Does flat bench press work entire chest?

[TopGeeza]

I have heard people say you don't need to do incline if you just came off the flat bench (dumbbell or barbell) I mean is it necessary to perform incline on days when doing flat?

[WolfRose7]

Nothings necessary, and there are many variations of flat bench to utilise as well.

From an overall hypertrophy perspective, you probably want an incline or dB incline in their sometimes, but maybe not every development block.
Likewise with flat from a pure hypertrophy standpoint doesn't need to be in every block.

[Garage Rat]

The short answer is yes but really not directly.
The BP is a basic upper body compound movement hitting many muscles including chest.
You can't really isolate areas totally but only direct more stress to the area with angles,technique and the type of equipment you use.
For example the bench press to the neck/upper chest with upper arms away from the body around 90 degrees would focus more on the upper chest.
These though can be a shoulder wrecker if your not careful and you must focus on the target area.
DB's may be better in that you can bring the upper arms in towards chest for a better contraction flat or incline.
Some machines are really good also.
If your a beginner stick with the regular BP for awhile but focus on contracting the chest on each rep rather than just moving weight.
Good luck.

[BeginnerGainz]

In a word,yes.

Dumbbells even more so, for bodybuilding purposes.

[GeneralSerpant]

Not really certain if it's more a harder less leveraged bench press or a more leveraged OHP.

[MyEgoProblem]

Yes. It works the entire chest, tricep and much of the delts.

Is it enough? Can be. Depends how you are built and if you know how to bench. It's more than enough for my anthropometry for chest size.
Currently the only angle changes I make are comp arch and band flyes done slightly upwards because they feels nice.

Dumbells generally can focus or "isolate"' chest more than a bar as you can adduct the arms further across the body at the detriment to and the de-emphisisis of the triceps due to the inability to produce lateral force into a bar shifting more % of the load to bewbs **

This Doesnt stop a properly executed barbell bench from doing a better all around job with much more tricep engagement and still excellent chest activation all be bit thru a shorter active rom for the pec.

all angle of press and grip width/angle can be good to add in at some point.. And flyes at various angles. None are necessary. not even flat, but variation and variety are excellent for many reasons.


**last time I stated this fact I got jumped on by a bunch of chumps who don't understand physics, biomechanic and how to actually bench.
Iwonder if they will show up and let them selves down again..

[EliKoehn]

^^ What Ego said

For my part, I built a decently imposing chest pretty much entirely doing regular bench presses.

[Ironface]

Flat bench + OHP will build a huge monstrous chest

[ForecasterJason]

Not sure if I've found a difference between dumbbell floor pressing and dumbbell bench pressing, but I think my chest gets stimulated more from the barbell flat bench than from the dumbbell floor press. The dumbbell floor press seems to hit my triceps more.