An Incline Chest Press’ sole purpose it to build the upper chest and pectoral muscles. By having this as the focus of the movement, the main benefit in performing incline presses is to develop the upper portion of the pectoral muscles. When the bench is set at an incline (15 to 30 degrees), you activate your shoulders more since it’s comparable to a shoulder press. The incline dumbbell bench press is an upper-body strengthening exercise that targets the chest, shoulder, and triceps.