LogFAQs > #974755303

Comes down to form. Pecs are...hard to get right? I mean not really, but a lot of the times people have their arms in the wrong spot. So for bench press, or dumbell bench press, you want you arms at ideally at 45 to 60 degrees. Any higher than that it's going to be your shoulders doing the work, any less than that your triceps are going to be doing more of the work. Also make sure you are going down at an angle to the bottom of your chest, not just straight up and straight down, and most importantly once you are doing all of that, pause at the bottom when you hit your chest for a half sec or a full second then push back up. It really helps the eccentric stretch when going down. Always be in control, if your form is teetering you are doing too much weight.

Other tidbits is don't let gravity push you down on chest exercises, your chest and back work in tandem. It may seem awkward at first, but try to pull the weight down instead of it falling down, if that makes sense.

All else fails, just go ham on cable crossovers at different angles. Hard to screw those up. You can always do my favorite if you have the equipment which is a weighted chest dips. It's like a regular dip except you are leaning forward a bit instead of being just upright.

TLDR; It's all about correct form, and going slow and steady.

With bench, Ive heard one way to think about it is to imagine that youre pushing yourself into the bench. Also, to feel like youre squeezing your pecs together near/at the top.