Upper Pecs - Incline Presses or Not?

[KBD]

try doing flat bench but with a reverse grip. Lower slowly then push up in an arch towards the rack... Sounds counter-intuitive I know but just try it. Mix it in with incline presses and the flyes really develop the area around the clavicle.

I dont arch my back and pinch my shoulder blades when i bench, i do flat back. So all my mass went to my tris and shoulders lol. Started arching my back today. Felt it pretty good.

 

[scarl3tbutt3rfly]

and if anyone tells you DECLINE works upper pecs... slap them in the face for being stupid...

^^This. I don't get how decline bench would work upper chest

low angle. 20-30 degrees. dumbell or barbell. i dont buy the fly idea because they dont really build mass and are more of a precontest move.

I agree with this, in fact my trainer doesn't even have me do flyes, you can't use enough weight to really use them for growth, they are one of those exercises, that just SEEMS like it does something. Plus they seem to bother my shoulders..

 

[RedNeck]

Incline dumbell presses work great for me. Also have been messing around with reverse grip inclines, with light weight and slow concentrated reps and really work on squeezing the fuck out my pecs when doing them. Don't knpw if anybody has messed around wih doing it before but it really has been doing wonders for upper inner pecs.

The reason I see people and hear people saying incline doesn't work is because they are using the wrong angle the majority of the time.

 

[Like_a_Weed]

Reverse grip inclines and dips for sure. I really like doing close grip inclines but of course that's putting alot more on the triceps. Id like to try close grip reverse sometime, but I tend to believe you hit the entire chest when you train chest and distribution of growth is more genetic than anything. We all have a certain shape we are born with.

 

[MAYO]

low angle. 20-30 degrees. dumbell or barbell. i dont buy the fly idea because they dont really build mass and are more of a precontest move.

To each his/her own. I changed my chest routine to begin with heavy flys before benching and the results were evident. Different bodies, different systems.

 

[Benchingover500]

My favorite is reverse grip bench. It worded pretty good for me. If you have two days of chest, try reverse grip followed by low weight bench in the following manner. Note, you want to do at least 2 sets of these preferably 3 sets. You must finish a set once you start even if you have to lower the weight. The idea is to work every fiber of the your chest. So you do a set of reverse grip, then with not rests in between, you bench 12 reps of flat bench, no rest, incline the bench 30 degrees, bench 12, no rest, incline bench 45 degrees, bench 12, no rest, incline the bench 60 degrees, no rest, incline bench 45 degrees, bench 12, no rest, incline the bench 30 degrees, bench 12, no rest, flat bench bench 12. Rest and repeat. This works. If you try this and like it, do it for a month. I have some other chest exercises I did to get growth if you want to know.

 

[ICE]

More importantly, keep your elbows up closer to your ears and you'll start feeling it in your upper pecs. Once I started doing this, my upper pecs started catching up.

 

[fixxer]

^I gotta say, one of my buddies benches with his elbows flared out and he's got a killer chest. I scold him for benching like that because it's incorrect, but I can't deny my jealousy of his chest. He's also had shoulder problems, so....I don't know..

 

[rocco]

low incline smith machine all the way down,flat smith machine to the neck and heavy incline flyes not coming together at the top just doing the botom half of the rep.

 

[Muscle Man]

Incline bench IS good for upper pecs, but the big mistake I see guys making is arching their back so much that their chest is actually parallel to the floor, as in regular benches. You gotta keep your back on the bench to isolate the upper pecs. The bench on most barbell inclines is fixed in place, but I've noticed they vary from gym to gym. If the incline is really steep, the anterior delts start to play a part; when the bench is toward the flatter side, the lower pecs start to play a part. The benches used for dumbbell inlines and flyes are usually adjustable, so you can set it to work the upper pecs at a slightly different angle from the barbell bench. I think it's good to change the angle a little from one workout to the next. Also remember on the barbell, the closer your grip, the more the triceps take over from the pecs; the wider the grip the more the pecs are worked. Declines DO work the lower pecs, in my opinion.

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[eknight]

Broscience hard at work here. The clavicular head of the pec major's distal attachment is the same as the stern head and they share a common innervation. Would love to know how angle of inclination can preferentially recruit fibers from one head and not the other? Oh, right- it can't, and the EMG analysis proves it:


http://www.daveywaveyfitness.com/wp...the-EMG-Activity-of-Five-Shoulder-Muscles.pdf

http://www.aptonovo.com/carlossilvapersonaltrainer/artigos/Eletromiografia do Peitoral.pdf

Both came to similar conclusions:

"The sternocostal head of the pectoralis major was more active during the press from a horizontal bench than from a decline bench. Also, the clavicular head of the pectoralis major was no more active during the incline bench press than the horizontal one, but it was less active during the decline bench press." (Barnett, et al.)

"No significant differences were seen in upper pectoral activation between incline and decline bench press." (Glass and Armstrong)

-EK

 

[Muscle Man]

Then why don't you go to every gym in the world and tell them to remove their incline benches and decline benches because they have no value, based on a study by some pencil neck geeks who are the same guys who wrote in every steroid package insert sheet, "Note: Anabolic steroids do not improve athletic importance."

Anyway, you selected only certain conclusions from the first study. Other were:

The sternocostal head of the pectoralis major was more active during the press from a horizontal bench than from a decline bench.

The clavicular head of the pectoralis major ... was less active during the decline bench press [than during the horizontal one].

Anterior deltoid activity tended to increase as trunk inclination increased.