Three Angles of Bench Press

The bench press is one of the best exercises for the upper body. Not only does the bench press hit the chest but also works the shoulders and the triceps. I know that there is lots to this fantastic exercise so I thought an article was in order to look at how to make the bench press a better exercise for you.

Three Angles of Bench Press

There are three angles that you can do bench presses. Incline bench press, flat bench press, and decline bench press. Here are the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Flat Bench Press – As I stated before the flat bacnh is a great exercise. The flat bench works your entire top, middle, and lower pectoral muscles (chest)Amazingly when you do this exercise you think it is a chest exercise but I find that the front deltoids (shoulders) are recruited quite a bit as well as the triceps. I have almost done away with arm work thanks to the compound exercises like bench press that I do.

Incline Bench Press – Inclines are one with the bench up a little, although some people I believe overdo this. You will notice that the weight lifted is a lot less as you will be using your upper chest muscles which are not as strong or dense as the rest of your chest. As you increase the andle of the bench you will find that you are getting more recruitment from the deltoids but also hitting higher up in the chest and less in the middle and not any lower chest.

Decline Bench Press – I think the lower bench is not used very often at all. I have done this a lot in the past and the weight that you can lift is significantly higher than you can lift doing a flat bench. The decline bench is a lot more of a lowering and then shoving up of the bar and you can really feel the lower pecs being used. The problem is that you most people want a bigger upper pec, above the nipple, not a big lower pec.

There is no way that you can avoid the bench press and while walking though the gym you have probably seen many people doing lots of kinds of bench presses you now know that there are many options of bench presses and different ways to hit your chest. This will be good and I have made sure that I alternate these angles quite often.

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Bench Press Tips for better bench presses

Bench Press Tips

Bench presses are some the best exercises that we can do and these bench press tips will totally build your upper body for the upper body.

I have written before about how there are different angles for bench press but there is also a lot of tips that can make your bench presses more effective and your chest gains better as well.

Bench Press Rep Speed – The most important thing to get right is the speed and intesity of your reps. Make sure that you get your pacing right with the declining part of the rep being slow, about two seconds, and as you are raising the bar up make sure that it is faster. The lowering part of the rep is the most important and will build the muscle.

Bench Press Set Length – You need to do only a few reps per set of bench press. six to eight reps is fine for bench press. But most importantly you need to be completely spent by the time that your set ends. There are several ways to do this but most importantly you need to.

Advanced Bench Press Tips

There are a few ways to make more of your bench press and these are by upping the intensity of your sets and reps. These methods are going to make you sore but the idea is to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible in your bench press. These bench press tips are great but are not tips for beginners.

Negatives – Negatives bench presses are done with a training partner. What you need to do is half reps. Have the training partner lift the weight off your chest and then do a rep back down slowly to your chest. Once the weight gets to the bottom your partner will raise it for you.

Stripping Weight - Start your set with a higher weight than normal. This weight should only allow you to do 3 full reps. Once you do these reps then you can quickly jump off and take some weight off so that you can get another three reps. This means that you will be getting even more muscle fiber recruitment than you could get from one set.

Supersets for Chest – Finally you can do supersets. Supersets are when you weaken your muscle with one exercise and then immediately do another exercise to finish them off. Start with a set of bench press and then when there is nothing left you quickly move to flyes to finish off your chest.

As I said before these tips are not for everyone but instead for more advanced weight lifters. Try your best to get the most from your bench press workouts using these bench press tips and therefore build a bigger and stronger chest.

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