The barbell bench press might be the most iconic chest exercise in gym culture. “How much do you bench?” is practically a rite-of-passage question among lifters, rooted in decades of strength-sport tradition. For professional football players, the 225-pound bench press test is used as a benchmark for upper body strength. And in powerlifting, the bench press is one of the sport’s “big three” lifts (alongside the back squat and deadlift) used in competition.

Peloton Instructor Erik Jäger is one of many fans of the move. “I consider the bench press an absolute essential whenever I’m in a muscle-building or strength-focused phase,” he says. “It allows me to target my chest muscles extremely effectively and consistently delivers clear muscle-building results. For me, it remains one of the most efficient upper-body pushing exercises out there.” 

While no one needs to barbell bench press, few exercises offer the same opportunity to move heavy weight with your upper body and build serious functional strength in the process. Bodybuilders do it. Powerlifters do it. Pro athletes do it. If you’ve never tried it, it might be time you do too. 

Which Muscles Does the Bench Press Work?

At its core, the bench press is a horizontal push—a fundamental movement pattern in strength training where you push weight away from you while your body is on a horizontal plane—and a compound exercise that trains multiple joints and muscles at once. 

“The pushing strength developed through bench pressing transfers well to sports-specific actions such as punching in combat sports, explosive sprint starts, or the pulling phase of a swimming stroke,” Erik explains. “It enables athletes to generate and apply force effectively through the upper body.” It also helps you perform everyday actions such as pushing open a door.

When you do a barbell bench press, you’re primarily working the following three upper body muscle groups, according to Erik:

To a lesser degree, bench pressing also works muscles in your back, including the latissimus dorsi (aka lats). “While the bench press primarily targets the anterior chain (chest, shoulders, triceps), it also encourages scapular retraction and upper-back tension under load,” Erik says. “This contributes to better posture and improved neuromuscular control of the upper body during compound lifts and everyday movements.”

Does Bench Pressing Also Work Your Arms?

It sure does. Bench pressing mainly targets your chest, but your triceps and shoulders also get some play. Your shoulders help to move your arms in and up, so they’re pretty active from start to finish during the barbell bench press. On the other hand, your triceps straighten your arm at the elbow joint, so they’re most engaged during the lockout (or top half) phase of the bench press. 

It’s worth noting that your biceps are technically involved in this lift, too, though to a lesser degree than your shoulders and triceps. The biceps help stabilize your arms as you lower the bar to your chest each rep.  

How to Do the Barbell Bench Press Correctly

Here’s how to do a barbell bench press with proper form, according to Erik. Note: While not required, it’s recommended that you recruit someone to spot you during bench press sets, especially if you’re lifting heavy or to failure. 

1. Find the Optimal Set Up

Lie face up on a bench so the bar is over your eyes. Plant your feet firmly on the ground, with your knees bent. Drive through your heels to create whole-body tension, and keep your feet planted throughout the lift. Ideally, you want three points of contact between your body and the bench: your head, upper back, and glutes. You should have a slight arch in your lower back, just high enough that someone can slide their hand underneath it.

Grip the bar with your hands just outside shoulder-width distance apart. Your wrists should be stacked directly over your elbows, and your thumbs wrapped around the bar. Pull your shoulder blades together and down to lock in your upper back and elevate your chest.

2. Unrack and Lower the Bar

Take a deep breath and lift the bar out of the J-hooks. Your shoulder blades should still be squeezed together, and your feet driving into the floor. Lower the bar with control (as if you’re pulling it, not dropping it) toward your lower chest. Keep your elbows tucked around 45 degrees from your torso.

3. Pause and Press

Pause with the bar on your chest. The bar should come to a dead stop, with full control, while you keep tension on your back and chest, coiled like a spring. Drive the bar up and back toward your eyes in a reverse-J path. Maintain tension through your entire body, keeping your glutes tight, lats locked, and upper back stable. Keep pressing until your elbows are completely locked out. That’s one rep. 

