Decline Dumbbell Bench Press
Trains the Abdominal Head.
- Equipment
- Dumbbells and a decline bench
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Set a decline bench and hook your legs under the pads before you take the dumbbells.
- Sit up, rest the dumbbells on your thighs, and lie back using your legs to swing them into position.
- Start with the dumbbells at the outside of your lower chest, palms facing forward.
- Press them up and slightly together until the arms are straight.
- Lower under control until the upper arms are roughly level with the torso.
- Press again from there rather than resting the weights on your chest.
Common mistakes
- Trying to get into position with the dumbbells already overhead. Sitting up first and rolling back with them on your thighs is the setup; reaching for them from a declined position is where shoulders get hurt on this exercise.
- Bringing them together hard at the top so they clash. Once the arms are straight the chest has nothing left to shorten; touching the dumbbells is a habit, not a contraction.
- Going as deep as the shoulders will allow. Dumbbells permit more range than a bar, and more range is not automatically better here — past the point where the upper arms drop well below the torso, the load moves off the chest and onto the front of the shoulder.
- Skipping the leg hooks because the weight feels light. The hooks are what stop you sliding head-first down the bench, and they matter most on the repetition you did not expect to be hard.
Muscles worked
Primary
- Abdominal HeadPecs