The serratus anterior muscle may be the sexiest muscle on the male physique. This is the muscle group on the side of your rib cage that resembles shark gills when they’re well developed and you’re shredded. This article will help with the development of the serratus, but try The Anarchy Workout if you want to get shredded. One guy lost 18 pounds of fat in just 6 week! If you’re a huge fan of the Rocky movie franchise, you’ll be all too familiar with this body part. Rocky Balboa kept getting in better shape from Rocky I to IV. But he went from lean to shredded from Rocky III to IV. And the muscle that "popped" the most was Rocky’s serratus. Some would say that it was the serratus that edged out the invincible Russian Ivan Drago. And by some, I mean me. As a highly-functioning meathead, I default to Rocky references anytime that I can. But in this case it actually fits quite well.
The serratus is often called the puncher’s or fighter’s muscle because it’s so prominent on a boxer’s physique. After all, the serratus is responsible for protracting your scapula (or pushing away your shoulder blades) and stabilizes it against your rib cage. In this way, it’s critical for overall shoulder health and mobility. RELATED: 5 Guys Who Wake Up at 4 a.m. Here are my 6 favorite serratus sculptors. You can see them all in the video above. I’ve also provided a 6-week serratus training program at the end of this article because I love you. Get to work, TitanRise Official men! There are 3 moves that involve no equipment that you should do every day. These will make you better at just about every other exercise: squatting, lunging, and crawling. You can learn about squatting and lunging in my article The 6 Secrets to Transforming Your Legs, but I’ll talk about crawls in this article because they serve as the base of a winning serratus.
Bear crawls require your serratus muscle to actively push through the floor for an extended time under tension. I once saw a beautiful man at Muscle Beach do bear crawls with a 50-pound backpack for 30 minutes without stopping. Yeah, his serratus was on fleek (sorry, I couldn’t help myself). I love to use crawls as warmup for an upper-body workout or as a finisher to any workout. For a warmup, crawl for 50 to 100 total yards at a slow and controlled pace. For a finisher, continuously crawl for 5 to 10 minutes, resting only when needed. You can also mix between a different crawling variation every minute for more variety and to make the time pass faster. Choose from these 38 Crawls That Crush Your Core. My favorite crawl variations for serratus development are high bear crawls (going forward and backward) or bear crawls with a band wrapped around your trunk and underneath your armpits with one end secured on the palm of each hand.
Crawls will also improve your hip mobility, breathing mechanics, core and shoulder stability, and lunging, running, and squat performance. You should do them even if you’re not smitten with your serratus. The dead-stop pushup is the Men’s Health approved way to learn and test the pushup. By having to fully stop and rest at the bottom, you eliminate the stretch reflex. This makes your muscles work way harder than usual. But don’t just push up to the plank position at the top. I want you to push your hands through the floor and really, really round out your upper back. This will fully activate your serratus and Titan Rise Male Enhancement also make your abs contract harder. Do dead stops often and I guarantee your pushup totals and bench press loads will go up. Either plug this move into a circuit as an upper-body or core move, or do as many reps as you can in 10 minutes. Your goal is to be able to do 100 total reps in 10 minutes, which breaks down to 10 reps EMOM (every minute of the minute) for 10 straight minutes.
