Dumbbell Bench Press
Trains the Pecs.
- Equipment
- Dumbbell
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Sit on the end of a flat bench with a dumbbell resting on each thigh, palms facing in.
- Lie back while driving your knees up one at a time to kick the dumbbells into position over your shoulders. Getting heavy dumbbells into place is a skill of its own and it is easier than muscling them up from the floor.
- Squeeze your shoulder blades together and down into the bench, plant both feet flat on the floor, and hold that position for the whole set.
- Turn your palms to face forward and press the dumbbells up until your arms are straight and the weights are above your shoulders.
- Lower under control until the dumbbells are level with your chest, letting them travel slightly wider than a barbell would allow. Your elbows should sit at roughly forty-five degrees from your body.
- Press back up, bringing the dumbbells toward each other without letting them clash at the top.
- At the end of the last repetition, bring the dumbbells to your chest, tuck your chin, and sit up with them rather than dropping them behind you.
Common mistakes
- Letting the dumbbells drift out into a fly at the bottom. If the elbows travel out to ninety degrees the shoulder takes the load and the press becomes a movement it was not chosen for. Keep the elbows nearer forty-five degrees, the same as a barbell press.
- Clashing the dumbbells together at the top. Banging them together gives you somewhere to rest and takes tension off the chest at the point where the pectoralis major is shortest and working hardest. Stop an inch or two apart.
- Cutting the range short. The whole advantage of dumbbells over a barbell is that the hands can travel further apart at the bottom and further together at the top, which trains the pectoralis major through more of its range. Using a weight that only moves half the distance gives that advantage away.
- Fighting the dumbbells into position from the floor. Sit, rest them on your thighs, and kick back — struggling them overhead one arm at a time is where most dumbbell bench press problems start.