Difficulty Engaging Chest. What did you do?

Machine flies and incline cables flies in the 18 rep range. I can never feel shit in my chest when I bench.

Take a cialis before you lift. The extra blood flow will help you feel the pump in muscles you don’t normally feel.

I had the same problem with chest growth for a long time. Flat benching, especially if you're just going for increasing weight week to week is not the best mass builder for everyone.

What helped me was doing low weight cable flys. Focus on squeezing your pecs together. One think I heard was to act like there is a pen between your pecs and try to squeeze them like you were holding the pen in place. You may have more success engaging your chest this way, and it will translate a bit to bench etc.

After you get that "mind-muscle" connection down, increase volume like everyone else is saying.

>engaging chest
>people advice other weight and rep ranges

the fucking state. if a movement doesn't stimulate a muscle it won't with more reps
slight changes in chest insertion (connected high or low on arm) changes a lot.
try focussing on downward movements. close grip dipping with flared arms, leaning forward pulling up knees not going over 90 degrees really activated my chest, as well as decline flyes.

tl;dr. try decline movents instead of flat

Your chest is engaging. It's just that 80kg isn't a lot of weight. Keep progressing and your chest will develop
Here are some pointers:
>don't half rep, bottom half of the rep is where the chest is engaged the most
>give a slight pause at the bottom and see if this helps
>try a wider grip if you're currently doing a very narrow grip

All I do for my chest is benchpress (well, that and OHP, kinda I guess) and I've got pretty decent development. But if you getting big pecs is all you care about you could always try other stuff like cable crossovers, dumbbell flyes, whatever.

Make sure you're doing all 3 variations: flat, incline, and decline. Also do dumbell benches, I find I can get a lot deeper, I feel it more it the pecs compared to the barbell equivalent.

Actually try:

>Doing paused reps (bench press)
>Pausing at the stretch and/or contraction (flys)
>use heavy weights
>use light weights and use more time under tension with more reps/sets
>do weighted dips
>change movement patterns as long as they dont cause injuries and actually help stimulate the muscle better

You probably have shit form, and also it's not that much weight so keep getting stronger

Why do people believe pump = muscle growth?

OP here. Thanks everyone for responding. Just went to the gym. Added a little to my bench. Slow and controlled, wide grip, full ROM, pause at the bottom (better but still not feeling it in my chest a huge amount but i guess its due to the fact that it is a compound movement and not isolating the chest. I'll keep at it.) Then 5x5 ohp. Then did some light weight high rep cable flyes - 4x10 high to low 4x10 low to high. God damn those cable flyes felt good. Best chest pump ever. Ill stick to this for a while.
Thanks again.
I recommend that everyone add those flyes at least as a chest finisher. Goodness gracious.

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>then 5x5 ohp
No idea why I wrote that. I don't do ohp on Tuesdays.

it indicates you are working the muscle I would assume

With fist

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I actually just realized I had this problem this week. My delts were taking over when pressing 75 DBs. Chest engagement was not that great. You need to put whatever it is to a position that engages your chest best. I lowered the weight for my press today and didn't position my elbows as far out and got a really nice chest workout in. Good luck yo.

Can I hit the fly machine after my 5x5(and dips) bench or will I ruin strength gains

I had trouble growing my chest with barbell bench, was doing 235 for 5x5

do slight incline dumbbell bench with a very deep stretch. for 5x8-10

weighted dips while leaned forward to focus on pecs

cable flyes with a pause on contraction, full stretch at depth, thumbs pointing inward through movement.

finish with machine bench press with 5 second negatives

I find that chest movements that allow for movement of the elbows behind the midline of your torso allows for better chest activation. the improved range of motion is my reasoning.