Davis Diley Shares His Pec Training Tips for Powerful Muscle Growth – Muscle & Fitness

Building a full and muscular chest requires some serious reps, but while the barbell bench press or dumbbell chest press are great choices for toning your pecs, the pros focus on the angles on more specific areas, like the clavicular head, also known as that upper portion of the pecs—or the mass that gives you the stacked, top-shelf look. Happy, Davis Dileyan evidence-based bodybuilding coach, shared some of his methods in a recent Instagram post.

“The secret to thickening clavicular thoracic fibers is the arm pad you use, not the angle of the bench,” wrote the former competitive bodybuilder and strongman, who now teaches millions of followers how to take their own physique to the next level. Of course, the incline of a bench for presses is important, but it’s virtually useless if your technique is all wrong. “On presses and flys, keep your arms closer to your body,” Davis shared via an informative Instagram post to his 1.4 million followers. “The more you extend your arms, the less emphasis is placed on the upper pecs, even when standing on an incline bench.”

With his elbows raised, Diley explained that the next step is planning his arm path. “To further optimize the upper pecs, you want the hardest part of the rep to occur when the the arms are approximately 40°–90° in front of the body” he explained. “That’s exactly why we use incline benches for incline presses and flys. They make that specific reach more difficult compared to lying flat.”

In other words, imagine your arm extended straight out in front of you and you are completing a press or fly. As you bring the arms toward the center of your body, the chest muscles are recruited. So it’s important to bring the arms closer together towards the top of the lift, rather than lifting them straight up, as this would be more shoulder dominant. This is easier to achieve with a fly than a press, but Diley has come up with an even more flexible movement on the cable station, using elements of both the press and the fly to really pump up those clavicular heads.

Davis Diley lays out the cables for a chiseled upper chest

In his video demonstration, Diley also showed how he believes you can create the perfect setup to hit the upper part of your pecs. This move appears to be a mix of the front raise and the crossbody fly, as he positions an incline bench opposite the cable station and then sets the chair support angle to 60 degrees. Diley fine-tunes the position of the bench so that it has a 90° angle when the cable is in the lowest position.

“Now lean back and push your chest up,” the coach ordered. “Imagine rolling your shoulders back,” he added, noting that he kept his back flat against the pillow. Diley also imagines pushing his fist forward while lifting, but when he’s halfway through, the bodybuilder bends his arm pattern inward slightly, similar to a fly. “Finish when your elbows reach eye level,” he explained. “This is what the perfect shape looks like.”

Because the upper pecs are related to shoulder flexion, there will be some deltoid recruitment with this flying variation, much like an incline bench press, but if you haven’t strayed too far from the barbell lately, combining cables with cables is a great way to load your body from all angles. Give this new method a try, opting for two to three sets of 8 to 12 heavy reps for hypertrophy, and see if it works for you.

To follow Davis Diley on Instagram, click here.