Rant and Tip for July 20, 2011

Wow it is July 20th already. This summer is flying by. Softball is winding down and soccer tryouts are almost done. It seems our children today have so many activities that we parents are running all the time. Both my children start lessons tonight. One for violin and the other for guitar, unfortunately the lessons will be on Wednesday nights. There go my workouts with the guys at Albany Strength. I will have to try to make at least Friday nights there.

I was doing some reading on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness again. I found some interesting information. If treatment is desired, any measure that increases blood flow to the muscle, such as low-intensity work, massage, hot baths, or a sauna visit may help somewhat. Counter intuitively, continued exercise may temporarily suppress the soreness. Exercise increases pain thresholds and pain tolerance. This effect, called exercise-induced analgesia, is known to occur in endurance training (running, cycling, swimming), but they say little is known about whether it also occurs in resistance training. From my experience this is true of resistance training as well. There are claims in the literature that exercising a sore muscle appears to be the best way to reduce or eliminate the soreness. This does make some sense to me in that light exercise for the sore muscles will infuse the muscles with blood, and thus helping the muscles heal. This does not mean you go and put in a full heavy workout on the muscles affected with DOMS.

Today the people following the exercise schedule I have set up will be working their chest muscles. These are the pectoral major and pectoral minor muscles. The pectoral minor depresses the point of the shoulder, drawing the scapula inferior and medial, towards the breastplate in the chest. For me this muscle while small seems to be causing some of my problems with the bicep tendonitis. It is over developed in comparison with my lower and middle trapezius. I am working on strengthening those trapezius muscles. The pectoral major muscle has two muscles above it that make up the entire chest muscle group. We work all those muscles when we perform a flat bench press exercise. I like to include the incline bench press to hit the upper portion of the chest and the decline bench press to hit the lower portion of the chest. My lower chest is thicker than my upper chest so I tend to skip the decline and hit more incline and flat bench work. The dumbbell fly exercised is performed on chest day to shape and create striations in the chest. I hope all this helps in understanding the chest muscles and the workout I have set out.

Have a great work!


Tip:
Pushups are an excellent exercise for the chest and you can hit the muscles many different ways. You can go with a wide hand stance, a narrow hand stance, and even keep your elbows tight at your sides. The elbows tight will tend to hit the triceps like a close grip bench. You can also simulate an incline and decline bench by where you feet are relation to your head. You can put your feet on a chair or your hands on the chair. Thus simulating the incline and decline bench press.