How to Prevent an Arching Back on the Incline Bench Press

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We’ve talked before about how lifting more weight isn’t always the best for creating more muscle mass. You could always go a little heavier on your set and do less reps… train more like a powerlifter to get more weight up.

Here at World Fitness Network, our number one goal is not to put as much weight on the bar as possible, but to build muscle and lose fat. But gaaawsh, it still feels pretty great to put that bigger plate on the bar and hammer out a set with a little more weight. Being able to put more weight on the bar is also great feedback that you are making progress with your training.

Unfortunately, sometimes that great ego trip comes with a price on our training. If you’re not careful, that extra ten pounds on the bar can often come at the expense of your form. The incline bench press is one exercise where it happens all the time.

Excessive Arching

The benefit of doing the incline bench press is that it places stress on the upper chest muscles and helps to give you a more round, full look. Great for how your chest looks under a T-shirt.

In order to effectively hit your upper chest muscles, the incline bench press is best when set to an angle of somewhere between 30-45 degrees or only slightly higher. You can experiment with slightly different angles to see which one you feel is best for your upper chest.

The problem comes when you start trying to put up more weight than you can do with good form. You can’t get the weight up, so you start to take other measures to press that extra weight. The most common mistake is to arch your back more than you should and lift your hips up from the bench.

What this does: When you begin lifting your hips up on the incline press, you essentially bend your lower back and your shoulders move a bit lower down on the bench. This changes the angle of your chest.

Your chest begins to level out and is no longer at the same angle as when you started. Arching your back places your chest so that it is at a flatter angle, similar to the flat bench press. The stress is taken off your upper chest, but of course, the flatter angle allows you to press more weight.

Now, this defeats the purpose of doing the incline bench press in the first place. If you’re going to do the flat bench press, do it on the flat bench that gives you more stability.

Chest up:

Anytime you do any sort of bench press movement, you should always pull your chest up. This gives you greater leverage to press and allows for a more complete range of motion.

• How to do it: Pulling your chest up is accomplished by pulling your shoulder blades together and keeping them tight. This will also help to reduce your nagging shoulder injuries.
• How not to do it: Arching your lower back is not the way to pull your chest up.
• How much arch: To know how much arch your back should have, stand up straight, pull your chest up with the shoulder blades back. Your back should have a slight natural arch. This is the same amount of arch you should use when bench pressing.

Now, I know just as well as you do that all of these ideas sound really great until you get underneath a heavy bar to do a heavy set on the incline, and then your back suddenly starts arching to get the weight up at the end of a set.

I know. It happens. But there are a few things that you can be doing that will help you to eliminate that arch when your form would otherwise start breaking down.

1. Use the foot stand in front of you: Many of the incline barbell bench presses will have a foot stand in front of the bench that you can put your feet on. When doing the flat bench press, you are always best to have your feet flat on the ground, but the incline bench press is slightly different.

Elevating your feet slightly makes arching your back more difficult. Placing your feet on the ground below you will increase the temptation to push off the ground, raise your hips up, and arch the lower back. Take the widest stance that the foot stand will allow. Of course, this might not work well for people of every size, but it can help for many people.

2. Keep adjustable benches at a 90 degree angle: If you’re doing the dumbbell incline press, chances are that you will be on a bench that has an adjustable angle. Some benches can be adjusted to be either a flat bench or an incline bench.

On these benches, you can adjust the angle of the back support and the seat portion. Set the seat portion and the back support to about a 90 degree angle. This will help to keep your hips from traveling forward. If you use the incline without adjusting the seat (leaving it flat), it is very difficult to keep your hips in place on the bench.

3. Tighten your abs: Your abs function opposite of an arching lower back. Keeping the abs tight keeps the rib cage in place and helps to prevent hyperextension of the lower back. Also, tighten up the posterior chain, including the spinal erectors, glutes, and hamstrings.

4. Get a spotter: A good spotter will help you to keep good form throughout the entire movement. Instead of having to throw your lower back out of whack, a spotter can lift just enough of the weight for you to help you crank out those final reps so that you don’t have to look like a monkey to get the weight up.

Related posts:

1. You Gotta Be Kidding Me- Bridging on the Bench Press
2. You Gotta Be Kidding Me- Bridging on the Bench Press (repost)
3. How To Overhead Press With Good Form

Tags: Training Tips