What Exercises Place Emphasis on the Armpit Area?

The muscles surrounding your armpit area are typically involved in shoulder or shoulder blade movements. These muscles -- including the serratus anterior, pectoralis minor and latissimus dorsi -- help provide your shoulders with more range of motion than any other joint in your body. Strengthening these muscles can help improve your performance in any sport in which you use your shoulder -- in other words, pretty much every sport -- and can help you lift more weight when you do exercises such as presses, rows and raises, allowing you to strengthen other muscles as well.

  1. Serratus Anterior

    • The serratus anterior is a fan-like muscle attached to the outer sides of your rib cage. To strengthen your serratus anterior, lie on an incline bench and perform an incline shoulder raise. You can perform the activity with a barbell, dumbbells, a cable or Smith machine, or a variety of other specialized machines. To do a barbell raise, hold the barbell with an overhand grip above your upper chest, with your arms extended toward the ceiling and your shoulders flat against the bench. Raise your shoulders as high as you can to push the bar upward. Clap pushups also target the serratus anterior. The muscle assists your movements on exercises such as shoulder presses, front and lateral raises, and upright rows.

    Pectoralis Minor

    • Much smaller than the other pectoralis muscles -- hence the name -- the pectoralis minor sits in front of the armpit area and helps move the shoulder blade. Due to its size, targeting the pectoralis minor is a challenge, but the muscle assists in a variety of exercises, including chest dips and standing flyes. Perform cable standing flyes by standing between a pair of high cable machines, holding the handles at the level of your lower chest with your arms extended and elbows bent slightly, then bring your hands together in front of your waist while maintaining your elbow bend. The exercise also works the latissimus dorsi.

    Latissimus Dorsi

    • Choose from a variety of exercises to target the latissimus dorsi, which lies at the back and lower regions of your armpit area. Your options include chinups and pullups as well as pulldowns and pullovers. To do the lat pulldown, attach a lat bar to a high cable machine and sit in the machine’s seat. Hold the bar with a wide grip, lean your torso back a bit, then pull the bar down to your upper chest before returning it slowly to the starting position. The exercise also works the teres major muscle in back of your armpit area.

    Considerations

    • Consult your physician before you start any new exercise program, particularly if you’ve been inactive or have any health problems. Stop performing an exercise if you feel pain. Warm up before doing any strength-training exercises with five to 10 minutes of light cardio activity. Perform dynamic stretches such as horizontal arm swings before exercising your armpit area. Use sufficient weight for all of your exercises so your final repetitions are challenging. Schedule a session with a personal trainer to be sure you’re using correct form on each activity.