How to Engage your Chest Muscles

So you’ve been busy working out your chest, but you can’t seem to feel your chest muscles during the movement. Moreover you can feel it in your arms and shoulders more and it’s making you worried that you aren’t getting to work your chest to build the pecs of your dreams. The problem isn’t the exercise. It’s because you need to engage your chest muscles.

I’ve been there. I remember doing set after set of heavy benchpresses and feeling nothing but my arms getting sore. Here’s how to engage your chest muscles to make all the gains you’re looking for.

What Movements Engage the Chest Muscles?

In order to feel our chest muscles we need to be conscious of how they work and what movements they bring about. That way we can make sure to emphasize those movements during our chest workouts so that we target the chest muscles and not any other muscle.

The major function of pectoralis major is to move the upper arm from the side of the body to the front of the body. This is known as adduction. Imagine doing a chest fly. That’s the exact movement pectoralis major is responsible for.

Now that you know what movement engages the chest muscles, you can now consider if the chest exercises you’re doing involve this movement. Chances are they do, but there are some minor corrections you need to make.

Why do I feel my Arms and Shoulders when I work Chest?

When you pick a chest exercise, most of the time other muscles are involved in these exercises. These muscles are all contracting to help you perform the movement. Your body does not know this is a chest exercise. It just wants to move the weight.

This work is divided between the muscles based on leverages and joint positions. If done incorrectly, this can shift the focus of the exercise away from the chest muscles and towards the shoulder and arm muscles.

This is because several muscles act at the shoulder joint to move the upper arm from the side to the front of the body. So if your body position is off, you’ll really be stimulating these muscles and not the chest.

Additionally, many chest exercises are compound movements involving many joints. If we position our body to perform these exercise at the elbow instead of at the shoulder joint, then the arm muscles will be doing most of the work.

So how do we adjust our leverages and joint positions so that we engage our chest? That’s right, we fix our form.

Form Fixes to Engage Chest

Make these fixes to your form on your chest exercises and you’re sure to see a difference in the way you feel the exercise and you’ll probably avoid an injury too.

1. Adjust your Grip Width to Engage Chest

By going too narrow on your chest presses or pushups, you’ll end up stimulating your triceps and anterior deltoid muscles more. This is because you increased the range of motion of the triceps muscle.

Additionally, the movement of your upper arm will be mainly flexion (upwards) involving the deltoid, rather than adduction (from side to front) which involves the chest.

By going excessively wide, the range of motion of the chest muscles will be too small to stimulate them.

A good grip width is somewhere just outside shoulder width apart, which is just far enough to focus on the chest without sacrificing too much range of motion.

2. Adjust your Posture to Engage Chest

You’ve probably heard someone say “arch your back” or “stick out your chest” before. But how does your back posture affect your chest muscle engagement?

If you slouch forward then the majority of muscles responsible for adducting the upper arm during your chest presses or flys will likely be shoulder muscles.

Avoid this by sticking out your chest during these exercises.

3. Adjust your Shoulders to Engage Chest

Similar to fixing your posture, if you allow your shoulders to roll forward then they will be prioritized over the chest during exercises.

Fix this by actively pulling your shoulders down and backwards before performing these exercises. Make sure your scapula is retracted by pulling them back as if you were trying to squeeze your upper back.

4. Adjust your Elbows to Engage Chest

Your elbows can either by tucked in, very near to your body or all the way out to the side, when your upper arm is at a 90⁰ angle to your body.

When your elbows are right next to your body, the direction of movement at the elbow joint is flexion (upwards) rather than adduction (side to front). This isn’t optimal for chest engagement.

When your elbows are all the way out to your side during chest exercises, it puts too much strain on your shoulder joint and rotator cuff muscles, increasing the risk of injury.

A good rule of thumb is to adjust your elbow so that your upper arm is at a 45⁰ angle to your body.

5. Drop the Weight

There’s no shame in using lighter weight in your workouts. The ego lifting will only sacrifice your own muscle growth. In addition to leaving you at greater risk of injuring yourself, a too heavy load will cause your form to break down. Your body will use whatever muscle necessary to move the weight and forget about your chest.

Don’t be a hero. Drop the weight.

How to know if your Chest is Engaged?

You’ll know if you are working your chest in an exercise if you develop a strong mind-muscle connection. This is where you are in sync with your body and you are aware of what muscles are contracting. This can help you contract your muscles more efficiently during exercises, leading to more muscle growth.

A mind-muscle connection often comes with experience, but I can give you some tips on how to jump start your mind-muscle connection and truly engage your chest.

Developing a Mind-Muscle Connection with your Chest

Here is an exercise to help you build your mind-muscle connection:

1. Place one hand on your chest.
2. Place the other hand stretched out to the side, with your palm facing forwards.
3. Move your arm across from the side to the front slowly, until your palm is facing the opposite side.
4. Feel your chest muscle contract as your arm moves across.
5. Repeat this movement while focusing on squeezing a harder contraction in your chest, while continuing to gauge the level of contraction with the other hand.
6. Keep doing this on both sides until you can subconsciously tell if you are contracting your chest without your hand being on your chest.

How to Use a Mind-Muscle Connection to Engage Chest

1. Pre-workout Activation

Warm up your entire body as usual. Before doing your regular chest exercise do a few light sets of an isolation exercise to activate the chest muscles. Really focus on contracting your chest muscles using the mind-muscle contraction you developed.

2. Mid-Workout Engagement

During your chest exercise, focus on squeezing your chest muscles and contracting them as hard as possible. An easy way to do this is by remembering the movement that the chest muscles are responsible for, moving your upper arm from the side to in front of you.

So during your chest exercises focus on bringing your hands together. If you are benchpressing, focus on bringing your hands together as if your were trying to bend the bar. This should really engage your chest muscles and lead to a lot of growth.

Put all of these tips together and you’re sure to be able to feel your chest during your next chest workout and be well on your way to building the pecs of your dreams. Check out this guide to find out how to workout chest at home.

References:

Calatayud, J., Vinstrup, J., Jakobsen, M.D. et al. Importance of mind-muscle connection during progressive resistance training. Eur J Appl Physiol 116, 527–533 (2016).

Moore, K., Agur, A., & Dalley, A. Clinically oriented anatomy.

Hall, J., & Hall, M. Guyton and Hall textbook of medical physiology.