Benefits of Stretching your Chest

Your pectoralis major muscle, or pec as its more commonly referred too makes up the whole entire chest region of your body. There are a great deal of reasons that you can benefit from stretching your pec and I’m going to tell you what they are and how to stretch it. It’s a main component of keeping you in a protective position and it’s one of our dominant muscles used for reaching out in front of ourselves.

The pec is a muscle that is consistently working since majority of our movements use it. When doing things out in front of us, it’s the major muscle that turns on. The pec rolls you forward and holds you out in front of you. Its main job is to reach out and grab someone or thing, pull close or push away and then hold things tight. If you hold your hands together and push your fingertips together and squeeze, you’ll feel your pec contract. That’s a very easy way to feel just how massive the pec is.

What we need to realize is, if it’s a dominant muscle it’s going to be steadily tight. That tightness stems from the pec always wanting to roll you forward, specifically, pec minor. If you experience upper back tightness this is one of the main areas you would need to open up. However, its main job is to keep you close, it keeps you closed.

So, let’s talk benefits….I’ll just run through some easy quick ones. One, I mentioned above, relieves upper back pain. The pec is one of the main reasons your upper back is chronically aching in the first place. Two, it helps you breathe. If you open up your chest your ribs will start to open up as well. Therefor taking a deep breath actually opens you up more, in turn giving you more air. Receiving more oxygen results in more oxygen-rich blood flow and if you have that healing is that much better. You need oxygen to heal. So taking in more air raises your healing rate.

The third benefit is connected with taking in more air. The more breath you’re taking, the more air you’re receiving, the more your fight or flight mechanism naturally shrinks and drops. What you want to think about as you open up the chest is your fight or flight instinct decreasing and focus more on healing. Lastly, it makes you more confident. When you’re completely open, your body does miraculous things on a mindset level. With more confidence, you’re willing to achieve more. If you ever think about any depressed posture, your body naturally wants to crawl in; when you’re not feeling well, you naturally curl in. During the day when you’re not thinking clearly, when you’re on the computer all day and feeling broken down, you’re in this state. As soon as you think of something that you love, you will begin to open up. With an open chest, your body naturally wants to be out in the open since it now feels safe. You’re able to attack the world. So open up and feel confident!

Now, how do you stretch your pec? I see a lot of people holding a door jamb and turning leaning forward, and yes, it’s a great stretch, but most people make one crucial mistake that ruins everything. If using a door jamb, that is going to be your stable. You want to start out by putting your elbow against the door jamb while you face the door. The common mistake people make is to turn your body. You will start to feel the stretch here, but then it starts to compromise the joint because it’s not a straight movement. The easiest way to fix this is to take the opposite foot of the elbow you have on the jamb and step it through the doorway. You will begin to feel the whole entire pec opening.   Do not twist! Keep the movement in a straight line, facing forward. Keep it nice and easy and the pec will start to open up. That is the easiest way to stretch your pec without torqueing your shoulder.

That’s how to stretch your pec. Let’s dig deeper into what you’re actually stretching. There are three fibers that you have to really understand about when it comes to the pec muscle. The pec fibers run in three different locations; there’s an upper, middle and lower fiber. Each one of those runs you in a different direction, a different plane of motion. One runs you straight across, the other rotates your hand up and the last one rotates your hand down. So when you’re stretching you want to actually place your elbow on the door jamb at a higher, middle and lower angle. When stretching higher, have your elbow slightly above your clavicle. Your elbow should be right in a straight line when stretching the middle and angled slightly low for the last stretch. You will be stretching all three angles of the pec if you position your elbow in those three angles while stepping straight through the door.

Take Away:

There are a plethora of benefits to stretching the chest and pec. Open it up and you’ll feel more confident, you’ll be able to breathe better, lose your fight or flight response and take in a lot more oxygen. Those are really easy, very basic benefits from stretching your pec. The most common mistake is torqueing up the angle at the shoulder; it needs to be a straight line. Remember, when you find that door jamb, put the elbow against it and take a nice easy step through.