Upper arm extension, when putting the child back down.

Upper arm flexion, like when you are picking up a child.Here are some of the other shoulder movements your chest is responsible for: The dumbbell pullover works your chest from a whole different plane compared to the bench press, chest flys, and dips. If you limit yourself to only this one type of movement, your chest will only develop so much. But this is only one of many different movements your chest muscles are responsible for. This type of movement is called ‘horizontal adduction’ of the upper arms.

Most people make the mistake of thinking that the only way to work the chest is to push something away from you, as you do in the bench press, or in a bear-hugging motion, as you do with dumbbell flys. Any movement where your upper arm is moving in toward the front of your body, will in some way, involve the pectoralis major muscle of the chest. Your chest muscles control the movement of your upper arm at the shoulder joint. To really grow a muscle to its maximum potential, you have to attack it from multiple different angles. Why Are Dumbbell Pullovers Such A Good Exercise For The Upper Chest?

Steve Reeves however, was also known to do pullovers, and pullovers are another tool you can use to develop that upper chest. I mentioned in that article how the incline dumbbell press was Steve Reeve’s little secret to perfect square-pec development. I discussed in a previous article, how the incline dumbbell press helps to solve this problem.

However the trouble with incline presses, is the greater the incline, the more stress is placed on the anterior deltoid muscles of the shoulders. Most people think the incline bench press is the only solution. The trouble however, is isolating those upper chest fibers is no easy feat. There's a huge difference between perfect even chest development (like Larry Scott's above) and too much mid/lower chest development.Ī nice, thick upper chest can really give your chest that stone-slab-like appearance, where the surface of your pecs is like a vertical cliff-face rather than a sloping set of man boobs.Ī thick upper chest with a pec separation line that extends all the way up to the sternum, is a true mark of masculinity and real chest development.Īlso, if you have man boobs, a thick upper chest can really help to improve your appearance, both by pulling the breast-fat up, and by evening out the slope made by your man boobs. And for guys who do have man boobs, the flat bench press can make man boobs look worse by making them stick out more. Nowadays there’s too much focus on the flat bench press, which overdevelops the mid and lower pecs.Īs a result, the flat bench press can end up making you look like you have ‘man boobs’, even if you don’t. Though it’d be massively convenient for you to be able to balance a cup of tea on your pecs (as opposed to on your belly, which is something I used to be able to do), there are other reasons why you might want thick upper chest development. He used to credit his glass-balancing ability to the dumbbell pullover. Though nobody knows for sure whether pullovers can really expand your rib-cage, one thing we do know, is that it really is an excellent exercise for the upper chest.Īrnold had such thick upper chest development, that he could balance a glass of water on his upper pecs. Like many other bodybuilders of his time, Arnold performed pullovers throughout his bodybuilding career, because he believed the exercise was responsible for expanding his rib-cage. Arnold, and his mentor, Reg Park, considered pullovers to be a powerful chest exercise, while Frank Zane attributed pullovers to developing his infamous serratus muscles. Ronnie Coleman and Dorian Yates complimented the exercise for developing sweeping wide lats.

The dumbbell pullover was a staple for classic old-timersīodybuilding greats like Arnold, Dorian Yates, Ronnie Coleman and Frank Zane, swore that the dumbbell pullover played a huge role in their upper body development. What most people forget though, is it was always the ‘squats, pullovers and milk’ routine – squats for the testosterone boost and whole-body muscle growth, and dumbbell pullovers for that wide and thick barrel-chest, and great back development. In the old classic era of bodybuilding, before steroids were around, the ‘squats and milk’ routine was the number one method for getting skinny hardgainers jacked.

Lying lat pullover on floor