i come with a quick question. If benching is like doing pushups same form in a way, then do any of you guys know why i only get sore on my lats when i do pushups then when i bench. it seems that when i do body excercise days and i do my sets of push ups the next day my lats are killing me along with pecks. but when i do bench only my pecks are so not my lats. do you know why that is?

A while ago I tore my right rotator cuff because I had poor form on the benchpress (and did those stupid behind the head shoulder presses grrr) anyway I had to totally relearn how to bench the proper way and that included arching my lower back a bit, pulling my shoulder blades together and keeping my elbows from flaring. As soon as I did this my lats started getting sore on bench days.

Of those three things I changed, I think that the effort of constantly keeping my elbows closer to my body is what did it. Just sitting in my chair if I flex my chest with arm straight out, my lat tightens a little but not a lot, but, if I flex my chest with my arm down at a 45° angle, my lats get rock hard.

thats my two cents. A pushup is naturally done with your arms not flared. During a pushup my body is in its natural state when my elbows are closer to the body and that is lat-city.

When you bench do your elbows flare out real wide?

Good question Nick, I will try to give you my interpretation of this.

When I bench I don't remember ever feeling it in my lats either, I have to do an exercise that incorporates my lats in order to feel them being worked, and the bench does not incorporate the lats. The bench should work your chest, shoulders and triceps and I certainly feel those muscles being worked, but again not the lats.

Then why do you feel it when you are doing push-ups? When doing push-ups your body is being suspended in the air, while when you are doing the bench your back is laying flat. While suspended in the air with your feet holding you up as well, you are using more muscles in order to do so and the back muscles are some of them. In fact many people when doing push-ups when they get tired let their mid section drift downwards thus putting more pressure on their back muscles and like any exercise once the technique has been lost then the exercise should be abandoned.

I hope that this explains it a little better. And if any others want to add or correct anything then feel free to.

Dereck is absoltely right, to maintain core stability during push ups, the lats engage harder on the negative phase than when supported by a bench during the weight press.

Another phenomenon similar to this is many people find their lats ache after the first heavy bag session they do with correct boxing technique. They think its all going to be arm and shoulder, then wake up with sore calves, obliques and lats- simply because they are generating power correctly.

We talk of 'compound' and 'isolation' exercises often, but their is no true 'isolation' of a muscle group. For every agonist, their is an antagonist affected by the movement.

ohhhhh ok. that totally clears everything up for me why that would be like that. thanks once again