can't activate muscle? spinal injury?

[xyt]

hi guys, first post here. I searched "spinal injury" and didn't see anything pertaining to what I'm going to ask, so forgive me if I overlooked something. So basically, I suspect that I might have some sort of spinal injury in my neck or upper back. The reason being is I am unable to feel a "burn" in my chest or even feel like I'm activating my chest at all, no matter what I do. Bis, tris, back, delts, legs... all easy for me to get that pumped up/burn feeling and DOMs as well usually.

Sample workout routine would be as follows: 1. flat dumbbell presses 2. incline dumbbell presses 3. pec deck pre-exhaust superset with decline press hammer machine 4. cable flyes

I just did that workout this morning actually. I felt nothing. A felt it a tiny bit in my chest when doing the pec deck, but certainly didn't feel like I was pumping or burning the muscle. it's the weirdest thing. It puts me in a terrible mood too. I feel like a thick full chest is super important in creating an impressive looking physique.

so yeah I don't know if it's a spinal injury or possibly an alignment issue. I do feel a weird sensation with my ribcage almost like i'm somehow suffocating myself when "working" chest.

and for the record, I do the whole shoulders back thing, try to make sure tension is on chest, etc. nothing seems to work.

any help is appreciated. thanks

 

[Bosco200]

I had this same problem when I first got into lifting. I had over developed bi's tri's and delts, and bird chest. So every time I hit chest I would feel it in my delts more than anything, and it's because I was using to heavy of a weight for my flat bird chest, so my shoulders and arms would take over and compensate. So what I did was, I dropped the weight way down, really focus on a mind-muscle connection, you have to have that with chest. So let's say with flys, nice controlled rep, stop at the top and squeeze and focus on just your chest. Do this with every lift and you'll be able to focus on using your pecs for the movement overtime.

 

[xyt]

well thing is I don't necessarily have a bird chest.. but it's not full like it should be either. I've been lifting for quite a few years and I used to be able to groove the weight on my chest really well. always got sore, etc. Even with lighter weights now I don't feel anything. so spinal injury is the only thing I could think of. lee priest had a vertebrae injury to his neck in a car accident a couple years back which caused one side of his body to become unresponsive to training. was just worried it might be something similar to that.

 

[deejeff442]

My chest grows great . But when I train it my arms pump like crazy my chest don't.
It gets sore as it should next couple days but not the pump like all other muscles.actually my delts don't pump much either. As long as they grow I don't worry about it