Incline Bridges#1813

Hi, ive been waiting a while for a reply to my last question. I dont have the arm strength to get the last bit of push on my incline bridges. I can get my hips up but just cant lift my head and shoulders. Are there any interim exercises i can do? Ive done all the lead up steps.

Hey. This is Chrys, one of the trainers at Hybrid.

Sry I must have missed the original question. Ok so that’s actually pretty common. The last part of the incline bridge is where the triceps, shoulders, and upper back really start demanding their paycheck 😄

If you can get your hips up but not quite get the head and shoulders off, I’d keep working the incline bridge but only through the range you can control. You can also try holding the top position for a few seconds if you can get there with a little assistance from your legs.

Another option is to add some extra pushing work outside of bridges, like pushups or easier pushup progressions, since triceps strength is often the limiting factor there.

Honestly, if you’ve done all the lead-up steps and you’re close, it may just be a matter of accumulating a bit more strength and practice in that specific position. Sometimes there’s a small gap between progressions, and you have to camp there for a little while before your body catches up but I mean the good news is that if your hips are already getting up, you’re probably much closer than it feels right now. 👊

Having had the same thing happen I went back to straight bridges which had atrophied some while working on wall bridges. Did straight bridges until back to the standard then have been working on feet elevated straight bridges (a “To make this exercise harder” variation) which targets the triceps much, much more.

Still TBD if I’ll be able to do incline bridges when trying again, but it’s definitely working my triceps.

Yeah, i was thinking of going back to this as it felt much harder than wall bridges and definitely works arms and shoulders. Also i have knee arthritis and my knee started clicking trying to do the incline bridge. Thanks for the suggestion and the “making it harder” idea. I think ill work on this for a while.