Crossover exercise. Reduction of hands in a crossover

Reduction of hands on the crossover

Reduction of hands on the "Crossover"

Chest training can be very varied, so athletes often alternate exercises in their program. Among the effective ones is the reduction of hands on a block simulator. Also, the simulator is often called a crossover.

This exercise serves as an addition to heavy types of training. For example, it can be final after the barbell press in any position, working with dumbbells and push-ups with weights.

Isolation exercise. It works only for a group of internal and lower muscle bundles. Although indirectly, the load also goes to the deltas and triceps of the arm. The exercise cannot be the main one, as it does not give the proper load on the pectoral muscles. But it performs the task of stretching, which is important for muscle growth. At the same time, the exercise itself does not grow muscles, but forms them, that is, it creates reliefs and correct contours. For those who are most concerned about the appearance of the body, the exercise becomes an integral part of the workout.

Work in a crossover loads the outer and inner part of the chest. This happens depending on the position in which the hands are brought together. If the position is lying, then the inner part works, if standing, then the external muscles of the chest are trained.

It is important to perform the exercise correctly from the technical side, as this is the safety of the body. The load must be transferred to the triceps, so it will come off the elbow joint, and the likelihood of damaging it will decrease to almost zero.

Often those who are chasing muscle mass ignore the technique, they try to perform as many repetitions as possible, but it should be understood that repetitions, in contrast to their correctness, have less effect on the result.

The peculiarity of the crossover is that it becomes an almost complete replacement for any equipment with which the chest is worked out. It is also often used during injuries. The exercise is easy, the simulator allows you not to overload the muscles.

The simulator is practically non-traumatic, partner insurance is not required, but in order to adjust your performance, it is better to conduct the first workouts under the supervision of a trainer.

Technique for mixing hands in a crossover

If you are standing, then you should take the handles of the simulator, the elbows should be slightly higher than the back. Move one leg back a little. The back is slightly bent forward. It is necessary to monitor the body: if the slope is too large, there is an additional load on the lower back, which can adversely affect its condition.
The elbows should remain in the same position, only the hands work. At the entrance, bring your hands to the maximum, linger in this position for a few seconds.
This is followed by a return to the starting position, while you need to exhale.
Lying exercise is done on a bench. To do this, you need to firmly press your back, lower back and head to the back of the bench.
The bench is installed in the middle of the crossover.
Lying on a bench, it is necessary to reduce and spread your arms according to the principle of dumbbells.
Finishing the exercises, you can not throw the load, in which case you can injure yourself.

It is important to monitor your breathing: if it goes wrong, you can get tired too quickly and not fulfill the norm for training.

Using a crossover, you can work out the inside of the chest well. The simulator will be an excellent replacement for dumbbells. Today, crossover exercises are becoming one of the most popular for all people who visit the gym.

At first glance, it is difficult to perform the reduction of hands, but having learned the correct execution, the athlete quickly and easily copes with a large number of approaches. A person with little experience can do exercises on a crossover, 4 sets with 20 repetitions are recommended: both standing and lying down.

] Description of the exercise

What muscles work
Crossovers
Reduction of hands on the blocks
Technique and muscles involved in the exercise
Type of exercise:
Target Muscles:
Performance
Inventory:	block simulator
Complexity:	moderate
Injuries:
Similar exercises:
Advantages:
effective for the development of pectoral muscles

Crossovers- a specialized exercise for pumping the pectoral muscles, especially their inner and lower parts. The exercise is not considered highly effective for increasing the volume of the pectoral muscles, as it is not able to create the maximum overload. Crossovers well suited for increasing strength, they are also recommended if the bench press, dips and dips with dumbbells are not effective.

Exercise technique

Stabilizing muscles

Shoulders: Serratus anterior, pectoralis minor, rhomboids, lower trapezius muscles
Shoulder joint: Rotators of the shoulder, biceps brachii.
Elbow joint: Triceps brachii, brachialis.
Wrist joint: Carpal flexors.
Moderate trunk stabilization: Abdominal and gluteal muscle groups, latissimus dorsi.
The core muscles of the legs provide stability to the posture.

