Smith Machine Decline Press

Chest · Machine

How to do it

Set the decline bench inside the rack so the guided bar lines up over your lower chest. Lie down, lock your legs in, rotate the bar to release it and extend your arms with the blades pinched and your back in its natural arch. Lower until it brushes your chest, pause briefly and press. The guide takes balance out of the equation: you can push close to failure here without a spotter. The classic mistake is setting the bench wrong and ending up lowering the bar to your neck, because the guide does not forgive: check it empty first.

Variants

The drawing shows one way of doing it, and the technique above describes that one. Almost every exercise has variants — standing or seated, the grip, the bench angle — and is still the same exercise: if you do it another way, write it in the exercise note and you will have it every time you train it.

Also works: Shoulders, Triceps

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