Bent-Arm Dumbbell Pullover
Trains the Pecs.
- Equipment
- Dumbbells and either a flat bench or an adjustable bench
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Pull
- Level
- Intermediate
How to do it
- Set a single dumbbell standing on end at one end of a flat bench.
- Lie along the bench with your head near the dumbbell, feet flat on the floor.
- Take hold of the dumbbell with both hands, palms pressed against the underside of the top plate, and bring it over your chest with a bend in your elbows.
- Keeping that elbow bend fixed, lower the dumbbell back over and behind your head in an arc until you feel a stretch across the chest and under the arms.
- Stop when your upper arms are roughly in line with your torso — going further adds shoulder range rather than muscle work.
- Pull the dumbbell back over your chest along the same arc, breathing out as it rises.
Common mistakes
- Straightening and bending the elbows through the movement. The arc should come from the shoulder; changing the elbow angle shortens the range and brings the triceps in.
- Going too deep behind the head. A pullover already puts the shoulder in a long, overhead position, and chasing extra depth with a weight in your hands adds range the shoulder rather than the chest absorbs.
- Lying across the bench rather than along it. The across-the-bench version is a common variation, but it adds a hip drop that makes the movement harder to control and does not change what the exercise trains.
- Expecting it to be either a chest or a back exercise exclusively. The pullover loads both, which is why sources disagree about which it belongs to — the arm travels through an arc that the pectoralis major, the lats and the teres major all contribute to.