The Body Sculpting Bible for Women (67 page)

FAQ:

When I do chest dips, I feel a lot of pressure and pain in my shoulders. Why?

ANSWER:

The chest dip can be a very powerful and productive exercise. You do, however, need to make sure that you protect yourself from injury. Keep a few things in mind when doing the chest dip. Don’t go too heavy, unless you know your muscles, joints, and connective tissue can handle it. Although you may be very strong and feel that your flexibility is great, you still may not be as strong as necessary to do this exercise at its full capacity. Don’t go to low in your descent. To a degree, going low is great for training the chest through its full range of motion, but going too low defeats that purpose as eventually the chest will minimally be involved and the brunt of the stimulus will be directed to the shoulder.

Incline Cable Crossover

Incline cable crossovers are very similar to the dumbbell fly, but there is a major advantage when you perform the incline cable crossover exercise. Only in the beginning of the dumbbell fly exercise is the majority of the resistance placed upon the chest muscles. This soon changes when the dumbbells are brought vertical (arms and dumbbells extended over the chest). At this point, instead of the pecs being responsible for sustaining the resistance of the dumbbells, the elbow joints and shoulder joints are. The force of gravity disappears when the arms are brought to this vertical position. Cable crossovers don’t have this disadvantage. In fact, the degree of resistance remains constant throughout the entire movement. In the pictures of our model demonstrating the exercise, notice how her chest muscles are still being stimulated in the open arms position.

Performing incline cable crossovers provides even greater benefits than the results obtained from doing regular cable crossovers. Incline cable crossovers add to the development of the upper chest muscles, and give you the appearance of a much larger chest overall. This exercise develops the pectoralis major and minor.

Common mistakes during this exercise include an uneven grip position and allowing the arms (elbows) to flex and extend during the movement.

PROPER ALIGNMENT

Set the pin to the desired resistance and attach the handles to the cables.

If possible, set the pulley level to a height just below your upper chest. This will allow for a more focused contraction in the upper pecs. If you are not able to adjust the pulley height, this is fine, but make sure to keep the focus on the upper pecs.

Take hold of the handles with an overhand grip and position yourself so that you are in the middle of the pulley machine (in order to position yourself in the middle of the machine, you must pull each of the handles closer to you, thus lifting both weight stacks simultaneously.)

Make sure that both weight stacks are even on the right and left sides. Do not allow the weight stacks to become uneven or you will create a muscle imbalance when you begin the exercise.

With the handles in hand, palms facing each other and standing in the middle of the machine, bend your elbows slightly and lock them there throughout the exercise.

You will begin this exercise in the extended position (arms opened up as if about to give a hug) as opposed to the dumbbell fly where you started in a flexed (contracted) position.

Keep a slight bend in the knees to prevent lower-back strain.

Remember, you must maintain this perfect alignment, so select a weight light enough so you can maintain form throughout the movement.

TECHNIQUE AND FORM

You should be positioned in the middle of the cable crossover and parallel to the weight stacks with the hand grips in hand and arms extended out to the sides of your body. The resistance will provide a nice stretch to the pec muscles.

To begin the exercise, keep the arms slightly bent and contract the chest muscles.