Dumbbell Bench Press (BETTER CHEST ACTIVATION!)

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What’s up, guys? Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX. com. So I always say here, on this channel, that it’s not what you do, but it’s how you do it that matters the most. Today I’m going to show you just using one exercise example – the dumbbell bench press, which I’m going to do up here on an incline, but the same thing would apply if you were doing it flat – how you push the dumbbells up over your chest really, really matters.

It shifts the focus of where you’re feeling the exercise. Maybe from that you’re not feeling where you should, to one where you should when you’re doing the exercise correctly. So let me explain. When we do the exercise we have options. We can turn the dumbbells either forward, and face them away from us, or we could face them toward each other.

When we press them we could do nothing with our hands and keep them locked in place, or we could actually move the wrists and hands as we press. So we can lead with the thumbs as we go up. Leading with the thumbs that way, tilting the dumbbells up on the inside, or we could lead with the pinkies, toughen the dumbbells up more from the outside. So that alone will give us many, many options in terms of shifting where we feel the exercise because if we’re trying to do this for the chest – which 95% of us are trying to do – then we’d better arm ourselves with the best technique for doing that. What you’re going to want to do for that is start with the dumbbells facing away from you and as you press up you want to tilt the inner half upwards.

In other words, lead with the thumbs here. I’ll show you what it looks like straight into the camera in a second, but I’m basically leading with the thumbs all the way up to the ceiling, tilting those dumbbells up toward each other. Here, and up toward each other. So what it looks like is this: dumbbells are here, tilting, tilting, tilting, until the thumbs are touching each other. Down, tilt, tilt, tilt, here, the thumbs are leading the way.

Pinkies are down at the bottom. Why does that work? Because we’re actually using the position of the hands and wrists knowing that they’re connected to the rest of our arm to get a different response from the upper arm. We’re getting more of this adduction. The biceps are coming closer toward each other at the top, which is a function of the chest to adduct your arms across it.

So you’re getting more chest activation by leading with the thumbs at the top. On the other hand, maybe you’re feeling it too much in your shoulders. Maybe you do the exercise and you’re like “I always feel my front delts get fried first. ” Likely what you’re doing is, you’re doing the exercise out of this neutral grip. When I do it out of the neutral press, right here even alone you’ll probably feel it – just even the first few reps – that you’re getting more activation of the front delts.

But if you’re doing anything like I showed you before where you’re actually leading a little bit of the way with your thumbs here, now you’re really going to feel it in the front delts. Now if that’s something you’re targeting that’s fine. You probably don’t want to do that. So what you’re looking to do is avoid this positioning. Neutral grip and any type of leading with the thumbs.

A lot of times you can cast your thumbs because you’re trying to get a little extra cheat. But what that’s doing is, is doing almost a front shoulder raise. If I had the dumbbell right here in front of me and I’m lifting up, like that, you could see I’m leading with the thumb all the way up and that’s just what I’m doing here, except I’m doing it out of a bench position. Lastly, the triceps can actually get an influence if you change that positioning of the hand as you lift and what you want to do there is instead of leading with the thumbs on the way up, turning the dumbbells up this way, you want to lead with the outer half of the dumbbell. So you want to lead with the pinkies.

You do it from a little bit more of a tighter press angle here. So you’re leading this way, and then down. So you lead with the bottoms of the dumbbells. If you’re a little bit in this position here, it’s more of the outside part of the dumbbells and you press up to the top, and down. Lead with the outside.

Lead with the pinkies all the way up and come back down. Again, what you’ve got going on there is you’re getting more involvement and flexion and extension here with the elbow, which is going to get the tricep to work more. So you’re just leading this way. It’s an interesting option really, because some people that bench press and have shoulder pain and think they can’t do anything, it’s because you’re really relying on the front delt and the chest to work together, predominantly. Then the triceps get shut down a little bit.

If you do it the way I’m showing you here and press a little more leading with the pinkies you’ll find that the triceps will take over a lot of the contribution of the work with the chest and you’ll alleviate a lot of that shoulder discomfort. So it’s not a completely useless option. It’s something that actually could be useful if you’re dealing with shoulder pain when pressing. So the most important thing though is realizing that the way you change the small details on just one exercise really showcases how important it is to get them right. As a matter of fact, we covered in another exercise, another video, the differences between the grip width and the positioning on a chin up or pull up that dramatically changes where, in the kinetic chain, you feel that exercise.

I’ll actually link that for you here if you haven’t seen that. It’s yet another example of how everything matters when you’re in the gym and putting the science back in what you do is ultimately going to determine the results that you get. If you’re looking for a program that does that head to ATHLEANX. com and get our ATHLEANX training program. In the meantime, if you’ve found this video helpful leave your comments and thumbs up below.

Let me know what you want me to cover in a future video and I’ll do my best to do that. All right, guys. See you soon.