Thread: Flat or incline bench press

Hi,
I'm doing the flat bench press lately. I'm wondering if it would be better to:
1) swap this round with incline every week (i.e. 1 week flat, next week incline), or
2) to maybe keep on flat for a few more weeks, and then change to incline for the next few weeks?

If I do option 1) will I get as much chest muscle development as if I did 2) (i.e. as you're switching emphasis every week)? As when I've tried option 2) before, I've found my lower and mid chest lost some muscularity.

Or, do you recommend just flat bench, and if so, will this effectively hit the whole chest (inc. upper to a good enough degree)?

Thanks in advance.

If you value your shoulders stick to incline

I like flat bench, I feel that I get a good lift when I do flat bench. depends on what makes you feel comfortable and what week spots your tying to improve.

I pretty much stick to Incline now. Not done flat bench in AGES...

Geo

on week flat one weel incline.

Originally Posted by ParaManiac

If you value your shoulders stick to incline

I've recently stopped doing flat bench, really irritated my shoulder (had an injury ages ago), i use dumbells now for both flat and incline, feels much better IMO, and seems to hit my chest better.

Its always a good idea to switch you routine around though, but maybe not every week.

I have always done both the same day 3 sets of each

I always change my workout, somtimes will do both somtimes one also swap for dumbells

Decline. No pain in my shoulder and apparently works the pec more than flat.

Originally Posted by dmcc

Decline. No pain in my shoulder and apparently works the pec more than flat.

Using the Smith(light weight) decline press was one of the exercise's i was advised to perform while recovering from shoulder impingement.

Along with DB rehab exercises this worked well.

Make sure you have your thumbs at the same side of the bar as your fingers (so the bar sits on across your palms) and both should hit the chest.
Alternating could be good.
Stow

Originally Posted by Greekgoddess

I do both, with both barbell and dbells in the same workout.

Same here

Originally Posted by MXMAD

Same here

And here

would you still get good chest growth from just doing inclines? I normally do DB flat and incline but my right shoulder always kills after a workout.

I tend to do Flat bench all the time.. Then a mixture of Incline and flat DB press.. and a little decline benching.