Funny thing about the human body: it only looks symmetrical. On each exercise, choose weights that allow you to complete the lowest number of reps listed. Fitness equipment, personal care products, knowledge purchases, digital products, and DVDs are not eligible for return or refund. Dumbbell exercises for chest muscles target the inner, outer, lower and upper pectoral muscles. HOW TO DO IT: Lying face-up on a flat bench, hold a pair of dumbbells over your chest with palms facing each other and elbows only slightly bent. Even the Svend press. Sit down, grab a pair of dumbbells and hold them. The dumbbells allow a greater range of motion that help you perform different exercises. The important thing here is to stay sheathed by avoiding parasitic movements and uncontrolled rotations. The only limitation of this dumbbell only workout is no use of cables and barbell which also are essential exercises to build a perfect chest, add strength and hit the chest from different angles, but even using all the dumbbells; you would still be getting nice chest activation and a break from other conventional and old school chest exercises. For more information, see the complete Onnit, Onnit X Rewards: Earn points for exclusives, The Best Chest and Triceps Workouts for Building Muscle, A Pro’s Guide To At-Home Chest Exercises and Workouts, Strengthen and Tone Your Core and Abs With These Workouts, Strengthen And Tone Your Back With These Workouts, More articles This workout will do it. Wrist position becomes the key twist in Reverse Dumbbell Chest exercises. Breathe out when raising the dumbbells and breathe in when lowering them back. Finish with two sets of old-fashioned pushups, which will feel shockingly difficult after the other moves. (If you experience shoulder pain in the fully stretched position, limit the range of motion). 7 Dumbbell Chest Exercises: No Bench Needed! I’ve shown you the best dumbbell chest exercises for strength, power, hypertrophy, corrective, total body and a special focused exercise for adduction. Lie down on your back on an inclined bench and hold 2 dumbbells at chest level along your body, palms facing each other. After verification, your discount will auto-apply on that order and all future orders. The information and dumbbell exercise illustrations below are for dumbbell exercises that are grouped by main muscle groups. We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or enter, submit, or access any information on our website. If you have any questions or issues with the verification process, please don't hesitate to reach out to. Your wrists are free to rotate, and your elbows and shoulders can travel along the path that’s most comfortable for them, essentially customizing the exercise for your body. If you have a bench or even a stability ball, just do the exercises as prescribed, while enjoying the greater range of motion that bench-based training allows. Stability Ball Dumbbell Chest Fly; Example Dumbbell Only Chest Workout ; Conclusion Why it works: “The Dumbbell Chest Fly may seem like a total bro move, but it’s seriously great for improving chest strength and targeting and toning the side boob area,” says Alai. Dumbbell chest workouts offer a versatile form of training and a great way to strengthen your upper body. Sets: 2 Reps: Stop two reps shy of failure on the first set; last set, as many reps as possible. Terms & Conditions  Bend at elbows to pull dumbbell toward your chest, then press arms back out to straight. In thanks to military and first responders, we're extending a 15% discount off MSRP for all products purchased at Onnit.com. Let’s dive into the pectorals and what makes them tick before going through the four best exercises to maximize strength in this region. Tuck your tailbone under, brace your core, and squeeze your glutes, so your pelvis is perpendicular to the floor. If you want to build awesome pecs, you need to make sure you are including these dumbbell chest exercises in your workout program! Each is designed to suit a specific goal and experience level. Step 2: Keeping your body straight and your head in a neutral position, simultaneously bend your arms and retract your shoulder blades until your chest is just above the floor—or as far as you can go without losing good form. Use them to perform lateral movements bypassing the dumbbells from one side to the other of your body. Warm up your chest, shoulders, and elbows before you train pecs with these moves from Onnit’s Durability curriculum. Perform the workout twice a week on nonconsecutive days. You can either lie back from a sitting position while holding the dumbbells, or have a partner hand them to you. Step 2: Lie back on the bench, your head at the elevated end, holding two dumbbells at arm’s length above your chest. Step 3: Keeping the dumbbells pressed together, slowly push them to arm’s length over your chest. #4 Dumbbells work the pecs harder. Use it in place of the chest day you were doing, or add it to your program for extra work (spaced out a few days from any other chest work you do). Plates can be added and held on with collars, or the turn of a dial or lever. Lie down on your back on an incline bench and grab one dumbbell with each hand at body height, elbows just slightly arched. Onnit,  See the directions above. Lie down on your back on an inclined bench and hold 2 dumbbells at chest level along your body, palms facing forward. As I wrote in my article "Feel the Bench in Your Chest with This Move," this is probably my favorite dumbbell exercise to hammer the pecs. This basically takes your entire lower body out of the exercise, which isn’t always what you want. 6. Lie down on your back on a decline bench and hold 2 dumbbells at chest level, palms facing forward. Raise the dumbbells straight up until your elbows are close to being locked and lower them back slowly after a short pause. This is your starting position. Raise the dumbbells until they are side by side on top of you and slowly lower them back after a short pause. On the final effort, get as many reps as you can. Men are not the only ones that want a strong chest, many women also want a strong pectoral muscle as … A 2017 study found that dumbbell bench presses activate the pectoralis major—the impressive slab that makes up most of the chest musculature—more effectively than both the barbell bench press and the Smith machine bench press. One other thing about adjustable dumbbells vs. fixed: sometimes it pays to get both. The angle should ideally be 30 degrees or less. If you’re ready to build some serious pressing strength and size in your chest, try one of the workouts below. Concluding Thoughts – The Best Dumbbell Chest Exercises. The exercise works on chest muscles with precision. Privacy Policy  If you can do more than 20 reps, wrap an elastic exercise band around your back and grasp an end in each hand for extra resistance. He is the co-author of two fitness books—The Exercise Cure and Your New Prime—and is a frequent top-five finisher as an age-group triathlete and competitive obstacle-course racer. 