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00:00 One of the best known exercises to build your inner chest
00:03 is something called the cable crossover exercise.
00:05 And pretty much if you walk into any gym
00:07 and you ask how to build your inner chest,
00:09 some gym bro is gonna tell you
00:11 you've gotta do cable crossovers.
00:12 And you can't really blame them either
00:14 because the exercise sounds awesome
00:16 and it is the most well-known inner chest exercise.
00:19 It is not, however, the best way
00:21 to really train your inner chest
00:22 and it is not the best version of the cable fly,
00:25 especially if you wanna keep your shoulders healthy
00:27 in the long term.
00:28 And if you really, really want that chest development.
00:30 So let's go over the cable crossover
00:32 the way everybody tells you that you should do it.
00:34 And we're gonna show you a better way to do it.
00:36 That way you can really get those chest gains.
00:38 So we've got Brett here to help us demo
00:40 the classic cable crossover.
00:42 And we're gonna use this as an opportunity
00:43 to show you all the reasons
00:45 that this is not the best way to build your chest.
00:47 And all Brett's gonna do,
00:48 we're gonna start with the handles high
00:50 in the traditional cable crossover.
00:51 Brett is going to take a large step forward.
00:54 He's gonna brace his abs
00:56 and lean forward in his torso just slightly.
00:58 Now he's really in position.
00:59 He's gonna squeeze his shoulder blades
01:00 and all he's going to do is fly the cables in front of him.
01:05 And the crossover part comes at the end here.
01:07 Let's show him, Brett.
01:08 He's actually going to cross over his arms.
01:12 In theory, we're doing this
01:13 so that we get a much more aggressive and full contraction
01:16 than we get on our standard cable flies
01:18 and on our dumbbell flies.
01:19 That is supposed to be the advantage of the move.
01:22 In theory, we are taking our chest
01:24 through a truly full range of motion
01:26 when we cross over like that.
01:27 But there are a couple issues with this move
01:30 and we're gonna go over them.
01:31 The first issue, the main issue
01:33 that I have with this exercise is one,
01:35 there's a lack of overall stability
01:37 and there's a lack of consistency in his torso position.
01:40 It's not supported.
01:41 So he can lean forward if he needs to even more.
01:44 That way he can grab a little bit more leverage
01:47 and then he's getting a little bit less.
01:48 He's kind of creating more favorable angles
01:50 so he can get the fly done a little bit more easily
01:54 or he can lean back a little bit more.
01:56 Either way, he's not necessarily gonna be consistent
01:59 from set to set to set and from workout to workout
02:01 so that he can truly chart improvement.
02:03 The bigger issue with this though is the shoulder risk.
02:07 So every single time Brett flies in front of him,
02:09 his humerus and clavicle,
02:10 he's really closing down all that joint space
02:13 on every single rep.
02:14 So this is a recipe for shoulder issues in the longterm.
02:17 And it's also not gonna give us
02:19 the most advantageous chest contraction for another reason.
02:22 That big reason is we're thinking of our arms
02:25 as this giant lever that our chest is adducting across.
02:29 But what our chest is really adducting across
02:31 and the way you really wanna wind up
02:32 thinking about your flies
02:33 is your upper arm is the joint that is being moved.
02:36 And we can think about our elbows
02:38 coming together a lot more effectively
02:40 if we get away from this cable crossover idea
02:43 and we get to something smarter
02:44 and we're gonna show you how to do that now.
02:46 So how are we going to change that classic cable crossover
02:49 to make it better, to make it shoulder safer
02:52 and to help you get more out of it?
02:54 We're gonna bring a bench into things
02:56 and you can technically set this bench
02:58 at any height you want.
03:00 I would say set it at the highest possible incline
03:02 because of how we're trying to set up here.
03:04 And we've taken the cables
03:05 and we've dropped them below the bench.
03:08 And what this is gonna do is instantly
03:09 it's gonna give Brett a lot more stability
03:12 when he's doing his cable flies rather.
03:14 And because he has that stability,
03:15 he's gonna be able to push that much more to fatigue.
03:18 And he's also going to be able to really focus
03:21 on the squeeze on every single contraction
03:23 'cause he doesn't have to worry about anything else.
03:24 So Tal is breaking into position himself here.
03:26 He's gonna get in front of the bench.
03:28 He's not going to sit down on the bench though.
03:31 Instead, he's going to maintain his position.
