Smith Machine Bench Press

Muscles worked

The prime mover is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range; the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement.

Every exercise for:ChestShouldersTriceps

How this movement works

The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.

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 bench fixes the torso angle and gives you something to drive against, which is what lets the load go up without your position wandering.

A Smith machine runs the bar on a fixed track. You never have to balance it, so you can chase the target muscle harder, but your joints have to accept the path the rails picked.

The machine fixes the path, removing the balance demand and letting you train close to failure without a spotter. The cost is the stabilising work a free weight would have made you do.

Every exercise using:BenchSmith machineMachine

These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:

• Standing Cable Chest Presscable
• Alternating Floor Presskettlebell
• Around The Worldsdumbbell
• Barbell Bench Press - Medium Gripbarbell
• Bench Press - With Bandsband

Difficulty

Listed at beginner level: the pattern is simple enough to pick up without coaching, and a position that goes wrong mid-set is obvious enough to correct on the next repetition.

Of the 105 chest exercises in this database, 63 are listed at beginner level.