X3 Pec Crossover

The pectoral crossover is a bit of a supplementary movement. It is not required. And it’s really for somebody who wants some serious thickness in their pectorals.

You want to perform the movement immediately after doing the chest press. You’ve pre-exhausted the chest, but you’re also using the deltoids and the triceps in the chest press.

With the pet crossover, you’re focusing on just the absolute shutdown of the pectorals in isolation. You want to ensure that you’re not just sticking your arms out and stretching the band like this. You’re truly crossing the body.

I like pointing out that you should probably align one elbow joint over the top of the other elbow joint. And then, of course, you alternate with the next repetition.

You want to get the biggest squeeze you can in the pectorals, in their shortest position to make sure you’re evacuating all of the ATP glycogen and creatine phosphate from the muscles. Those are the fuels as well as from a structural standpoint, taking into fatigue. And variable resistance does that for you; you make sure you keep contracting and using diminishing range until you can’t move anymore.

The setup for the pectoral crossover is pretty straightforward. You bring the band over your head and behind your back. The band should cross at the center of your deltoid muscles. The action is pushing across the body arm over arm alternating one repetition to the next.

You really want to feel the squeeze in the pectorals in the fully contracted position. This is the most engaged your pectorals get. Pectorals are slightly different types of muscle; they work a little differently than some of the other muscles on the body.

For example, in a bench press-type movement, you really don’t get the opportunity to take them to the completely contracted position, which is why we have this as an addition after the chest press. That way, you can truly get to absolute fatigue in the strongest range of the pectoral muscles.