Reduction of hands in a crossover: technique of execution through the upper and lower blocks * Crossfit

Crossover abduction is an effective isolated exercise for developing chest muscles. Performing it in different variations, you can emphasize the load on different parts of the pectoral muscles: upper, lower, inner or lower part. There are several main variations of hand information in a crossover: standing, lying on a bench, through the upper or lower blocks. How to do all the varieties of this exercise correctly will be discussed in our today's article.

Benefits and contraindications

Before proceeding to the story about the technique of performing the exercise, we will briefly describe what advantages and benefits it gives to the athlete, as well as to whom its performance is contraindicated and for what reasons.

The benefits of exercise

With the help of hand information in the crossover, a huge leap in the development of the pectoral muscles can be made. It is ideal for learning how to “turn them on” correctly, since the work is isolated, the shoulders and triceps are practically turned off from the movement, which cannot be said about other chest exercises.

As a rule, crossover hands are placed near the end of the chest workout in order to maximize blood circulation. The work is carried out in a wide range of repetitions - from 12 and above. The working weight does not really matter, it is much more important to feel the stretch and contraction of the pectoral muscles.

Contraindications to exercise

It is not recommended to perform information in a crossover lying down for athletes with the following diseases:

neuritis of the brachial nerve;
tendobursitis;
tendinitis.

Stretching the pectoral muscles too much at the lowest point will overstrain the shoulder joints and ligaments, and the chronic pain will be much stronger. This is less relevant to the classic information of hands in a crossover standing through the upper blocks, but you still need to be careful not to use excessively heavy working weights.

It is not recommended for beginners to make crossover crossover through the lower blocks. This is a very technical exercise that requires an unrealistic neuromuscular connection. Newbies simply don't have that. Better develop your upper chest with incline presses and workouts, and when you notice an increase in muscle mass, you can smoothly begin to perform the information of the arms in the crossover.

What muscles work during exercise?

If you do everything right, then almost all the load falls on the pectoral muscles. Some static stress is present in the biceps, triceps and front delts, but it shouldn't interfere with your concentration on chest work. If you feel that your shoulders and triceps are no less tired than your chest, then the working weight is too heavy.

The muscles of the press and buttocks act as stabilizers, due to which we take the correct position.

Exercise technique

Below we will talk about the technique for performing several types of crossover exercises for converging hands.

Classic version

The classic crossover crossover is done as follows:

Grasp the crossover handles and place your feet in line. Try not to step forward, as this creates torque in the spine and can lead to injury.
Lean forward, keeping your back straight. The more the slope, the more the upper chest will work. It is best to maintain a 45-degree incline throughout the entire set.
Smoothly bring your hands in front of you, exhaling. Try to make the movement only due to the work of the chest muscles, the shoulders and arms should not participate in the movement, the arms should be bent quite a bit. At the point of peak contraction, take a short pause - this will accentuate the load on the inner part (middle) of the chest.
Taking a breath, slowly spread your arms to the sides. Stretch the outer chest slightly and do another repetition.

Exercise on the lower blocks

Reduction of arms in a crossover through the lower blocks with an emphasis on the upper chest is done as follows:

Take the arms of the lower blocks and place your feet shoulder-width apart. The negative phase of the movement is not so important here, the stretching at the lower point of the amplitude is much less, so there is no need to try to "stretch" the outer part of the chest.
Bring your chest a little forward and up, and move your shoulders back - this way you take off most of the load from them and can concentrate on the isolated work of the upper chest.
As you inhale, begin to raise your arms up and bring them in front of you. The movement should be smooth. In no case do we strain the biceps, otherwise 90% of the load will fall on them. Hold for a second at the point of peak contraction to firmly contract the chest muscles.
While inhaling, gently lower your arms downward, maintaining a bend in the thoracic spine and not pushing your shoulders forward or up.

Crossover training lying on the bench

Reduction of hands in a crossover lying on a bench is performed as follows:

Take the handles of the lower blocks and lie on the bench. The bench should fit exactly between the handles. Position it so the equipment cables are flush with your chest. You can use either a horizontal bench or an incline bench or a bench with a negative slope. The greater the angle of inclination, the more the load falls on the upper chest.
Lower your shoulders down, bring your shoulder blades together and don't arch your lower back. If you wish, you can put your legs on a bench or raise them in the air, so that you don't have the desire to rest with all your strength on the floor and make your task easier.
Begin to bring the handles above you. Externally, the exercise is similar to laying out dumbbells, but only externally. Due to the device of the block trainer, additional resistance is created, which must be constantly overcome. Dumbbells don't do that.
Continue bringing your hands together until 5-10 cm remains between the handles. At this point you need to linger for a second and strain your chest even more. It is the chest, not the biceps. If at this moment your chest muscles begin to constrict, then you are doing everything right.
Smoothly lower the handles down. At the bottom point, we also make a short delay in order to properly stretch the muscle fascia.

How to replace exercise?

Crossover work is very unusual load, no amount of free weight exercise will give you 100% load on the pectoral muscles throughout the set. If, for some reason, none of the variations of this exercise suits you, then the only thing you can replace the hand information with in the crossover is mixing hands in a “butterfly” (peck-deck). This is also a block trainer, so the load will be almost the same. The only difference is that the position is already set in the "butterfly", so it is almost impossible to vary the load and accentuate it on one or another part of the chest.