maratoolIncline Bench Press with Bands
How to do the incline bench press with bands
- Securely fasten the band under the leg of a flat bench, near your head.
- Lie flat on the bench with your feet flat on the floor in order to stabilise your movements.
- Grasp one end of the band in each hand and starting with your hands at chest level.
- Press upwards so your arms are fully extended.
- With a slow controlled motion return to starting position.
Muscles worked
The prime mover is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.
Even with a single joint doing the moving, the muscle is not working alone — the biceps add force at the elbow.
How this movement works
Everything happens at one joint. That gives you direct control over where the tension sits; the trade-off is that the muscle gets no help, so the load that feels hard here is a fraction of what a multi-joint version of the pattern would take. Slow, complete repetitions beat heavy ones.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
A band gets harder the further it stretches, so resistance peaks at the end of the range rather than the middle. It is also the easiest way to scale a movement in small steps.
A bench fixes the torso angle and gives you something to drive against, which is what lets the load go up without your position wandering.
Every exercise using:BandBench
These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:
- Incline Cable Chest Presscable
- Incline Dumbbell Bench With Palms Facing Indumbbell
- Incline Push-Upbody only
- Leg-Over Floor Presskettlebell
- Leverage Chest Pressmachine
Illustration: Everkinetic — CC BY-SA 4.0 — license. Modified versions are shared under the same license. Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.