key points, but is there any advice you guys can give?

The only way I've ever felt a decent soreness in my chest is with cable flys, I hate dumbbell flys due to my long arm span they just feel asked. Never really felt a stretch with a barbel bench unless our tuck your in close like a preying p mantaice, I'm not even sure if that's correct form, but I have felt a stretch much more if I've lowered a dumbbell below and lower than my chest. I've seen some people in the gym rotating the dumbbells during a lift, almost like an Arnold shoulder press but for the chest they turn it into a fly, I'd prefer to do two separate exercises rather than one comprised half assed attempt

[DGoins1]

Make sure your wrists stay straight. If they are bent back much it puts a lot of strain on your shoulders

[Pumpsicle]

My advice-

Go LIGHT. Get a light weight that you find quite easy to lift. That way you can focus on the form and change things up in the lift to where you feel it in your chest and not your shoulders. Keep doing reps that way until the pump/burn starts in your chest. At some point you will connect the mind, muscles, and form with this weight, and can then work on increasing that weight to a more appropriate level and just transfer the form over with it.

I can promise you that if you are doing 5RM bench presses you won't figure out your proper form. Lift big once you've got this down.

Same thing for your abs. Lift light, and really focus on using those abs. Think about it this way, before you train your abs the neurons innervating those muscle fibers aren't firing very often to lift loads, such as when you do ab exercises. As such, you find it very difficult to strain these muscles because the muscles aren't receiving sufficient neural input to stimulate their contraction. If you lift light, you can gradually increase that neuromuscular activation in your abdominals. Only then can you begin to step up the weight and you WILL feel the burn