My chest is uneven but not as in left and right chest

Question

So i have been exercising for some time at home i dont go to the gym but everything has been improving i can see progress and in my chest aswell but only a part. So i have looked up what to do how to make my chest more even but when looking up videos about the chest it sorts it out into three parts upper lower and middle. But my chest isnt really working like that its more as in the inner part and the lower are untrained. And i looked it up and yeah there are some exercises for it at home but they didnt really work and i didnt feel any progress in it but in the part that is growing i can feel it. So might be bit confusing im just kinda writing this but basically how do i even my parts of the chest? Are there any exercises i should be doing i do push ups and they work on one part not the rest so i tried variations and maybe im doing something wrong idk. help

Answer 1

It's a little hard to get what you are asking, but as I understand it your "lower" and "middle" chest don't seem to be growing at the same pace as the rest of your chest.

First, the chest muscle (Pectoralis major) is a convergent, fan shaped muscle that goes from the middle chest up to where it connects to the bone of the upper arm. The major motion of the muscle is to adduct, or bring closer to the middle, the upper arm. So if you stand up, stick your arms straight out to the sides and bring them together in front of you so your hands touch that is the major action of the muscle. (There is also a smaller muscle, pectoralis minor, but that's not really specifically trainable).

That being said, all actions that move the arm in (decline bench, bench, incline bench, fly, pullovers, pushups) work the muscle in varying degrees, with emphasis from the assistance muscles. If you want to work the pecs more, then there are a couple things you can do.

First, close grip exercises. Diamond pushups, close grip bench, cable flys, pullovers and similar will all tend to emphasize the inner portion of the muscle. Second, you can tire out the assistance muscles by doing things like triceps presses and similar before doing bench. There is some school of thought that you then can't lift as much to stress the pecs, so you'll have to see if that works for you. Third, STRICT attention to form. If you are using weight that is too heavy or your form is just poor, then you lose the emphasis on the muscle and get support/takeover from assistance (or ancillary) muscles.

Have someone like a trainer check your form, try different close grip exercises and keep going. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Oh, and other than "feeling" the portion of the chest, it may be that genetically your muscles are just shaped that way. Some people the inner chest can look like it's touching, other people have a wide gap between. Genetics determines the shape, training determines the size.