Smith Machine Incline Bench Press

BeginnerMachineCompoundPushStrength
Smith Machine Incline Bench Press — start position
Smith Machine Incline Bench Press — end position

How to do it

  1. Place an incline bench underneath the smith machine. Place the barbell at a height that you can reach when lying down and your arms are almost fully extended. Once the weight you need is selected, lie down on the incline bench and make sure your upper chest is aligned with the barbell. Using a pronated grip (palms facing forward) that is wider than shoulder width, unlock the bar from the rack and hold it straight over you with your arms locked. This will be your starting position.
  2. As you breathe in, come down slowly until you feel the bar on your upper chest.
  3. After a second pause, bring the bar back to the starting position as you breathe out and push the bar using your chest muscles. Lock your arms in the contracted position, hold for a second and then start coming down slowly again. Tip: It should take at least twice as long to go down than to come up.
  4. Repeat the movement for the prescribed amount of repetitions.
  5. When you are done, place the bar back in the rack.

Muscles worked

Primary:Chest

Programming this lift? The warm-up calculator builds your ramp, and the 1RM calculator sets your percentages.

More chest exercises

All chest exercises →

This is one card in your program builder

Trainers on AirFit drag movements like this into programs — demo media included — and clients follow them and log sets in AirFit on iOS, Android or the web. Lifters: AirFit Coach can program it for you, or find a human coach.