4401 Freidrich Ln. Rest about 2 minutes between sets of the first move, 60 seconds between sets of the second, and 30–45 seconds between sets of the third. In your workout: Do it toward the start of your chest workout for heavy sets in lower rep ranges.Consider varying your grip width for more complete chest development. The Best Dumbbell Exercises For Abs: 1. Load up on the decline presses—they’re a serious strength builder—and use progressively lighter weights as the workout goes on and fatigue sets in. And if you need extra work to bring up the weaker side, dumbbells make doing a few more reps with it simple to do. Step 1: Elevate one end of a flat exercise bench on two or three heavy barbell plates, or a small box or step. Your arms should be locked out and your body straight from your heels to the top of your head. We’re about to show you the best dumbbell exercises and workouts to develop your chest, top to bottom. Work smarter, not harder, to create a power chest. If you’re fairly new to the iron game and are looking to dumbbells to build your chest, start with this simple, two-move workout. But if you want to gain size and athletic performance, you may be better off with dumbbells, which allow you to lower the weights past chest level—maximally stretching the pecs and activating more muscle fibers. (If you experience shoulder pain in the fully stretched position, limit the range of motion). Step 1: Lie back on a flat exercise bench holding two heavy dumbbells on your chest, palms facing one another. Lie down on your back on the bench and grab one dumbbell with each hand at body height, elbows just slightly arched. Step 2: Lie back on the bench, your head at the lower end, holding two heavy dumbbells at arm’s length above your chest. On the pushup, perform each rep at a deliberate pace, stopping before you reach failure on your first set. Eventually, the strength on your two sides evens out. Stability Ball Dumbbell Pull-Overs; 6. That’s not something you need to worry about when your hands are connected by a steel bar. Step 2: Lie back on the bench with your head at the elevated end, holding two medium-heavy dumbbells at arm’s length above your chest, palms facing inward. When doing dumbbell chest exercises, you want to choose a variety of moves that target the upper, mid, and lower chest. Bend the arms as you lower the weights, explains Rusin, and you maintain the stress on the pecs while taking it off the shoulder joints. Step 3: Keeping the dumbbells pressed together, slowly push them to arm’s length over your chest. How: Stand with feet set wider than shoulder-width and hold a dumbbell with both hands in front of your chest. Subscribe to Men’s Health You may feel like your right and left arm push with equal force on the barbell bench press, but humans are very good at compensating—throwing a little more stress onto their stronger side while favoring their weaker one. Step 2: Press the dumbbells together in the center of your chest (this is your starting position). Dumbbell Squeeze Press. A dumbbell pullover? For example, when you visit the website, you access servers that are kept in a secure physical environment, behind a locked cage and a hardware firewall. First, don’t lower the dumbbell all the way down past your head; you don’t need this in the chest pullover version. (Think of yourself as pushing through the floor.). By elevating the bench just a little bit, you can incorporate leg drive into the movement in the same way you do (or should) perform a flat barbell bench press. Standard incline bench presses put your hips in a flexed—or bent—position, says Rusin. Step 4: Pause in the stretched position, and then press the dumbbells back up, flexing your chest as you push. We categorized them by the area of the chest they emphasize most. Upper Chest Dumbbell Exercises 1-855-ONNIT-99 This makes for a good contrast to flyes and dumbbell pressing movements—where the weights lower past your chest, emphasizing a stretch on the muscles. Step 4: Pause in the stretched position, and then press the dumbbells back to the starting position. Flat dumbbell chest press targets the pectoral muscle, triceps and front deltoids.First, lay on the bench with back flat and feet flat on the ground. Push the dumbbells up until the arms are fully extended with your pectorals contracting as … Limitations of dumbbell only workout. If you’re tired of schlepping to the gym and are ready to build a weight room of your own at home, dumbbells should be one of your first buys. Perform this workout up to three times a week on nonconsecutive days. Another adjustable option is Bowflex Selectech Dumbbells, which range in weight from 5 to 52 pounds in 2.5 or 5–pound increments. But, if you like the real-gym feel of one-piece dumbbells, and money and space are no object, it’s hard to beat CAP Barbell Rubber-Coated Hex Dumbbells, which feel great in your hands and won’t nick up your flooring if you drop them. Browse through the various dumbbell exercises for the chest (pectoral muscles) below: Bench Press. After a transaction, your credit card information is not stored on our servers. The volume (sets & reps scheme) I’m dialing up with this workout makes it ideal for use in any training schedule where you’re working all of your major muscle groups twice a week. This ensures that you never push a set farther than your weaker side can handle. It is, except it can also be one of the best accessory chest exercises if you implement a couple of tweaks. Set them slightly wider than shoulder width and do the same with your feet. All of the exercises in this at-home dumbbell chest workout can be done using a bench. The post 14 Dumbbell Exercises … We’re confident you’ll love your Onnit supplements. The materials and information provided in this presentation, document and/or any other communication (“Communication”) from Onnit Labs, Inc. or any related entity or person (collectively “Onnit”) are strictly for informational purposes only and are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention or treatment of a health problem or as a substitute for consulting a qualified medical professional. 9 Dumbbell Chest Exercises You Can Do At Home When it comes to building muscle, one of the first things on the mind of every man is having a strong, well-developed chest . That’s not possible with dumbbells: your right and left sides have to stabilize and push with equal force—and if one side lags behind, you feel it immediately. 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