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Hello all,

I've been on a full body circuit for about a month now. However, when I do the 2 or 3 exercises for the chest for the day, I never really feel pain in the chest. The pain is more in my shoulders, I feel. For example, the Lever or the D/B press makes me feel pain in my shoulders, arms, and sometimes my fist(if I grip the stuff too tightly), but hardly ever the chest. The only time I feel like I've worked out my chest is when I do the lying or incline or decline D/B fly's.

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Could somebody please let me know the exact posture for doing barbell chest press and D/B chest press, as well as the lever chest press? I see others doing it and try to mimic their movements, but the anticipated pain just never seems to come.

Thanks

I don't think so, my experience was similar when I started (which wasn't that long ago). But as I've progressed, without doing anything differently I've felt it more in the chest and actually seen my most noticeable gains in that area.

If I were to make any suggestions, I would say just make sure you are working the shoulders adequately on their own so they will be less of a weak link in your chest workout. Also, I've heard about techniques where you tuck your shoulders in or something like that to target the chest more, but I will leave that to more expert lifters to explain if it's a valid technique.

Shoulders and triceps tend to give out before the chest. You might need to get the bar lower though. It should almost touch your chest, but don't bounce it. You could prefatigue your chest with a quick set of flys before hand too. Or you could superset the flys after. You might need to strengthen the shoulders and triceps though.

Pain is not an indicator of growth.

If you are not sore or don't feel pain in an area after a workout, that doesn't mean the workout is not doing anything. It just means your body was able to adapt to the change and take the work in stride. That is a GOOD thing. You don't always want to be in pain after a workout.

I've noticed that pushing myself to soreness doesn't really do much. As long as I know I put it my max effort for that workout, I'll feel good.

You are supposed to pull your shoulders back on the bench (think of it like you're trying to bring them together and stick your chest out) and keep that tight position all throughout the move. If your shoulders are coming up off the bench that might contribute to your problem. You also may be experiencing your shoulders overpowering your chest and taking on the brunt of the work. If thats the case, you can try an interesting technique where you push inwards on the barbell with your hands as your lifting. Your hands arent actually moving, they stay in the same position, but you just push in forcefully on the bar all throughout. This is supposed to take the shoulders and triceps out of the move to a good extent and work the chest more. You can also do 1 1/2s with that technique, meaning you'd lower the weight all the way to your chest, bring it back up just shy of halfway, back down to your chest, then all the way up. Then repeat.

It's been my experience that some mild to moderate muscle soarness following a workout is generally a good sign. Meanwhile, severe muscle soarness may be a sign of overtraining.

I know this isn't overly scientific, but I've observed over the years that mild to moderate muscle soarness is generally followed by signifigant adaptation, while no soarness or severe soarness over a period of weeks seems to lead to stagnation.

I guess my point is that although the way a workout feels (durring or after) isn't the best indicator of it's effectiveness, there is often a fairly strong correlation.

PS.) Of course any other type of pain like joint/tendon soarness or any sharp muscle pain or sudden tightness is definitely a bad sign.