Crossover technique

Stand between the blocks with one foot slightly forward. Grab the block handles. The arms are slightly bent at the elbows, palms facing each other. Bring your hands together until they touch, elbows slightly bent throughout the exercise. Return to starting position.

Tips for proper exercise technique:

Learn the correct technique for performing movements before increasing the weight.
Avoid using the force of inertia; use slow, controlled motion.
Avoid excessive extension of the arms in the elbow joints and overload of the shoulder joints. The arms should remain bent at the elbows at an angle of approximately 10°.
Keep your chest and shoulders back and don't slouch. Be sure to bring your shoulder blades together and down and press them against your back, activating your anterior muscles.
Concentrate on the tension of the pectoral muscles when bringing the arms together, and not on the efforts of the muscles of the hands.
Exhale while bringing the arms through the sides down.

Crossover technique (video)

Motion Analysis	Joint 1	Joint 2
	Brachial	Shoulder-thoracic articulation
Direction of movement in the joints	Forward - horizontal adduction, inward rotation Back - abduction in the horizontal plane, outward rotation	Forward - lead Back - mixing
Mobilizing muscles	Pectoralis major muscle, emphasis on the sternocostal and clavicular parts. Small pectoral muscles; Anterior part of the deltoid muscle. coracobrachial muscle; biceps brachii (short head); Latissimus dorsi muscle	Serratus anterior

Notes: if you do this exercise with your elbows very bent, then the crossover on the blocks turns into a bench press. To complete the entire movement to the very end, you will have to straighten your elbows. Thus, you will connect the triceps to the movement, turning the isolated exercise into a multi-joint one.

Additionally: To intensify the training in this exercise, you can use

Bringing the arms together in a crossover 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. There are several basic variations of hand information in a crossover: standing, lying on a bench, through the upper or lower blocks. How to do all 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 the athlete, as well as to whom its implementation is contraindicated and for what reasons.

The benefits of exercise

With the help of the hands in the crossover, you can make a huge leap in the development of the pectoral muscles. 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, the reduction of the hands in the crossover is placed towards the end of the chest workout in order to achieve maximum blood supply. 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

neuritis of the brachial nerve;
tendobursitis;
tendinitis.

Too much stretching of the chest muscles at the bottom point will overstrain the shoulder joints and ligaments, and chronic pain will be felt much more strongly. This is less true of the classic crossover hands while standing through the upper blocks, but you still need to be careful not to use excessively heavy working weights.

Beginners are not recommended to bring their hands together in a crossover through the lower blocks. This is a very technical exercise that requires an unrealistic neuromuscular connection. Newbies just don't. Better develop your upper chest with incline presses and fly-outs, and when you notice an increase in muscle mass, you can smoothly begin to perform crossover folds.

What muscles work during exercise?

If you do everything right, then almost the entire load falls on the pectoral muscles. There is some static tension in the biceps, triceps, and anterior delts, but it should not prevent you from concentrating on chest work. If you feel that your shoulders and triceps get tired no less than your chest, then the working weight is too big.

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

Exercise technique

Below we will talk about the technique for performing several types of exercises for bringing hands together in a crossover.

Classic variant

The classic reduction of hands in a crossover through the upper blocks is done as follows:

Grab the crossover handles and place your feet in a straight line. Try not to step forward as this puts torque on your spine and can lead to injury.
Lean forward, keeping your back straight. The stronger the slope, the more the upper chest will work. It is best to keep the slope at 45 degrees throughout the approach.
Gently bring your hands together 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, pause a little - this way you accentuate the load on the inside (middle) of the chest.
While inhaling, slowly spread your arms to the sides. Stretch your outer chest slightly and do one more rep.

