What is the best angle to use on the bench press?
When determining the best angle of bench press for you to use there can be a lot that goes into making your final choice.
However, for most practical reasons the answer is really as simple as “whatever works for you and feels the best”.
What does that even mean?
If the exercise does any of these things for you, then it’s probably a sign you should keep it:
- Gives you a good mind-muscle connection
- Does not cause any weird popping/joint pain
- You can literally feel blood flowing to it while working out aka THE PUMP
- It is fun enough to keep you coming back
That is typically the criteria that I use to gauge whether or not I keep a particular exercise in my arsenal, or if I forget about it forever. The most important thing when working out is that you find exercises that satisfy the entire list above, or at least 3 of the 4 items.
Now how does that criteria translate into the bench press you ask? Well for me it is simple.
The only version of the bench press that can satisfy the entire list above for me personally – is the Incline variation. When I select the bench press, my goal is to get the best chest workout that I possibly can.
Now I am not the only one who feels this way.
There are tons of successful athletes like Chris Bumstead, Regan Grimes, and others who prefer this variation as well. It is a lot easier on the shoulders, and less weight is required to target the chest.
The reason that incline provides the best workout for me is because on the flat or decline variation I feel way too much interaction from other muscles such as the delts, or triceps and they become the dominant muscle in the movement.
When performing the incline variation, I am able to place much more emphasis on my chest and hardly feel my delts or triceps engaged at all.
How do you know which exercise is going to be the best for you?
Well you have to try them out, and then you also have to make a logical decision based off of the other exercises you perform for other body parts. If you are very shoulder dominant or triceps dominant like me, then incline may be the best for you. Otherwise, it still comes down to personal preference – especially for those of you who can build a chest using flat or decline movements.
If you are able to get a good mind-muscle connection from the flat/decline variation then those may prove to be more effective for building muscle mass as you are able to load up significantly more weight in those angles. That is the bottom line on how you should choose your preference.
In Conclusion…
There is no such thing as an upper or lower chest, or being able to somehow target one part more than the other. It simply comes down to how well you can target the overall muscle and if you can do that best on the incline variation, then you are going to see the most benefit from that exercise.
I recommend doing slow and controlled reps in every angle to determine which variation best satisfies the 4 criteria on the list mentioned early. This should be the exercise you try to prioritize in your workouts. With that being said, you can still do the other angles especially if they do not ‘hurt’ your shoulders or cause any pain.
Variation is truly key, but there are other ways you can optimize your bench press. The best place to learn is by emulating the form of trainers like Athlean X or other youtube athletes.
Feel free to share this post and continue reading other articles on my website to learn more about the methods I use when training and dieting.
