Stop Doing Dumbbell Bench Press Like This (I’M BEGGING YOU!)

Do you really know how to dumbbell bench press for a bigger chest? Look, when it comes to building a bigger chest, the dumbbell bench press my be much more valuable than being a fallback “option” to the classic barbell bench press. In this video, I am going to the show you how to fix the 5 most comm

When it comes to building a bigger chest, the dumbbell bench press may be much more valuable than just being a fallback option to the classic barbell bench press. In fact, if you fix the five most common mistakes people make when performing the dumbbell press, you may just find that it’s the superior exercise choice for you to make for your overall best chest gains. What’s up, guys? Chef Kevalierx. com.

How much you bench is the wrong question to be asking if you want to build a well-developed chest. How do you bench should be the question you’re focusing on. Today, I’m going to show you how to avoid the most common mistakes on the dumbbell bench press that most people aren’t even aware they’re making. What’s worse is if you’re not tuned in what they are, it’s way too easy to just instinctively keep making the same mistakes over and over again until you either get hurt doing the exercise or you just stop doing it all together thinking it just doesn’t work for me. Don’t do that.

Instead, start by correcting the first of these chest press mistakes. And it’s the one that you make when you first pick up those pair of dumbbells and sit down to do the exercise. Have you ever paid attention to what your posture look like before you even get ready to press the dumbbells? I’m talking about when you’re sitting at the end of the bench with the dumbbells on your thighs. [music] This is a golden opportunity to set yourself up for success on the press right from the get- go that way too many people miss.

Instead of slumping over your dumbbells with your shoulders rounded, sit up tall. Pull your shoulders down and back. Engage the lats by digging your elbows into your sides. The irony is so many people miss this part and spend the rest of the time during the press trying to implement cues and fixes for keeping their body in the right position to press best. This is by far the easiest point of the exercise to set yourself up for success.

And missing it is going to make it almost impossible to get the rest of your dumbbell bench press form right on any set that you do. Your posture should be noticeably better regardless of what angle people look at you from, front, side, or back. Now, without losing this tightness or position, lay back and prepare to press. But make sure when you do, you’re doing it with your elbows in the right place. If you’re like me and you dealt with a lot of unnecessary shoulder pain, either through dumbbell bench pressing or really any bench press variation for that matter, this is the point in time when you get to make it all go away, or at least almost all of it.

Cuz when you pair it with one more tip I’m going to show you later in this video, you’re going to feel great on every single rep. But [music] first things first, instead of making your body a tea, make yourself a tree. In other words, stop bench pressing with your elbows flared directly out to your sides with your upper arms perpendicular to your body. This not only increases the impingement mechanics of the shoulder joint, but it also puts the chest fibers at a disadvantage, making it harder to recruit them as the main driver of the exercise. Tucking your elbows while keeping your wrists stacked above them at all times will place you in the optimal position to press safely.

The tree shape you’ve created by placing your elbows at about a 45 to 60° angle might be the single most important move you can make to turn the dumbbell bench press from a chest exercise you stop doing to one you won’t ever stop doing again once you see the painfree gains you could and should have been making from it all along. You want an easy way to make sure you’re getting this right every single time, even if you don’t know exactly what angle to place your arms at. Focus on your dumbbell touch point. Make sure that the inside of the dumbbell touches the outer lower corner of your chest muscle on every rep. Aim for contact right at this outer portion of the lower chest.

Benching with flared elbows closer to 90 degrees from the torso is going to make hitting this mark nearly impossible. The only way to be able to do it is by establishing that proper 45 to 60° elbow tuck. So, the mathematically challenged out there won’t have to worry that their chest development will lag because of a lagging grasp of geometry. [music] Next, we have to look at how you’re lowering the weight with gravity pushing the dumbbells down or with your back pulling them down. Proper form requires that you treat the lowering of the dumbbells almost as actively as you do the press back to the top.

How do you do this? By thinking of pulling the dumbbells down rather than dropping them down into position to perform the next rep. Let me show you what I mean. Have you ever done an inverted row for your back? If not, you should start.

And if you have, you should try and mimic the feel of the back muscle engagement and the rib cage [music] expansion that you get at the top of that exercise at the bottom of your bench press. In other words, lowering the dumbbells to the bottom position should feel like more than just gravity winning and pushing the dumbbells down. Your back should be an active participant. Try to get that feeling of rowing the dumbbells down. Even though the mechanics of the exercise won’t really necessarily allow that, it doesn’t matter that it’s gravity doing the lion share, but the intention to pull will ensure that the shoulder blades stay engaged and the chest doesn’t collapse or disengage in favor of the shoulder muscles at the bottom of the rep.

Speaking of lowering, that brings us to our next mistake. You don’t want to rush this. A slow eentric is perhaps more vital on a dumbbell bench press than it is any other exercise you’ll perform in the gym. In fact, it’s the second half of that safe shoulder combo that along with the tucked elbows I mentioned earlier makes the bench press a possibility for anyone that may have long ago stopped doing it due to shoulder pain or discomfort. And I’m not just talking about getting back to doing the exercise with lighter weight.

The use of heavier weights on the dumbbell bench press can become a reality again in your chest workouts simply by slowing down the tempo that you use when performing the eccentric portion of this chest exercise. This is due to a phenomenon I call the stability versus structure pain model. Lots of times the pain you feel on a bench press either on the lowering or pressing part of the exercise comes not from an actual structural problem in the shoulder, but from a lack of stability of the shoulder joint. Lower slowly, keeping those elbows tucked and chest prominent, and you may just find that the pain goes away instantly. Being confident in the control of the weights, even when they’re heavy, will allow the shoulder joint to avoid impulsive or reactive compensations for instability that cause those twinges of pain that make the exercise so damn uncomfortable.

Now, when it comes to a mistake-free bench press, lowering the weight down is only half the battle. People still find a lot of ways to screw up the press back to the top. So, let’s make sure you’re no longer one of them. And we do that by first targeting your feet. That’s right, your feet.

Be honest. Do you ever think about what they’re doing during the press? or more importantly what they contribute [music] to the power of the press every time you try to get those dumbbells off your chest. If the answer is no, then I’ve got good news cuz you’re about to experience a 10 to 15% increase in the amount of weight you can bench press with