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reps, but this is merely tradition, and there is no reason that they must be done this way. Since they use a lighter weight than the standard bench press, they can be done after a bench workout, or they can be used as a light-day exercise on a separate day. Care must be taken to hold the bar very tightly; the wrist position makes for a less secure grip than the conventional grip provides, and it has been known to fail on the way up when the wrists twitch inconveniently. Close-grips are also famous for reaching failure rather suddenly, with the last completed rep giving little indication that the next one will get stuck on the way up. As a general rule, exercises that depend on less muscle mass or fewer muscle groups tend to fail more abruptly in their bar path than do exercises that use more muscles.

Variations in angle

The other way to usefully vary the bench press involves the angle at which the humerus approaches the chest, controlled by the angle of the bench on which the exercise is performed. The back angle thus determines the quality and quantity of pectoral and deltoid involvement in the press. There are two variations from horizontal: the decline, in which the shoulders are lower than the hips; and the incline, in which the shoulders are higher than the hips.

The decline press is a rather useless exercise because the angle of the back in the decline position shortens the distance the bar can travel, decreasing the amount of work done by decreasing the range of motion. By decreasing the difficulty, the decline press increases the weight that can be used in the exercise, which in turn leads to inflated perceptions of one’s ability – it is essentially masturbation, much like that which is possible with a 30-degree leg press or a half-squat. The decline press gets recommended for its effects on the “lower pecs,” but dips perform this function much more effectively, while involving more muscle mass, more balance and coordination, and more nervous system activity, as discussed later. Declines are dangerous because if their point of contact on the lower sternum gets missed, the next stop is the throat. Couple this problem with a heavy weight and a lousy spotter, and you might have a really, really bad “chest” workout.

Figure 7-19. A comparison of the ranges of motion of the bench press and the decline bench press.

The incline bench press, however, can be a useful variation. If you are doing both bench presses and presses, then everything that the incline bench press accomplishes is redundant; there is no aspect of shoulder and chest work that these two exercises do not more than adequately cover. “Upper pecs” are quite thoroughly involved in the press, and the bench press uses the whole muscle belly, so there is no need to try to isolate this portion of the chest musculature. But many sports involve the use of the arms at an angle somewhere above 90 degrees from the torso, and some people believe that this angle should be specifically targeted for resistance training. The incline bench press does this, albeit at the cost of the body’s being supported at this angle while the work is being done, something that never occurs during the sports in question (see the discussion of this in Chapter 3).

Figure 7-20. The position of the bar in the incline bench press, directly over a point just below the point where the collarbones meet the sternum. The bar will be very close to the chin on the way down.

But limitations are what make them “assistance” exercises – if they were perfect, they’d be major exercises and have their own chapters. The incline is useful in some cases, as long as it’s done correctly; but it is easy to cheat, and pointless when cheated. Most commonly, the effects of the angle of incline are negated when the trainee raises his hips up off of the incline bench, thus making his torso more horizontal. If a horizontal bench press is what you want to do, just do the bench press. Indeed, this is a good reason to just bench press and press. When doing inclines, people often allow their greed