After a minimum of three days of rest, subjects
returned to the lab for a second day of testing. Electromyography
(EMG) electrodes were carefully placed on the
pectoralis major muscles of each subject. EMG testing
and analysis included motor-unit recruitment, firing rate
and synchronization to determine which chest exercise
resulted in the highest level of muscle activation.
After a short warm-up, subjects performed five repetitions
(with 30 seconds of rest between reps) of each
of the nine chest exercises, in random order. For the
exercises that did not use body weight, subjects used
80 percent of their predetermined 1RM for the exercise.
Following each exercise, subjects were given five minutes