A Better Way to 'Stretch' Your Pecs

The way to stretch the pecs statically is pretty straightforward. You can simply perform a door stretch.

However, static stretching doesn't always make lasting change. When stretching the pecs, you likely want to keep the range of motion you are gaining.

With that in mind, there's a 'better way to stretch'. And that 'better way' isn't necessarily the stretch itself, but rather a way to address multiple aspects of the muscle.

Specifically, we want to do some soft tissue work on the pecs, a stretch with reps, and then some loaded movement.

This way we get the muscle tension to decrease with the soft tissue work, we put the muscle under tension and longer lengths with the stretch, and we train the overall range of motion with some loaded movement.

Sometimes stretching the pecs is actually painful for people and this creates an issue. If you blame tight pecs for your shoulder pain and then perform pec stretches to address the tight pecs, but that stretching causes shoulder pain, what do you do?

Working on just the soft tissue might be the right decision in this case. You have to consider that stretching the pecs does require a certain amount of stress to the shoulder joint. If that stress isn't tolerated (meaning there is pain) then stretching the pecs isn't a good option in that case.

Stretching should always be pain free with the primary feeling being a stretch in the muscle. If you feel it in your shoulder joint, you need to modify the stretch somehow (either by changing your arm position or choosing a different stretch) and focus on the pain free things you can do, like rolling with a lacrosse or tennis ball.