Exercise on the lower blocks

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

Take the handles of the lower blocks and place your feet shoulder-width apart. The negative phase of the movement is not so important here, the stretch at the bottom of the amplitude is much less, so there is no need to try to "stretch" the outer part of the chest.
Push your chest forward and up a little, and pull your shoulders back - this will take most of the load off them and you can concentrate on the isolated work of the upper chest.
As you inhale, begin to raise your hands up and bring them together in front of you. The movement must 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 properly squeeze the muscles of the chest.
While inhaling, gently lower your arms down, keeping the deflection in the thoracic spine and not moving your shoulders forward or up.

Training in a crossover lying on a bench

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

Take the handles of the lower blocks and lie down on the bench. The bench should be located exactly between the handles. Position it so that the cables of the machines are flush with your chest. You can use both a horizontal bench, 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 do not arch your lower back. If desired, you can put your legs on a bench or raise them in the air so that there is no desire to rest them on the floor with all your might and make your task easier.
Start bringing the handles over you. Outwardly, the exercise is similar to the wiring of dumbbells, but only outwardly. Due to the device of the block simulator, additional resistance is created, which constantly has to be overcome. Dumbbells don't do that.
Continue to bring your hands together until there is 5-10 cm left between the handles. At this point, you need to linger for a second and tighten your chest even more. It's chest, not biceps. If at this moment your chest muscles begin to contract, then you are doing everything right.
Gently lower the handles down. At the bottom point, we also make a slight delay in order to properly stretch the muscle fascia.

How to replace the exercise?

Crossover work provides a very unusual load, no free weight exercise will give you one hundred percent load on the pectoral muscles during the entire set. If, for some reason, none of the variations of this exercise suits you, then the only thing you can replace the hands in the crossover with is the mixing of the hands in the “butterfly” (peck-deck). This is also a block simulator, 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 emphasize it on one or another part of the chest.

If your gym does not have a “butterfly”, you can work in the rear delt lead machine, sitting with your back forward - the effect will be exactly the same.

This is an isolated exercise that perfectly pumps the chest. It differs from dumbbell wiring in that there is constant tension in the chest muscles throughout the entire amplitude of the exercise and allows you to better work out the inside. The reduction in the crossover is less loaded on the elbow joints than the wiring of the dumbbells.

Depending on the slope of the bench, different muscles work:

lying on a bench upside down loads the bottom of the chest more;
lying on a horizontal bench loads the middle of the pectoral muscles;
lying on a bench at an angle of 30-40 degrees loads the upper chest.

Initial position

Take a bench that suits you and place it in the center of the crossover. Lie on the bench so that the middle of the chest is at the level of the middle of the blocks. Spread your legs shoulder-width apart and rest them on the floor. For a more isolated option, lift your legs up, put them on the bench with your heels or keep them crossed on weight, the weight in the simulator that you will lift will become less, but the isolation on the pectoral muscles will become much greater. Another option is to press the lower back completely against the bench, this will increase the isolation of the pectoral muscles and do not forget to raise your legs on the bench. The back, pelvis and neck are pressed against the bench, the shoulder blades are together, the lower back and legs are in the position of your choice. Grasp the handles of the crossover and bring them together, if you are uncomfortable, ask to be served. Use only D-shaped handles. Take the handles in the castle, palms facing each other. Bend your arms slightly at the elbows and keep it that way throughout the exercise.

Technique for performing hand reduction in a crossover lying on a horizontal bench

We start the exercise from the top position. Inhale and begin to lower the handles down in an arc. It is worth lowering until the handles are at the level of your shoulders. The elbows look down and are always bent. As you exhale with effort, bring your hands together. As if hugging a small barrel on his chest. Hands should touch at the top point, linger there for a short period of time. Tighten your chest and lower.

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A wide variety of simulators today delights many lovers of strength training. Crossover is one of the most popular exercises among bodybuilders, which is performed on two block-type simulators at once.

With the help of the crossover exercise, you can actively influence the inner and lower part of the pectoral muscles, deltas and triceps are also partially loaded. Already the first few workouts will show the result.

Execution technique

Movement in the crossover does not require special technical skills.

