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This is a great exercise, when performed correctly. Here’s a few tips to keep in mind:
1. You should lower the barbell to your collarbone, not to the middle portion of your chest. Think about the mechanics here; if you lower the bar to the middle portion of your chest, your actually lowering it down and forward, putting your shoulders at an awkward angle and not isolating your chest. Try lowering towards your collarbone; you should feel a deeper stretch at the bottom and a more forceful contraction at the top. And you’ll probably be able to use more weight.
2. Way too many folks grip the bar at the same position as flat barbell bench–don’t do it! With incline bench, you should grip the bar a few inches wider than you would with flat barbell bench. Oftentimes, if you try to use the same grip, you’ll notice that your elbows no longer form 90-degree angles with your forearms at the bottom position (the sign of an ideal grip), but instead form acute angles (the sign of a grip that’s too narrow). So widen your grip; you should feel the added emphasis in your upper chest immediately.
3. Adjust your angles; no one ever said the incline bench had to be at a specific angle all the time. While you won’t be able to adjust the angle of the bench for a free-weight incline barbell bench, you will if you use the smith machine or dumbbells. So consider incorporating the latter two into your workouts, and adjust the high of the bench from time to time–generally, you should be more concerned with lowering it to different increments rather than raising it, since the higher the bench is situated, the more you’ll work your shoulders (think of the military press as an incline bench that’s completely vertical–see what I mean?).
4. Incline bench is often a weakness for many lifters, and for this reason, many people include it later in their workouts. But this thinking is totally wrong; you should always try to prioritize you weaknesses. In this case, that means performing incline bench first in your workout. Or you can compromise; if you train chest twice a week, for example, begin one workout with an incline movement and the next with a flat movement. Or if you train chest once a week, alternate each week; for week 1, start with a flat bench movement, for week 2, start with an incline movement. Either way, remember to prioritize incline bench (barbell or dumbbell) in at least every other chest workout.
5. Pay attention to your feet. They should be flat on the ground during your lift, giving your body a stable base. At the same time, make sure you don’t push through your legs so much that you lift your lower back off of the pad, which constitutes poor lifting form and will, most likely, lead to an injury.
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