Broaden CHEST and SHOULDERS

[dssb]

Hi,

I am 31 year old, i have very lean body. My upper chest 92cms & lower chest i.e., over nipples 87cms. Will my chest bones grow at this age and is it normal. Can i broaden chest and shoulders. Any particular exercise to improve lower chest.

weight 60kg
height 5.8ft

Thanks
Anthony

[itsbruce]

You can't actually broaden your ribcage. I have a naturally large ribcage, which made me look broad-chested still even after I had lost weight to the point where you could see all my ribs. It isn't going to become any broader through SL5x5 and neither will yours. But if you stick with 5x5 then the muscles on your chest, shoulders and upper back will grow in a way that will dramatically alter your shape and the way people perceive you. At some point, you will have to start buying new shirts because any that fit you well now will not be big enough once you start to grow. I hope this is good enough for you - certainly should be

It does take patience. In my experience (and what other people have posted here tends to back this up), legs are the first place where the muscle gain shows. Shoulders, back muscles, pectorals and biceps follow on after but if you are a beginner with serious strength training (as I was when I started) it takes a while before you become strong enough to move enough weight in the lifts that deliver most stress (and gain) to your upper body (i.e. press and bench).

10 weeks in, I now have noticeably powerful shoulders, biceps that I'm very happy with (nothing that would impress a bodybuilder but on my lean frame they stand out nicely, thank you) and lats that are beginning to show at the sides even behind my huge ribcage (if my chest were smaller, I'd have the beginnings of that V-shape people talk about). My pecs are lagging behind all this and only showing a bit of muscle and definition, but I think that will change now that I'm making good progress with both press and bench (stalled on press for the longest time). And that's all after only 10 weeks; if your ribcage is smaller than mine, your shape changes would be more dramatic. I recommend you persist.

[Vlad]

Bruce, just curious: what is the size of your ribcage? You mentioned that it's huge, so maybe you can tell us your measurements such as the largest circumference around the ribcage and also your height and waist in order to evaluate the proportions.

I think where the muscles first show up is very individual. In my case, the chest increased most: from 108 to 124 cm (+ 15%), biceps increased by 12% (from 33.5 to 37.5 cm), and thighs by only 8% (from 60 to 65 cm). Forearms responded also nicely (same as biceps), but calfs unfortunately did not change at all (maybe just a tad).

I think the most important exercises for the overal chest size (I am not talking about pecs here) are 1. deadlift, 2. pull-ups/rows/cleans and 3. bench press.

[itsbruce]

Bruce, just curious: what is the size of your ribcage? You mentioned that it's huge, so maybe you can tell us your measurements such as the largest circumference around the ribcage and also your height and waist in order to evaluate the proportions.

I'm 5' 8.5" (173cm) tall. Chest measurement is currently 42" (~107cm) which is barely 3cm growth since starting SL5x5). I say my chest is huge (and girlfriends have made the same observation ) because

1. It stays wide all the way down; at the xyphoid process it still measures about 38.5" (97cm), which is 2" (5cm) bigger than Anthony's biggest chest measurement at it's widest (and we are almost exactly the same height).
2. This contrasts with a waist measuring 32" (81cm) - my jeans and trousers claim to be 30" but clothes manufacturers lie even to men.

To put it another way, you're 20cm taller than me, Vlad, but our unenhanced chest measurements would be almost identical.

When I lie down, my lower ribs form a ridge pointing towards the ceiling, from which the skin slopes steeply down to my stomach, so that it looks like a snapshot of a tidal wave rushing from my shoulders to my stomach. And that's all the ribcage - my pectorals have hardly developed at all at this point.

When I was overweight, my barrel chest helped hide it (I'm the kind who puts most of the weight on the stomach but the prominent chest lessened the curve of my belly). When I lost weight (and before I gained it), I looked a bit like one of those musical instruments with a central handle and a hollow cylinder near one end, with two weighted strings hanging off the drum (you spin the handle back and forth between your hands and the balls bang against the cylinder). A bit freakish, really, so I'm glad this program is giving me a more balanced shape.

[FilthyMcNasty]

Although you can't induce the bones to grow from training (becoming denser etc may) but you can focus on exercises to add some Rib meat to the serratus muscle. Try push ups but squeeze your shoulders forward at the top of the movement to get a couple of extra cm's height from the ground, like you're trying to squeeze the ground beneath your hands together.

[NotNowChief]

I doubt you can do much about bone structure, but you can make yourself bigger. The trick to looking wider in my opinion is a broad back. A bigger back is going to mean wider shoulders to fit it between. Big lats will help you make an impression of width. Obviously a set of big round old delts won't hurt either.

The best exercise for "lower chest" is basically just making your chest bigger overall, bench press and heavy weighted dips. You can substitute dips for push ups in stronglifts (more like how the program used to be) if you are strong enough to do them.

[JJLipton]

I personally like mixing flat bench with incline on days when i focus more on my chest. I use flat bench 5x5 to increase strength, then do some incline to tone up the shoulders and upper pecs.

[BOHICA]

Put on 20lbs of lean muscle and your back, chest, and shoulder will broaden.

Def put in tons of heavy back work and pull-ups to widen those lats making it all seem broader.

Pull-Overs work really well for some people also.