Why I'm not a big fan of incline or decline pressing #shorts

​ @AENutritionist interviewed me about all things training. Here's a clip from our talk. You can find the full interview on his channel.

#chestworkout #benchpress #dips #declinepress #inclinepress #hypertrophytraining #personaltrainer #personaltrainers #personaltraining #personaltrainerlife #personaltraineronline #personaltraineruk #personaltraineronline

[tastytucker]

I know this is quite old but there was a somewhat recent study showing that incline not only works the upper chest slightly better but also works the rest of the chest just as well as flat. Going off this I would say incline is most likely the superior overall chest builder.

[chronometa]

"slight incline" is the way to go

[richardtrass]

Well personally I don’t want to hit the lower chest much if at all. I’d far rather have a big upper chest than lower chest. So incline dumbbell press and ring push ups all the way for me. Also incline press just feels way better for me biomechanically.

[timgerber]

Personally, I don’t think this is much of an issue. Actually it’s even nice, because you manage fatigue this way a bit more if you did like 3 sets incline and 3 sets decline or dips you get less fatigue than if you hit 6 sets of flat bench and you stimulate the upper and lower fibers a bit more. At least in my training I either do dips and incline db press together or flat bench and overhead presses together on the different training days. This way every angle should be covered and there’s still enough possibility to change around barbell and dumbbell exercises so they don’t go stale.

[lightningarrow]

So what? In relative terms, the upper/lower chest is still being emphasised more, so incline and decline presses still achieve what they are intended for.

[emotionalignition]

For me, the shoulder joint feels so much better with incline pressing, but I do still do flat presses too, I use a machine for flat presses, which works well for my body type.

[greenenoiseaudio]

Idk Menno. Talking about 'activity' here, my assumption is you're taking about EMG activity and i'm just not convinced of it's reliability in predicting muscle growth which is what I assume we're all interested in. In fact i'm convinced it is wholly unreliable and while it has it's uses and should still be measured, to me I basically gloss over it as giving me any worthwhile info pertaining to muscle growth.

You have much greater knowledge and access to this stuff but afaik, still the only longitudinal study we have specifically comparing bench angle on actual regional pec hypertrophy, The Chavez study, overwhelmingly shows the effects of incline on clavicular and sternal hypertrophy. With all the caveats that go with that study as pointed out in Helm's SBS article.

As others have pointed out, if you are serious and you are benching you are 1) probably going to have a combination of pressing angles anyway so it's a moot point but 2) people don't really have a problem developing the lower pec regions. The aesthetic look is being able to bring up that upper pec region, hence the extra focus on incline work.

This is anecdotal so worth jack shit but I think nearly everyone has spent time flat benching and developed that very specific look. We introduce incline pressing and hey presto, the upper pecs develop much faster relative to the rest of the pecs. You can feel that specific area working more in the movement, the muscle damage feels like it's occurring there, the pump etc etc. While this is anecdote, I feel like with more research (which we need to draw any real firm conclusions scientifically one way or the other) this is just going to be another thing that folks have intuitively being doing for ages that is eventual proven to be true.

[pvpmartins]

I thought you had suggested once the incline db press

[berryvolcano]

That's the whole point, less lower pec so when you reach point of failure the upper pec is receiving the more tension.

[carvakasatyasrutah]

Incline presses hit my upper pecs just fine esp with the supinated grip. I can even feel a localised soreness on occasion.

[butterfsh]

So.. what do we do if we want to hit the upper pecs more and lower pecs less?

[Seemind]

15 degree incline smith machine, 1 second pause on the bottom

[jerzey]

IMO this is only an issue when a person ONLY hits incline, changing your variations, every one to three meso cycles. Is probably the right answer here.

[nbarealtalker]

For most people a slight decline or slight incline is the best way to hit your ENTIRE chest.

[Walabinx]

If the goal is aesthetics, I'd argue upper pecs are way more important, such that any upper pec bias, is worth it.

At least in my own experience, if I train only flat, my pecs end up looking more like breasts 😂. Exaggeration, but still, I'd rather have muscle layered around my clavical, than hanging down from my lower chest like tits when its unflexed. This is as someone with low bodyfat btw. I just have naturally big pecs, and prefer the look of a chest with the muscle balanced toward the upper half. Supplementing with incline work gets me this look. Doing strictly flat bench, doesn't.

[cxa]

So what's the best way to hit the upper pecs?

[Pose]

That’s like saying rope pushdowns don’t hit triceps by that much - it just lessens the chest activity, compared to doing dips

[Podcasts-lbcf]

What about the stretch component? Thats a more important variable then small differences in EMG activiy

[peliac]

This has been my subjective experience as well. I fell for the incline bench press meme, and I ended up with a shrinked lower chest which looked super flat, and my front delts blew up. I have a disproportionately small chest now and its partly because I did incline religiously. I still do incline now but on a 30 degree bench on a smith machine, and after my flat presses and weighted dips. Ive gotten way better results that way.

[eyeofsauron]

Like what percentages are we talking about?