Dumbell Flyes

[Guinness]

Anyone else experience this.....

Did dumbell flyes the other day to pre-exhaust chest for bench press....2/4 cadence (2 positive, 4 negative), trying to really control the weight and squeeze at the top...at any rate, my bi's were really feeling it....I pretty much keep my arms as straight as possible throughout the motion, with just a slight bend in my elbow when I get down to the bottom of the rep, and my chest is stretched to the max.

Man, even now, two days later, my bi's are almost as sore as they are after my bicep workout! Anyone else get this from dumbell flyes, or is there something freaky about the way I'm doing them that is causing this?

 

[Robboe]

biceps are stabilizers.

personally i've never gotten sore biceps from flyes.

i'm not sure what's caused it.

lets hope it's a one off.

 

[Liberator]

No never had this myself either

wouldnt this be an indication that your arms are TOO STRAIGHT?

I feel my chest has been worked quite hard after my pre-exhaust sets, but nothing in my bis

I am no guru, but i think straight as possible is probably your problem

 

[Guinness]

Rob/Liberator,

Makes sense that it has to be my form...I guess I go that straight, cuz I was looking at my arms as a lever to the chest and the straighter I kept them, the more iso I was getting on chest....For the record, my chest is weak as shit...I was only using 25 lbs dumbells and then benching with 145 and didn't get very many reps on bench after the pre-exhaust...this is a new routine for me, trying to find something to ignite my chest routine and get rid of this bird chest of mine...but I try to be very, very strict on form and really concentrate on moving the weight slowly, even through the middle part of the rep....

I guess I'm just a freak then...Now that I think about it, in just about every "fly" type movement (cable, pec deck, etc.) I feel it in my bi's pretty strongly...right in the tendon at the insertion to the lower arm.....

 

[calvesodeath]

I guess I'm just a freak then...Now that I think about it, in just about every "fly" type movement (cable, pec deck, etc.) I feel it in my bi's pretty strongly...right in the tendon at the insertion to the lower arm..... [/B]

Try putting just a SLIGHT bend in your elbows. I have a similar problem and this seems to work for me....they key is SLIGHT.

 

[flex4life]

Guiness,
ever tried DB flys w/ thumbs out form?

 

[Beleriand_K]

Sore biceps after dumbbell flyes are quite natural, if you do them right. And the right way is to do them with a 10 degree elbow angel and nothing more. And that 10 degree goes from start of movement to end of movement!

A lot of people start bending their arms almost the moment they start lifting, and thereby makes the flyes turn into some kind of ackward dumbbell benchpress. That's cheating.

Another way of cheating is stopping the downward movement before the arms are at least parallel with the floor. Go down as much as possible and feel the power in chest and biceps. Again, anything less is cheating.

And finally, if you're a powerlifter pre-exhausting your chest by doing dumbbell flyes before bench pressing is wrong. Bench press is a vital compound excercise and should not be spoiled that way. Flyes is only a supplemental excercise to bench press and should therefore be done after you have worked your bench press to failure.

I always start my chest session by bench pressing to failure and then adding two supplemental excercises. Currently those two are incline bench press with 35kg (app. 78lb) dumbbells and then flat flyes with 22,5kg (equals 50lb) dumbbells.

But as I said, this goes for powerlifters. If you're a bodybuilder other rules might apply.

 

[Guinness]

Beleriand_K,

I wouldn't consider myself either a powerlifter or bodybuilder....just a guy that is interested in improving his conditioning and physique, but not necessarily to the levels required by either of those two disciplines. At any rate, the logic I used behind pre-exhausting with the flyes is that my tri's and sometimes front delts (but mostly tries) sometimes give out before I've smoked my chest adequately on bench, so I wanted to try to change my routine up a bit by doing a more isolating chest movement before I did the compound movement. Only time will tell whether or not I spark my chest growth with this system, but it's worth a try.