If you stretch your pectoral muscles while training your wider ones, you will be able to do more repetitions.
Strength athletes will perform more repetitions in sets if they stretch their muscles between sets. And it’s not about the muscles that you train, but about their antagonists.
Antogonist muscles are those two muscles or muscle groups performing opposite movements. That is, one muscle performs flexion, the second-extension.
So, when training the latissimus dorsi (wide back muscles), you need to stretch the large pectoral muscle . Sports scientists from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro write about this in their research in sports medicine.
Static stretching between sets: study
Brazilian scientists instructed ten well-trained athletes, having experience of strength training, to train the widest, making horizontal block deadlifts sitting, in two situations. In one case, the subjects did not do anything between sets [passive recovery], the other time they stretched their pectoral muscles before starting each series by performing the exercise shown below [antagonist stretching]. Athletes made a passive stretch and held it for 40 seconds. In total, they did 3 sets, using a weight with which they could perform up to 10 repetitions. Between the approaches rested for two minutes.
Results of the study on passive stretching of pectoral muscles
With the help of an electromyograph, the degree of tension in the muscles was studied. Thanks to the electrodes attached to the muscles of the subjects, sports scientists were able to find that passive stretching of the pectoral muscles increased electrical activity in the widest and biceps during exercise. That is, the muscles worked more intensively. Stretching had no effect on electrical activity in the pectoral muscles themselves.
The effect of stretching was obvious, as the subjects performed much more repetitions in all three approaches. True, Brazilian scientists have not been able to explain how stretching the pectoral muscles leads to a strengthening of the widest.
Imprisonment
“The static stretching of the antagonist applied during the rest period between sets showed greater efficiency in performing the number of repetitions and activation of muscle agonists in horizontal block traction compared to the passive rest period between the three sets,” the researchers concluded. “These results indicate an interesting alternative for coaches and sports practitioners during resistance training sessions-a prescription aimed at improving performance and activating muscles in an acute form.»
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