03:33 We're just using this bench for stability
03:35 and to add some consistency to the fly.
03:37 He actually wants to make sure
03:39 that his shoulder blades also are off the bench.
03:42 So he's gonna set up high.
03:44 Now, why do we want our shoulder blades off the bench?
03:46 That is the one thing that the cable crossover
03:48 does very well is it allows the free movement
03:50 of the scapula, which is something we really want
03:53 on our pressing exercises and on our adduction concepts.
03:55 And we still have that here.
03:57 The other great thing with this bench
03:59 is he can lean back a little bit
04:01 and he can think about opening his chest
04:03 when he's in that stretch position.
04:05 When he does that, that's really setting him up
04:07 to get a better stretch on his pecs.
04:09 And then he's going to just simply from this position
04:12 while still squeezing his shoulder blades
04:14 and still getting a little bit of lean back,
04:16 thinking about keeping his shoulders behind his chest
04:19 relative to that bench, all he's gonna do is that fly.
04:23 He's not going to cross over on this.
04:25 We wanna pay attention to a couple of things
04:27 that he is doing instead of crossing over.
04:29 The first thing, stay right here, Brett, and just hold that.
04:32 You'll notice that he's leading with his pinkies
04:34 and almost getting a little bit of scoop in there.
04:36 That's gonna help him ensure that the idea
04:39 that's driving this fly is chest adduction
04:42 and it's nothing else.
04:43 The other thing he's gonna do,
04:44 let's give him another rep, Brett.
04:46 He's gonna stay long through his arms.
04:48 And as he drives forward,
04:50 he's thinking about driving his elbows together
04:53 as hard as he can.
04:54 So we're not crossing over pointlessly
04:56 and we're not losing the entire integrity
04:59 of our shoulder capsule.
05:00 Instead, what we're doing is we're just thinking
05:02 about squeezing in that position.
05:04 So we're gonna actually wind up getting
05:06 a much better chest contraction out of that.
05:08 Now, the great thing about this fly on top of that
05:11 is again, he's got the bench for stability.
05:13 So let's give them a couple of reps, Brett,
05:15 and let's really push.
05:16 So we can take this set to true technical fatigue
05:20 for our chest.
05:21 And this is an exercise that is meant to be taken
05:23 to technical fatigue.
05:24 You can really push it and you can really exhaust yourself
05:27 while doing it very, very safely
05:29 and while keeping all of the stimulus on your chest,
05:32 which is the entire idea of the cable fly.
05:35 So instead of doing your cable crossovers,
05:37 you wanna execute them like this on the high bench
05:40 with your torso slight with your shoulder blades
05:42 just off of the bench and really focusing on that squeeze
05:45 on every single rep.
05:46 And that will give you a much better chest pump
05:49 and much better chest gains than all the cable crossovers
05:51 that the gym bros are telling you to do.
05:53 So that is both the cable crossover and the improved version
05:56 that will truly help you get chest gains.
05:58 And there are multiple ways
05:59 that you can use this in the workout.
06:00 The prime way and the way you're gonna see most guys use it,
06:02 we're gonna put it at the end of our chest workout
06:05 or at the end of an upper body day.
06:06 It's a really, really good exercise.
06:07 We can hit say three sets of 10 to 12 reps.
06:10 You get a really good pump on that inner chest
06:12 after you've done your heavy lifts already.
06:14 The other more advanced way you can use it
06:17 if you've been in the gym for a while
06:18 and if you're really, really prepared,
06:19 we can use this as a pre-fatigue exercise.
06:22 So what you're gonna do is you're gonna do say
06:24 three to four sets of a super set
06:26 and we're gonna lead off that super set
06:28 with eight to 10 reps of cable flys.
06:32 And that is going to then fatigue our chest a little bit,
06:34 leave us a little bit tapped out,
06:35 then we will go to a multi-joint exercise
06:37 like an incline dumbbell press
06:39 or a flat bench press, something like that.
06:41 You can hit that for six to eight reps.
06:43 You're gonna really, really get
06:44 a nasty chest pump out of that.
06:45 Again, it's a very advanced way to use the cable fly.
06:48 Either way, stay away from the cable crossover exercise.
06:52 It's a hyped exercise,
06:53 but if you really, really want gains,
06:55 stick with the version that we showed you
06:57 and your chest will keep growing.
06:59 [BLANK_AUDIO]