Incline vs. Flat

RUSS

RUSS

Member
The internet is full of this question- but unlike here, the internet is also full of arm chair philosophers whose opinion may not be worth much.

I'm really looking for empirical evidence here: has anyone dropped flat completely and used JUST incline as their chest movement for a long enough period of time to draw a conclusion as to it's effect compared to flat?

I've always done flat , with periods of flat+incline; lately I've been doing only incline but am plagued with "second guessing" this change. I don't enjoy multiple movements for a muscle group - I would rather focus on one and hammer it than split my energy between two. I don't get on with dips so I am either going to flat or incline .

I am enjoying incline only and not missing the shoulder issues that flat seemed to inevitably bring with it periodically. but after 20 some years of grinding it out on flat I am having a hard time mentally with wondering if I am making a mistake - please share any experience with this situation.
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I am aware of the electrical stimulation tests , their results and such -blah blah blah - I just want to hear YOUR experience with using only incline and what results you experienced.
 
Any reason why Declines are not in the equation?

My personal opinion, I prefer Declines. Flat and Incline, just shift more emphasis onto my front delts. My reasoning is I'm not doing Bench for my shoulders, so Declines it is.
 
Point taken - I have never really done declines as the sole chest move . I have done them but usually during "bodybuilding" oriented routines where they were one of 3-4 movements for that particular body part.

Certainly something to think about and I appreciate the input.
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i have only done inclines for a few yrs,because flat gives me shoulder probs,i use the first notch so not a massive incline but enough to stop my shoulder probs,IMO my chest has improved probably because its more comfortable to do now (not sure)
 
Hi

Well, I did dips, (with weight belt attached) emphasising chest for years - and built up a good size because of it.
However, my chest did seem a little 'low'?
So I've now added incline bench to my workout too.
As my upper chest is the weaker area, I do the inclines first and then hit dips - in which I'm much stronger - later in my workout.

Dips done properly are fantastic for chest growth, IMO

I do feel that I'm maybe a little bit stronger in flat bench than in Incline, but otherwise I dont really do them anymore.

If you really only want to do one, then I would still go with dips first. (Or declines if you dont have access to good dip bars)

Hope that helps?

Brix
 
I'm very happy with the responses thus far , on other boards it seems that posters will either echo the response of the "alpha" poster or devolve into pointless arguments over the ability/inability to isolate upper/lower chest.

I truly appreciate that there is a place (here) that one can go to get straight forwards answers to simple questions.

I am admittedly an "older" lifter and gravity , years of Flat bench focus, and perhaps genetics have all conspired to ensure that my lower /mid chest is not lacking in mass. As erroneous as the idea that I can "target" upper chest MAY be , my shoulders are loving inclines - I personally am not feeling it in my front delts any where near the degree that I did on flat ( and I always benched PLer style elbows "tucked') - go figure...

I appreciate the responses.
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I did only incline for quite a long time after I developed RC issues on the flat bench. My chest was never sore & I felt like it hardly received any stimulation at all. However, my delts over power my pecs, so they naturally move in to take over much of the load when both flat & incline bench pressing (unless i use a 'strange' form which causes me to lower weight significantly, and that never works out too well). Flat dumbbell presses work very well to isolate my pecs. It all depends on your body type. If you have a big chest I doubt you'll have any problems with incline.
 
Same as Steve, shoulder problem, and did incline db work for a couple years, building the upper pecs. But, as also an older lifter, my lower pecs suffered a bit and I'm now trying to do a lot of decline work to keep from getting those lower-deflated "old man" pecs that look like old rubber masks.
 
all else equal, one can generally use greater loads with flat.
 
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