Tutorial: How to Perform Kinesis Chest Press

The Kinesis chest press is a chest exercise that will help you improve your upper body strength. Due to the unstable nature of the Kinesis machine, it will also help you improve stability. This is how you should perform it.

WHAT

The Kinesis chest press is an underrated exercise to improve upper body strength and stability.
It is also useful as a corrective exercise for those recovering from shoulder injuries, or as a preventative exercise to maintain shoulder stability.

HOW

Stand in the middle of the Kinesis machine and grab the handles on the side. Bring the handles to your chest and take a small step forward to feel the tension in the cables – the chest should be under a small amount of stretch. This is your start position.
Engage the core and set the shoulders. Then press the handles forwards at chest height and slightly inwards, so the hands meet in the centre at arm’s length. Without losing balance, return the handles to the start position.
Repeat for repetitions or time.

WHY

While the bench press may be considered the gold standard for upper body pressing, there are a number of variations that can be performed which utilise different equipment, positions and lines of force. The choice of exercise will largely depend on the goal to be achieved.
The standing cable chest press is a very different beast. The use of cables provides constant tension through the press, and the standing position adds a significant balance challenge that requires a level of core stability often unseen in many exercises. Because of these factors, the standing (Kinesis) chest press will need a much lower load to press with good technique.
During the press, the cables will feel like they are ‘pulling’ you backwards. To prevent this loss of balance, the body will naturally bend the knees, lean slightly forwards, as well as engage the core muscles to a higher level. This doesn’t just stop at the core — the many muscles that help to stabilise the shoulder joint and girdle will also begin to activate. It’s not uncommon to feel the calf muscles and the deep foot muscles engaging. Overall, you will feel the whole body ‘switch on’. With this in mind, there will likely be a more significant heart rate too. All of this provides a highly effective training environment that can help to develop strength, endurance, stability, balance and coordination – in just one exercise!