Dumbell Weight vs Barbell Weight for Bench

[Unit 2005]

When it comes to CHEST development i favour dumbells, however you can shift more weight on a barbell so it will help you put on more size in your upper body. The best chest wrokouts i have had are Incline barbell followed by flat dumbell pressess. Like others have already said - mix it up. That goes for reps, sets and order you do exercises.

 

[Yarg!]

Wow you guys have such his differences between the barbells and dumbbells. I probably have one of the worst bench presses here for my body weight (185lb 1m at 172lb body weight), but I can rep 75lb dumb bells for sets of 5-6. Why is this? I go really deep also. Is it because my stabilizers are strong compared to you guys, but the main movers are weak?

 

[diedeadEnough]

Wow you guys have such his differences between the barbells and dumbbells. I probably have one of the worst bench presses here for my body weight (185lb 1m at 172lb body weight), but I can rep 75lb dumb bells for sets of 5-6. Why is this? I go really deep also. Is it because my stabilizers are strong compared to you guys, but the main movers are weak?

thats a strong db weight compared to your barbell bench.

i find the 2 to be almost irrelavent of eachother. i was db benching 80's when i was bb benching 175. now im bb benching 285, and my db's i can do 90's. i stayed away from the db's for a while cause my shoulder was starting to hurt a little

 

[NOLOGY77]

Is it better low weight and strict form or heavier weight and cheat a little bit with the dumbells?

 

[CoBra666]

i like both, simple as that. gotta train stabalizers too

 

[miked8c]

I went on a 2 month semester at sea, there was no barbell, only DBs going up to a hundo.

Take my word, by the end of sea term I could hit 100's for 10 for two sets. When I went back to normal benching after 2 months of DBs I had the most controlled, strict, bench press in my life. The bar moved in a perfectly straight line at a constant speed. It felt strange having so much control, it was like I was using pure muscle to push the bar up, rather than firing it off my chest so to speak. Now its back to firing it off the chest, so I am incorporating DBs again and seeing if I can go back to the more stabilized form I had after sea term.


These to exercise definitely correlate to an extent.

 

[Kurt_85]

I agree with you! If I had the choice to only workout with dumbbells, or barbells, I would go with dumbbells because they hit the stabilizer muscles better and they are more versatile (have more exercises).

 

[Headholio]

More effective needs to be defined. More effective for hitting your best max bench, then you have to focus on bench. Specificity in training. For chest size, you could probably pick one or the other, but like so many have said, do both!

 

[mbag012]

i prefer barbell benching and i use DB presses as an assistance excersize. ive got a minor injury in the left wrist that surfaces whenever i stress my wrist too much so i stay away from db presses these days.

 

[Joanna80]

Dumbbells require the use of stabiliser muscles so you won't be able to lift as much. I usually use both barbell and d/b as this gives me a good mix of chest training