In doing so, you must adhere to the following provisions:

Place yourself among two block devices: legs apart, hands on the cable handles, spread apart, back slightly tilted forward, pelvis retracted, support on a full foot.
Perform information to the level of the hips, with fixation for a few seconds at the bottom and chest tension. The pelvis, back and legs remain motionless.
You should return to the starting position smoothly, without sudden movements.
Move down on the exhale, up on the inhale. The arms should not straighten out, there should always be a bend in the elbows.
After finishing, the handles are released one by one.

This is the classic version, but there are variations. For example, doing it on your knees. It is important to use this method if you wish to learn how to properly contract and isolate the muscles of the chest. For a change, you can try to perform information from a lying or sitting position.

There are several technical features that will add to the effectiveness of influence.

It is worth remembering that the weight of the burden plays an important role, but the effectiveness of the influence will depend on the form of execution, namely on the amplitude of movements and the strength of tension at the lowest point when the arms are brought together. Rational technique does not provide for any impulsive, only controlled movements. Hands should move synchronously at an angle to the body, and constantly stay in the same plane.

The exercise is similar to on the stomach, but it provides more significant tension on the chest, which means it trains them better.

Another advantage is that there is no need for partner insurance, working in this mode is completely safe if all technical requirements are met.

Typical mistakes when performing crossover mixing are:

excessive slope of the body, "rounding" of the back; (similar to )
too sudden movements;
performing movements with straight arms;
too deep lowering of the hands.

Inaccuracies in the crossover technique lead to the fact that the tension is distributed irrationally and falls mainly on the shoulder girdle and across, while the pectoral muscles remain secondary.

What muscles work

Bringing the hands together in a crossover resembles the flapping of a bird's wings. The main load falls on the chest. Only the shoulder joints work, the triceps are only slightly loaded. To be more specific, the lower head of the pectoralis major and minor muscles is accentuated, and the anterior serratus and upper clavicular part assist in performing movements in the same way as the delta.

Visually, the inclusion in the work looks like this:

The function of the stabilizer is performed by the muscles of the upper shoulder girdle, forearm, abdomen and spinal extensors.

Nuances

Paying attention to the methodological features of the implementation of information, it is worth remembering several important aspects, starting from your goals and experience in the gym.

Chest training for beginners should be included in the weekly training system twice. Experienced athletes can add two more. At the same time, in the schedule of one lesson, it should be at the beginning of the main part. Performing the exercise against the background of increasing fatigue will not bring the desired results. No more than 3-4 approaches should be performed (depending on the length of time in the gym). The adequacy of the influence of information also depends on the number of repetitions in the approach: 10-12 times will provide an increase in muscle mass, 6-8 repetitions - an increase in strength capabilities.

If the crossover is used to “wake up” the chest muscles or to get rid of extra pounds, you should perform a large number of repetitions, but do not use heavy weights. A good option would be to gradually increase the weight and then drop it after reaching the maximum.

You can also perform cross-rover arm reconciliation using a power belt. It will help to stabilize the body. This will add a few more repetitions to the total. If you have sufficient experience in this mode, and there is a desire to continue to increase the burden, it is important to use wrist straps, this will relieve the stress on the joints.

To enhance the effect of information, there are several small secrets.

Secret 1. Combine two exercises into a complex, performing them sequentially. First, do 30 classic push-ups, then work the chest on the crossover 10-15 times. The recovery period is 40-45 seconds, and then repeat two more approaches. The thoracic region will thus effectively warm up and begin a new cycle of adaptation to such loads.

Secret 2. Use horizontal lava and cross rover from a prone or seated position. The effect on the chest will be enhanced by the exclusion from the work of the back and legs. With this performance, the load does not spread over the body, but is accentuated in the required area, that is, jewelry accuracy is observed in influencing the chest.

Conclusion

It is not easy to achieve a result in any business, work and work on oneself is always important. Crossover exercise is no exception, because it requires a lot of effort.

But, it can be guaranteed that after high-quality and perhaps even not too long work in this mode, you can get a dream body and double joy from the fact that a person has overcome not only a physical, but also a moral-volitional barrier.