Barbell Bench Press vs. Dumbbell Bench Press

Whether you’re pressing a barbell or a pair of dumbbells, you’re executing the same horizontal push movement pattern and working many of the same muscles. That said, each variation has its strengths.

Weight Lifted

Generally, the barbell bench press allows you to move more weight than dumbbells, making it a better choice for developing maximal strength (think: increasing your one rep max or 1RM). “In terms of absolute strength and muscle-building potential, the barbell press is superior,” Erik. “You can typically lift heavier loads with a barbell, which leads to greater mechanical tension—a key driver of hypertrophy (muscle growth) and maximal strength development. The barbell also enables better control over the eccentric (lowering) phase, allowing for targeted muscle stretch and tension.”

Range of Motion

Range of motion refers to how far your joints move during an exercise. Research suggests that training through a larger range of motion, especially in the stretched position of a lift, can confer more muscle growth. In fact, one 2023 narrative review published in the Journal of Functional Morphology and Kinesiology recommends emphasizing training at long muscle lengths to maximize hypertrophy.

That’s one reason the dumbbell bench press can be such an effective option: It allows you to lower the weights past the sides of your chest, putting your pecs under a deeper stretch. With the barbell bench press, your range is naturally limited by the bar stopping at your torso. One isn’t better than the other—which exercise you choose depends on your goals.

“While dumbbells offer a slightly greater range of motion, the barbell provides a natural anatomical stop at the chest, helping lifters maintain control and push from the bottom without risking one side collapsing,” Erik explains. “This controlled bottom range is particularly valuable for building strength safely and efficiently.”

Muscular Coordination

Pressing two separate dumbbells challenges your shoulder and core stabilizers more than a barbell. “When working with dumbbells, you have to coordinate your right and left sides independently,” Erik explains. “This requires greater intramuscular coordination and stabilization, which can improve neuromuscular control and uncover imbalances. Barbell bench pressing, on the other hand, provides more inherent stability and allows for more controlled movement through a fixed path.”

That added demand on stability and motor control can help improve muscular balance and highlight side-to-side discrepancies you might not notice with a barbell. “Dumbbells are excellent for identifying and correcting imbalances between sides,” Erik says. This can enhance proprioception and control—foundations that support better performance and reduce injury risk in heavy bilateral lifts.

Bench Press Variations 

Different bench press variations will shift the emphasis to specific muscles and develop distinct skills. For example, since your shoulders help raise your arms overhead, the incline bench press shifts more focus to those muscles and the upper chest. Many powerlifters and other strength athletes will use the close-grip bench press—which is when you bench press with a shoulder-width grip—to put more emphasis on the triceps. 

Below, check out three bench press variations and modifications that Erik recommends.

Incline Bench Press

“I regularly incorporate the incline bench press into my routine to add variety and stimulate different parts of the chest,” says Erik. “The typical incline angle is between 30 and 45 degrees, and this setup not only shifts the stimulus toward the upper chest but also increases the activation of the anterior deltoids and the triceps.

Dip

“Dips [shown above] target a similar movement pattern and muscle recruitment as decline bench press—but in a more functional, bodyweight-driven context,” explains Erik. “They allow for excellent progressive overload, as you can add weight, and offer a high level of core and shoulder integration.”

Push-Up

Push-ups are another horizontal push movement, and can help you build strength before you’re ready to grab weights. “Push-ups are also incredibly versatile, and when loaded or elevated, they offer scalable strength-building options while reinforcing global body tension,” says Erik.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

“The bench press is a staple in strength training, but it’s often performed with small technical errors that can significantly reduce its effectiveness—or even increase injury risk,” Erik says. Here are some of the most common form issues and tips on how to fix them.

1. Pressing Too High On the Chest

Lowering the bar to your upper chest or even closer to your shoulders might feel natural, but it changes the muscle emphasis (and not necessarily in a good way). “This tends to overload the front deltoids rather than effectively targeting the chest muscles,” Erik says. To keep the work where you want it—on your chest—aim to lower the bar to just above or just below your nipple line. Keep your elbows angled out at about 45 degrees to maintain tension across your pecs and protect your shoulders.

