When you do bench press on an incline, the upper part of your chest works harder. But when you do flat bench press, the middle-lower part of your chest works harder instead. Scientists measured this using muscle activity recordings.

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Pro

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Against

Evidence from Studies

Supporting (1)

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Community contributions welcome

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Non-uniform excitation of pectoralis major induced by changes in bench press inclination leads to uneven variations in the cross-sectional area measured by panoramic ultrasonography

Cross-Sectional Study

Human

2022 Dec

The study directly confirms what the claim says: when doing incline bench press at 45 degrees, the upper chest (clavicular head) works harder than the lower chest (sternocostal head), and when doing flat bench press, the lower chest works harder than the upper chest - both with strong statistical significance (P < 0.001).

Contradicting (0)

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No contradicting evidence found

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According to GRADE and EBM methodology, here is what ideal scientific evidence would look like to definitively prove or disprove this specific claim, ordered from strongest to weakest evidence.

Source Study

Non-uniform excitation of pectoralis major induced by changes in bench press inclination leads to uneven variations in the cross-sectional area measured by panoramic ultrasonography

Score: 26

DOI: 10.1016/j.jelekin.2022.102722

Similar Assertions

When people do flat bench press, the lower part of their chest muscle grows more than the upper part - and this is the opposite of what happens when they do incline bench press.

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When people do bench press on an inclined bench, the upper part of their chest muscle swells more than the lower part, showing different responses within the same muscle.

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When you change the angle of the bench press, it might make the different parts of your chest muscle work in uneven ways, potentially causing one part to activate differently than the other.

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