Slider Chest Fly
From a plank on furniture sliders or towels, you open the arms into a fly and pull them back in using the pecs alone. It delivers a brutal stretch and a huge core demand because your whole body has to stay rigid. This is an advanced move; earn it once your push-ups and standard flys are solid.
- Equipment
- Sliders
- Body part
- Chest
- Type
- Strength
- Browse by muscle
- Pectoralis Major Sternocostal
- Browse by movement
- Horizontal Adduction
- Target
- Pectoralis Major Sternocostal
- Secondary
- Deltoid Anterior
- Tertiary
- Abdominal External Oblique, Upper Rectus Abdominals
How to do it
- 1
Set up in a high plank with a slider or towel under each hand.
- 2
Brace the abs and glutes so the body is one straight line.
- 3
Slide both hands out to the sides, lowering the chest toward the floor in a wide arc.
- 4
Stop where you can still control the stretch across the chest.
- 5
Pull the hands back together under your chest, squeezing the pecs to return to the plank.
Tips
- Keep the hips level and the core locked so the back does not sag.
- Shorten the slide range at first and extend it as you get stronger.
- Drop to your knees to scale the difficulty while you build strength.
Variations
Common mistakes
- The hands slide out further than the pecs can pull back, and the only exit is to drop the chest to the floor and push up out of a very wide push-up.
- Pushing the hips up into a slight pike shortens the lever and makes the set survivable, but it also removes the chest load the flat plank was creating.
- One slider catches a seam or a rug edge mid-rep, so that arm stalls while the other keeps travelling and the shoulder absorbs the mismatch.
- The slide out is fast and the pull back slow, which wastes the lowering phase where most of the chest work in this movement actually lives.
- Hands start under the chest rather than under the shoulders, so the arc runs downward instead of wide and the front delts take the stretch.
Frequently asked
- How many reps of the slider chest fly should you start with?
- Hold a two-minute plank and do 20 push-ups before you try it. Then start with three sets of 5 to 8 reps using a short slide, maybe half the range you think you can manage. Add an inch or two of travel per week rather than adding reps, because the bottom of the range is where the shoulder has the least protection.
- What can I use instead of sliders for the slider chest fly?
- Two folded hand towels work on tile or hardwood; on carpet, use paper plates or furniture coasters. If your floor has no slick surface at all, do the fly on gymnastic rings or a suspension trainer, or use an ab wheel through a narrower arc. A standing band fly is the low-skill fallback that still trains the same adduction.
- What is the slider chest fly for, and when should you skip it?
- It trains the chest at long muscle lengths with a serious anti-extension demand on the abs, and it needs no weights, which makes it valuable for home training. Skip it if your lower back rounds or arches in a plain plank, or if your shoulders have a history of instability, because the bottom position asks a lot from a joint with little holding it.
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