maratoolSmith Machine Decline Press
How to do the smith machine decline press
- Position a decline bench in the rack so that the bar will be above your chest. Load an appropriate weight and take your place on the bench.
- Rotate the bar to unhook it from the rack and fully extend your arms. Your back should be slightly arched and your shoulder blades retracted. This will be your starting position.
- Begin the movement by flexing your arms, lowering the bar to your chest.
- Pause briefly, and then extend your arms to push the weight back to the starting position.
- After completing the desired number of repetitions, rotate the bar to rack the weight.
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.
How this movement works
Several joints move together, so effort spreads across a chain rather than concentrating in one place. Coordination is part of the difficulty: the movement is only as good as its weakest link, and improving it often means fixing a position somewhere other than the muscle you meant to train.
It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.
What you need
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:Machine
These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:
- Standing Cable Chest Presscable
- Straight Arm Dumbbell Pulloverbench + dumbbell
- Wide Grip Decline Bench Pressbarbell + bench
- Alternating Floor Presskettlebell
- Around The Worldsdumbbell
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.
Photos: free-exercise-db — public domain (Unlicense) Full attribution →
ⓘ Informational only — not a substitute for professional fitness or medical advice.