The pec deck machine could be a suitable addition if your aim is to create a well-defined chest or to add a bit more size. However, if your goal is to really concentrate on working out your chest muscles and develop strong pectoral power, free weights could potentially be a more appropriate exercise choice, as they help you to control the weight throughout its entire range.
Everyone, from beginner to advanced lifters, needs to know exactly what a pec deck machine actually is, how it operates, and importantly, how to properly perform an exercise on it.
What Is a Pec Deck Machine?
A pec deck machine is an item of strength-training equipment found at the gym that helps you to train the muscles of the chest, especially the pectoralis major. You sit with the handles or arms of the machine at either side of your chest and bring them inwards together, in front of the chest, in a chest-fly movement that can be controlled effectively using the weight selected. This type of machine ensures stability, allowing you to focus completely on your pec contraction. Pec deck machines are a very common choice for both intermediate and professional athletes at the gym.
Benefits of Using a Pec Deck Machine
1. Helps Isolate the Chest Muscles
The isolation that you can get with the Pec Deck is definitely one of its biggest benefits. Your body's arms move through an anchored and controlled range of motion as your pecs crunch your arms together.
This is why the Pec Deck could possibly be the best machine toward the very end of a chest day for maximizing muscle activation without making use of too many stabilizing muscles. The gym machine combined with presses and some additional strength moves can be a thorough chest training regimen.
2. Supports Controlled Muscle Activation
The smooth fixed path on a pec deck machine ensures that resistance remains constant for the duration of the exercise. This aids in maintaining focused concentration on the contraction. When performing the movement, don't just move your arms from A to B – the key here is moving the weights together through chest contraction only. Hold momentarily when the hands or forearms connect and slowly return to the start.
3. Beginner-Friendly Strength Training
It may be difficult for many newcomers to resistance training to learn some chest exercises with free weights. For example, doing dumbbell flies requires many skills, like balancing, coordinating, and controlling. A pec deck machine could simulate this chest-fly exercise without the need for such skills. It's perfect for beginners to easily pick up the basic chest-fly motion and a good alternative to increase the training volume for experienced lifters so that not all of their chest exercises are technical and demanding.
4. Can Be Easier to Progress Safely
A benefit of machine-based training can also be that you can adjust to many resistances with a small variance. You can pick a weight that is perfect so that you have controlled movements with proper form throughout the repetition range.
However, heavy does not always mean good; learning pec deck machine proper form should always come before increasing resistance. Swinging the weights back, moving the pec deck range closer together, moving with the chest, or involving too many other parts of the body should signify resistance to high.
5. Useful for Chest-Focused Workouts
The pec deck is also great as an integral part of a well-structured chest training program. It is used at the end of a chest workout, after compound pressing exercises, and can be used to further isolate the chest. An example program could be as follows: Chest Press, an Incline Press movement, and finally, Pec Deck.
This ensures that you are focusing on pressing strength at the beginning, then working back to isolate movements at the end of the program.
In conjunction with specialized equipment, such as the Hammer Strength Select Pec Rear Fly, to target the rear deltoids and upper back muscles, creating a more complete upper body session
How to Use thePec Deck With Proper Form
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Sit so the handles or pads rest around chest level.
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Keep your back in contact with the pad and feet pressed into the floor.
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Do not lock your elbows- keep a slight bend.
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Slowly bring your arms together, focusing on engaging the chest.
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Control the movement back into the starting position.
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Do not swing or let the weight pull the shoulders backward too much.
Muscles Worked by the Pec Deck Machine
Below is a breakdown of each muscle that will be working, and therefore it will give you some points of reference while you are performing the exercises.
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Pectoralis Major: This is the main part of the chest to work if you wish to get your chest bigger and well-defined.
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Pectoralis Minor assists movement and stability in the shoulder.
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Anterior Deltoids help with the movement performed for the chest.
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Serratus Anterior aids stability in the shoulder blades.
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Biceps & Forearms help to keep grip and arm stability.
An Atlantis Strength Shoulder Press can complement chest-focused exercises by training the shoulder muscles through a controlled pressing movement.
Conclusion
The pec deck is very focused on working the chest, offers controlled resistance, and requires you to keep an isolated movement to avoid using more of your shoulders. With other exercises, it's going to help you develop a much better and bigger upper body. To build your lower and upper body, you can buy gym machines from True Iron Fitness.
