What Muscles Do The Incline Bench Work?
The incline bench press works a variety of muscles in the chest, arms and shoulders. A variation of the traditional bench press, which uses a flat bench, the incline bench press uses a bench that is positioned more vertically in relation to the bench press bar. The incline bench press focuses mainly on the muscles of the upper chest, which makes this a great exercise for shaping and building the hard-to-target upper pectoral muscles.
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Pectoral Muscles
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The incline bench press is a chest exercise that uses a slight variation on the standard bench press. An exercise that mainly targets the pectoral muscles in the chest, the incline bench press focuses the majority of muscle recruitment and muscle action on the upper pectoral muscles. Unlike the standard bench press, which targets the pectoral muscles as a whole, the incline bench press is a more specialized exercise that is used to build strength and/or size in a more focused area of the pectoral muscles. Although many other muscles are involved when executing an incline bench press, the bulk of muscle action is concentrated on the upper pectoral muscles.
Deltoids Muscles
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In addition to the pectoral muscles, an incline bench press significantly targets the muscles of the shoulders, or deltoids. When an incline bench press repetition is executed, the majority of the lift is made possible by both pectoral and deltoid muscle involvement. In fact, the deltoid muscles are used almost as much as the pectoral muscles are when doing an incline bench press. The main reason being that the incline bench press movement puts a tremendous amount of strain on the entire upper chest area, an area that is defined mainly by the pectoral muscle girdle as well as the thick, powerful muscles of the shoulders. And just as the majority of loading is concentrated in the upper pectoral muscles when executing an incline bench press, deltoid muscle stimulation is targeted mainly towards the upper portion of the deltoid muscles.
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Triceps Muscles
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The triceps muscles are the big, thick muscles located on the backs of the arms, on the opposite sides of the biceps. A great deal of triceps muscle involvement is used when executing an incline bench press. The triceps muscles are very powerful stabilizer muscles that contract and tighten in order to make the arms more rigid and solid during heavy lifts. During an incline bench press lift, the triceps muscles provide tremendous stabilizing and supporting power to the arms, which in turns allows for better control and stability of the incline bench press bar, which in turn allows for easier lifting and more effective overall muscle fiber recruitment, both in the muscles of the shoulder and chest as well as the triceps muscles.
Forearm Muscles
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As with most other types of weight-lifting maneuvers, the muscles in the forearms are stressed to small degrees during execution of an incline bench press lift. Although the forearm muscles provide no great benefit or support to the actual incline bench press lift, they do provide small amounts of stabilization to the arms, and to a lesser degree to the hands, which aids in the actual gripping of the incline bench press bar. During an incline bench press lift, very little obvious stress is placed on the forearm muscles themselves, other than the small amounts of forearm muscle activation that occur whenever an object is grasped or gripped, as is the case when the hands grip the incline bench press bar in preparation for the actual lift.
Latissimus Dorsi Muscles
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When doing any type of bench press, whether a flat bench press, an incline bench press, or a decline bench press, the muscles on the lateral sides of the back, the lattisimus dorsi, are recruited to varying degrees in order to assit with the bench press lift. The incline bench press stimulates small amounts of latissimus dorsi action, mainly when the incline bench press bar is lowered towards the chest. In this phase of the lift, otherwise known as the negative phase, the latissimus dorsi muscles contract and provide small amounts of stability to the body's core, which in turn helps to keep the incline bench press lift stabilized and under smooth, constant control. Although the latissimus dorsi muscles are not directly worked during execution of an incline bench press, they do receive small amounts of muscle stimulation and action.
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