212 olympia legend flex lewis and ifbb pro johnnie jackson two bodybuilders with some of the best upper bodies of all time are big fans of the floor press for upper chest development.
Floor press chest development.
Back before lifters had benches the floor press was the only chest press they could perform.
Do the floor press with a grip width that s just outside of shoulder width and that places your upper arms about 30 away from your sides in the starting position.
What happens is that you go from zero effort with your arms on the floor to maximum effort right away.
Three notes on the v press.
The floor press develops the same muscles as the bench press the pecs triceps and anterior shoulder.
The floor dumbbell chest press forces you to start from the sticking point when your arms are flat to the floor and your hands half way through the full range of motion.
On the shallow incline dumbbell flyes set the angle of the bench to between 15 and 20.
First by nature of the movement your lower back will be hyperextended.
This freaks some people out.
This reduces extension at the shoulder joint while still providing a good training effect for the pecs and triceps.
The floor press is a partial range of motion bench press that can be done with barbells dumbbells or kettlebells to isolate the chest triceps and lockout position in the bench.
However the focus shifts primarily to the triceps and shoulders.
It s a very effective movement to build pure pressing strength along with muscle mass in the chest shoulders triceps.
Incline squeeze presses incline flies unilateral dumbbell floor presses and low to high flys all work well here.
Many people like myself have found that switching to the floor press has accelerated chest development.
So it s been around for more than 100 years making it much older than the bench press itself.
For folks with shoulder issues the dumbbell floor press is usually better tolerated than the traditional bench press because you re able to use a neutral grip and pressing on the floor limits the range of motion slightly.
See what ones you can best get a mental connection with.
Stick to higher reps.
It takes a lot of the back.