Dynamic Chest Stretch

Muscles worked

The muscle under tension is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.

A stretch loads it at the far end of the range it normally works in, so the position you hold is itself the resistance.

Other muscle groups are involved too: the mid-back retracts the shoulder blades so the shoulder has something solid to work from.

Every exercise for:ChestMiddle back

How this movement works

Force comes toward the body — you draw a limb, or your own bodyweight, in against whatever resists it. What changes between sessions is how far into the position you can get and hold, not how much is loading it.

It is filed under stretching, so the target is range of motion rather than force — a position you can settle into and breathe in, held long enough for the tissue to give.

What you need

These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:

• Extended Range One-Arm Kettlebell Floor Presskettlebell
• Flat Bench Cable Flyescable
• Flat Bench Cable Flysbench + cable
• Hammer Grip Incline Bench Pressdumbbell + bench
• Incline Bench Press with Bandsband + bench

Difficulty

Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.

Of the 105 chest exercises in this database, 63 are listed at beginner level.