Upper Pec Mass Builder

Upper Pec Mass Builder

In my opinion, incline dumbbell flys are the #1 best exercise for building pec mass.  For upper pec mass, the incline dumbbell fly and for lower pecs the flat dumbbell fly. The incline dumbbell fly is an exercise you can do at the gym or at home with a minimum of equipment.  The one thing you will need in addition to your used weight set is an incline bench but you can build an incline bench in 5 minutes with what you have around the house.  I’d like to reiterate that if you have been working out for less than 2 years you should not be even *thinking* about things like this but rather you should just be doing a good, well rounded workout program.  It is a very common beginner mistake to focus on particular body parts too early in the lifting career.  Please read about other chest exercises as well.

Getting the most strength gain and mass gain out of incline dumbbell flys while minimizing the chance of injury requires

1. In performing any chest exercise, the #1 most important thing for effectiveness, maximizing weight lifted, and minimizing chance of shoulder injury is shoulder packing!  If you don’t know what this means then please learn about shoulder packing!
2. 

   Limit your range of motion!   When doing the incline dumbbell fly, your elbows should go no lower than your shoulders.  Going further down puts your shoulder in a very vulnerable position which is just asking for injury. Yes, you *might* get another 5% of benefit from using full ROM but in my opinion you increase your risk of shoulder injury by 20x.  Not worth it in my book because shoulder injuries typically take surgery to fix and can easily set you back a year of lifting progress and thousands of dollars.

3. Go slow and dont use momentum.  There is no rush to finish your set, its time under tension we are going for anyway.  Doing flys fast is a really quick way to destroy your shoulder.
4. At the start of your set, arms should be straight but not locked.  If you are starting out with your arms really bent and using a really heavy weight then you are ego-lifting.  The amount of work the pec is exerting depends on the weight of the dumbbell and how far the dumbell is from your shoulder.  W=Force X Distance.  You can use a really heavy weight and hold it close to you or a light weight with the arms straight, to your pec its all the same.  Please google “Leverage”.

Please read about upper pec and lower pec exercises.