# Flat or incline bench press



## driver26 (Jan 7, 2009)

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.


----------



## ParaManiac (Mar 20, 2007)

If you value your shoulders stick to incline


----------



## MasterBlaster (Dec 6, 2008)

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.


----------



## Geo (Apr 3, 2007)

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

Geo


----------



## delhibuilder (Mar 24, 2008)

on week flat one weel incline.


----------



## lethal86 (Jan 13, 2009)

ParaManiac said:


> 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.


----------



## Grim_Reaper (Feb 16, 2008)

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


----------



## eurgar (May 5, 2008)

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


----------



## dmcc (Nov 25, 2007)

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


----------



## ParaManiac (Mar 20, 2007)

dmcc said:


> 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.


----------



## stow (Jun 5, 2007)

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


----------



## MXMAD (Oct 11, 2007)

Greekgoddess said:


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


Same here :thumbup1:


----------



## newdur (Dec 8, 2008)

MXMAD said:


> Same here :thumbup1:


 And here:thumbup1:


----------



## NeilpWest (Aug 19, 2007)

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.


----------



## T_Woody (Jul 16, 2008)

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


----------



## j4ldo (Sep 20, 2008)

NeilpWest said:


> 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 have wondered this also ?


----------



## driver26 (Jan 7, 2009)

Cheers guys. I do personally prefer flat bench. I'm just wondering if this will hit the whole chest sufficiently. I've heard lots of conflicting info on this, i.e. some say it works the whole chest including the upper, and others say you need to do incline to hit the upper. I will probably swap round in the future, and do both in one workout (I used to do this, but schedule constraints at the moment, etc). As far as I'm concerned, the whole chest should be affected effectively enough from the flat shouldn't it?

Thanks.


----------



## lethal86 (Jan 13, 2009)

NeilpWest said:


> 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.


How deep do you go? (ooo errr)

I tend to go just past parallel, and go slowly and controlled on the negative. If i go down too far it can irritate my shoulder.


----------



## NeilpWest (Aug 19, 2007)

lethal86 said:


> How deep do you go? (ooo errr)
> 
> I tend to go just past parallel, and go slowly and controlled on the negative. If i go down too far it can irritate my shoulder.


with DBs i take my arm as low as poss so the weights touch my sides. I thought that was the whole point to get more of a stretch? Knowing my luck ive been doing myself harm.


----------