2. Letting Your Shoulders Round

“Many lifters fail to properly retract and stabilize their shoulder blades,” Erik explains. “Keeping the scapulae in a retracted position throughout the lift creates a solid base, protects the shoulder joint, and allows for better force transfer through the chest muscles.” Before you even grip the bar, squeeze your shoulder blades together and lift your chest. Lock that position in. If you lose it once you’re on the bench, reset—don’t just press through it. A strong upper back position sets the stage for a strong press.

3. Not Engaging Your Lower Body

Your upper body might be doing the pressing, but your lower body plays a bigger role than you think. (And no, putting your feet on the bench won’t help.) “Some people place their feet on the bench to ‘flatten’ their lower back or avoid an arch; however, this compromises stability and reduces power transfer,” Erik says.

Instead, plant both feet on the ground and drive through them like you’re pushing the floor away. Keep a slight arch in your lower back—it’s not only safe, it’s optimal. “A slight arch is completely safe and even recommended when the core is braced and controlled—especially when lifting heavier loads,” Erik adds. Research shows that bench pressing with a slight arch even produces higher 1RMs compared to pressing with a flat back.

4. Using a Short Range of Motion

“Another frequent issue is stopping the bar too far above the chest and missing the most effective part of the lift,” Erik says. Unless you have an injury that prevents you from lowering the bar to your chest, you’re missing out on a lot of potential gains. This is supported by recent research that shows muscles may grow slightly more when you train with longer muscle lengths. Erik also says that training with a full range of motion can help keep your joints mobile.

How to Incorporate Bench Pressing Into Your Routine

If your goal is to boost your bench press—whether competitively or just to hit a personal best—you’ll want to train the movement two to three times per week. But if you’re more focused on general strength and fitness, benching once a week can still offer solid returns.

“In general, I find it most effective to structure my training routines so that each major muscle group is trained once per week with a clear focus on quality and intensity,” says Erik. He follows a four-day workout split that trains all the major movement patterns:

The upside of a four-day workout split like the one Erik suggests above is that you can train all of your fundamental movement patterns with plenty of rest between workouts, allowing you to hit each workout hard. A potential downside of this training style is that you only have one shot per week to train a specific movement type. “It’s crucial to ensure that each session delivers an overload stimulus,” Erik says. “Because if you’re only training a movement pattern once per week, you need to make it count.”

How do you do that? After a thorough warm-up, Erik recommends performing 4–5 sets of each exercise at a high intensity—meaning, you need to lift sufficiently heavy weights. At the end of each set, you should feel like you could only do one or two more reps, maximum. (So if you’re pressing 135 pounds for 12 reps, you should feel like 13 or 14 would be a real grind.) How many reps you do depends on whether you’re training for hypertrophy or strength: To gain muscle (hypertrophy), do 8-12 reps per set, and for strength gains, aim for 1-6 reps per set.

This can be tough to gauge if you’ve never trained close to failure. Recruit a spotter and take one of your sets to failure. Once you’ve felt what real effort to failure feels like, you’ll better understand how hard your working sets should be.

Looking for more guidance on how to structure your strength routine to include bench presses? Turn to Peloton Strength+, which has a wide selection of instructor-programmed strength routines and workouts you can customize based on your level, goals, and the equipment you have available. If you want to build up your strength with dumbbells, kettlebells, or bodyweight workouts first, look to the many strength classes and workout programs (including personalized plans) on the Peloton App.

Your Takeaways

The bench press is a versatile and trusted lift that an exerciser of any skill level can benefit from, regardless of their goals. “One key benefit of the bench press is that it allows for significant strength and hypertrophy gains with relatively low demands on intramuscular coordination,” Erik says. “This makes it a highly efficient way to build upper-body pushing strength, especially for beginners or during periods of focused hypertrophy or maximal strength training.”

To make it work for you, focus on consistent form, train with weights that challenge you, and choose variations that keep you progressing. With the right approach, this iconic lift can be a long-term driver of strength and muscle in the gym.