If you surveyed bodybuilders around the world, I’m sure
you’d find that the bench press is the most popular
lift everywhere. All bodybuilders, professionals, amateurs
and beginners perform bench-pressing movements. Most love
to bench because it’s considered the ultimate measurement
of upper-body strength.
It’s more difficult to perform electromyographic analysis
on the chest muscles than on any other muscle groups in the
human body. The EMG signal determines the amount of electrical
activity that’s generated by the target muscle or muscles
at a given time. Because of where the electrodes are positioned
on the chest, however, the machines also pick up electrocardiogram
(EKG) disturbances from the heart muscle.
Researchers have developed several methods of separating the
two signals. One technique is to pick up the EKG signal, change
its polarity and after suitable amplification feed a current
back to the body surface to cancel the currents caused by
the electro-cardio field.
Another method takes advantage of the fact that the EKG wave
for the time period is approximately constant and much shorter.
The highest peak of EKG wave is easy to identify either in
the EMG recording or through a separate pickup electrode.
To eliminate the EKG disturbance, a suitable portion of the
recording is simply cut out. Research has shown that in EMG
recordings for workload investigations this loss of recording
time doesn’t cause any serious loss of information (Kumar
and Mital, 1984).
Methods
Six healthy volunteer athletes were recruited, three men and
three women. All the subjects had at least two years experience
in strength training and had never practiced performance doping.
They were tested on two separate days. On the first day their
one-rep maxes for the six exercises were determined. Each
athlete performed a warmup of four reps at 50 percent of one-rep
max, three reps at 80 percent and two reps at 90 percent,
with a five-minute rest after each set. The athletes then
performed three one-rep maxes for each exercise, taking a
five-minute rest after each trial.
On the second day the subjects did 80 percent of one-rep max
five times, interspersed with three-minute rest intervals.
The following exercises were tested:
1) Decline dumbbell presses
2) Decline barbell presses
3) Pushups between benches
4) Flat-bench dumbbell presses
5) Flat-bench flyes
6) Pec deck
Electromyographic activity was measured during all exercises.
All EMG data was rectified and integrated for one second,
which is referred to as JEMG. Researchers designated the exercise
that yielded the highest IEMG determined at one-rep maximum
as JEMG max for the pectoralis major, and the researchers
determined IEMG max by taking the average of the three one-rep
maxes for each exercise. Expressed was the IEMG values obtained
during 80 percent of one-rep-max sets as a percentage of IEMG
max, and the researchers determined IEMG at 80 percent of
one-rep maximum by taking the average of the five 80 percent
trials.
Results
The data indicated that there was no significant difference
between the main exercise effects on the pectoralis major
for the decline dumbbell press (93 percent) and the decline
barbell press (89 percent). In comparing the decline dumbbell
press with the pushup between benches (88 percent), the difference
starts to be significant, and it becomes even greater with
the flat-bench dumbbell press (87 percent), flat-bench flye
(84 percent) and pec deck (76 percent). Therefore, decline
dumbbell and barbell presses produce the greatest amount of
electrical stimulation and are the best choices for training
the pecs major.
| Group |
Exercise |
% IEMG Max |
%
Difference |
| 6 athletes |
1) Decline dumbbell presses |
93 |
1 to 2:4 |
| |
2) Decline barbell presses |
89 |
2 to 3:1 |
| |
3) Pushups between benches |
88 |
3 to 4:1 |
| |
4) Flat-bench dumbbell presses |
87 |
4 to 5:3 |
| |
5) Flat-bench flyes |
84 |
5 to 6:8 |
| |
6) Pec deck |
76 |
N/A |
| |
|
|
|
| Pectoralis major exercise
analysis. % IEMG max indicates motor unit activation. |
Conclusions
Although the flat- and incline-bench presses are the most
popular lifts in the world, science proves that bodybuilders
should add decline presses to their chest routines. What’s
more, despite the above recommendation, the decline dumbbell
press does produce 4 percent more stimulation than its barbell
counterpart, making it potentially that much more effective.
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