Alright, who does em?


Recently started doing incline barbell presses to bring my upper chest up, and damn am I not that good at them.
I can bench all day long with decent weight, but I worked up to 315 on inclines and I am struggling.

I hope they are worth all the trouble...

I do em at least once a week.

315 is pretty decent weight

Shit, anyone doing 315 inclines is my friend.  

You gotta be over 350 bench.  Never in my life will I approach that.

guys guys guys...

I mean, relative to my weight, I weigh 261lbs, on the flat bench I can hit sets of 405 for 3-5.

315 on the incline is a MAJOR drop off, and not that much weight. Some of you guys weighing 150-180lbs and are able to hit 225+ on inclines, stronger then me, lb for lb.

I feel like I must not be setting my feet up properly, or my damn delts are WEAK.

I don't think I could roll 315 around on the floor much less incline it. My incline is much lower than my flat or decline. I've been thinking I need to switch them to my heaviest day to help bring them up.

You sound very much like myself 4 years ago when I was a senior in high school I used to flat bench 405 for 5 reps and max out at around 450 and could only incline 315 for sets of 8 sometimes 10 on a good day. So I think you are doing pretty good and I personally think inclines are very important to do so keep em up and you will improve.

Got any tips?

Something is wrong, over 100lb drop off from flat bench to inclines.

I am sore as shit though, 3 days after the workout. So they must be doing SOMETHING

Thats normal.  I can bench around 315 flat, and incline I have to work for 275.  You will find that the more you work on it, the stronger you get.  It uses a lot more front delt and upper chest.  As for tips, I have found that I do better when I drop the reps to a final set of six and focus on strength for inclines, then the reps follow.

It was always a huge dropoff for me from flat to incline.  I could do the same (sometimes more) on decline than I could flat, but the incline killed me.

I never closed the gap, but the inclines did help break a flat bench plateau or two.

Only tips I can give you is keep doing them and you will notice that they will get easier and your flat bench will go up as well and since you are going to be working your front delts a lot more make sure on back day you are doing enough rear delts to keep your body balanced to prevent injuries.

Yep there was always a drop for me too. You are going to more of front delts and the thinner top of the pecs. These are smaller muscles/part of muscle and they just will not push as much as the more powerfull part of your pecs, especially when you first start. Plus I think you take some of your arms out of it when you incline vs flat.

My max bench 3reps (when I cared about stuff like that and before I hurt my shoulder) was 310. My work out weight for inclines was 160 and I'm 6'0 210lbs (never did max, but quess it would be around 200).

Just think back to the first time you did squats. You were probably very unsteady and disappointed that you were not throwing as much weight as you thought you should have. But a couple of weeks later, if you were like me, you doubled what you were putting up just 2 weeks prior and then doubled again with in the month.

Don't get all hung up on how much you lift etc, just strive to make improvements. As for them being worth it, they are when you get that nice well defined ridge at the top our your pecs.

J-

Your're joking, right?

Usually long before a guy gets to your advanced level of training, he realizes that incline is WAY more important than flat bench.  Gives your chest a much better look, and has a much lower incidence of injury as well.

I've got a buddy who is tight with the last decade's Mr. Os, and flat barbell bench isn't done a whole lot in those circles.

Incline>flat
Dumbells>barbell

I come from a powerlifting background, flat bench is king, lots of 3boarding, wasn't lifting to be pretty, lifting to get strongggggg

I'm trying to learn all these bodybuilding movements, watching M3 kevin levrone, he sure as hell does barbell inclines and heavy as hell, same with dennis james.
I'm using dumbbells also, but trying to get good at incline barbell right now..

Love them  My best 275 at 180

How do your shoulders feel afterward?  You're going to put more of the load on your anterior deltoids by inclining, and they may be the "weak link", so to speak.

any time i've plateaued with my benches - flat or incline - i reduce the weight 10-20% and up my reps.  i do this for 4-6 weeks, it has always worked.  especially with inclines, it takes a while for the smaller, balance/supporting muscles to catch up with the big ones.  reducing the weight gives them a chance to catch-up.  by the way, doing 315 for reps is excellent, just be patient and don't be too proud to reduce the weight.

Incline dumbell has been the core of my chest workout for the better part of a decade.

Occasionally,  I put more of an emphasis on flat barbell, and my front delts grow substantially more than my chest.