Inclined Chest Presses

Video Transcript

"Hi this is Aaron Hale at Fitness for Life in Wilmington, North Carolina here to demonstrate for you the inclined chest press. Inclined chest press can be done several different ways. I am going to demonstrate it for you with dumb bells, bar bells or using a Smith Machine is just as beneficial. The Smith Machine kind of limits your range of motion so if you feel a little shifty performing this movement then probably stick with the Smith Machine but if you feel comfortable with the free weights you can do an open chain movement which is, I'm getting ready to perform for you here with the dumb bells, or a closed chain movement with the bar bells. So again I have selected a weight that is pretty easy for me to do here on my first set. I have my bench already set at the incline which is approximately at a 45 degree angle. This one is actually a little bit more shallow. So now that I am prepared for the bench and to perform the movement we will go ahead and grip the dumb bells which I have setting on my knees. Again it is just a nice light grip, we don't want to really focus on gripping and we also don't want to have our thumbs on the opposite side. That also kind of focuses our grip and we grip too hard so with having our thumbs on this side kind of forces us to have a little bit lighter grip. So now I am going to take the weight from my knees and press it right above my chest right into the movement so a lot of people want to just take it straight back and get it settled down into their arm pits and then press it back up. It is easier just to take this weight straight from your knees up above you so just move it straight back just like that. Now we're in an out position, we have got the dumb bells right above our chest here and we're going to take the weight down on either side of our shoulder. We are going to come right here where our elbows are just in line with our shoulders. We don't want to get too far down here, that is where we start getting impingements and shoulder injuries. So we're right here and this is our bottom. Now we are ready to perform our concentric movement which is to really focus on squeezing the inner chest and press the weight back up. So we drop down, we are just going to open the chest up. We get down here to our bottom where our elbows are in line with our shoulders and as we press the weight back up really focus on squeezing the chest on the way up, get up top, hold that contraction for a moment hold back down nice and slow, drive the weight back up and squeeze the chest. A good visual for this movement, when you are going up think about squeezing a peanut or something like that or a golf ball in between your pecs and that will help you really focus on that squeeze that you are looking for and that proper contraction engagement as you are reaching the apex there. Also what you want to do and I have noticed this over time people kind of go a little short so when you are pressing the weight back up, a lot of people just kind of get right here, we want to make sure that we get all the way up to the top so pick a point on the ceiling and really reach for it. That is going to help you to really get that proper engagement in the chest. So full extension reach up at the top and that is how to do an inclined chest press."