Day 1 - Upper Body Strength

Incline bench targets the upper-chest fibers that flat bench under-trains, and most lifters' upper chests lag behind their lower and middle chest. Putting incline first — when you're freshest — lets you push the heaviest load on the part that needs it most.

This plan rotates the press angle: Day 1 incline, Day 3 decline (in the other upper-body session). Together they cover the full chest in a way flat-only training never does. If you only have a flat bench, swap incline for flat bench at a slow tempo (3 seconds down, paused at the bottom) — the time-under-tension recovers some of the lost upper-chest emphasis.

Target 70–75% of your 1-rep max for all 4 sets at 10 reps. If you don't know your 1RM:

• The 10th rep of set 4 should feel like RPE 8 (2 reps left in the tank)
• Set 1 should feel comfortable; set 4 should be the hardest

For a typical intermediate, that's roughly 65–75% of your flat-bench working weight. Incline is harder than flat at the same load, so adjust down. The plan uses weekly weight progression — add 5–10 lb (2–5 kg) when you complete all 4×10 with 2+ reps in the tank.

Because the plan trains arms indirectly through every press and pull — incline bench hits triceps, shoulder press hits triceps, lat pull-down hits biceps. By the end of this session, your arms have already done meaningful volume.

The Upper/Lower split runs 4 days a week with 2 upper-body days. Day 3 (the other upper-body session) adds direct arm work where appropriate, balancing the volume across the week. Adding direct biceps and triceps to both upper days at this level usually overshoots recovery without adding hypertrophy benefit.