Standing Alternating Dumbbell Press
Trains the Shoulders.
- Equipment
- Dumbbells
- Mechanic
- Compound
- Force
- Push
- Level
- Beginner
How to do it
- Stand with your feet hip-width apart, a dumbbell in each hand at shoulder height, palms forward.
- Brace your stomach and squeeze your glutes so the trunk is rigid.
- Press one dumbbell overhead until the arm is almost straight.
- Lower it to shoulder height as you begin pressing the other.
- Keep the torso still — one side is always loaded more than the other.
- Continue alternating without letting the ribs flare.
Common mistakes
- Rocking side to side with the rhythm. The alternation makes the load asymmetric on every repetition, and holding still against that is what the version adds.
- Overlapping the two arms. One comes down before the other goes up; overlapping turns it into a two-arm press done unevenly.
- Leaning back to get each one up. Standing, a backward lean turns the press into an inclined one and puts the load into the lower back.
- Counting a left and a right as two repetitions when the set was planned in pairs. Not a technique fault, but it is the most common way an alternating set ends up half the length it was meant to be.