Dumbbell Bench Press (BETTER CHEST ACTIVATION!)
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Published 2017-04-06
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The dumbbell bench press is one of the most classic chest exercises you can do to build a bigger chest. That said, it is not the chest alone that powers the dumbbells up on every rep. The shoulders and triceps are very much involved in assisting with the exercise as well. This can be a problem however when either one of these ancillary muscle groups starts to take over the movement and takes away from the contribution of the chest muscles.
In this video, I am going to show you how to influence the amount of work that is being done by the chest during the exercise with just a few simple tweaks to your hands. By simply adjusting the way that you hold the dumbbells and how you move your hands through space as you press the dumbbells, you can greatly impact the muscle group that takes on the brunt of the work during this popular chest building exercise.
In order to hit the chest more during the db bench press you are going to want to lead with your thumbs during the press. What does that mean? It means that as you press the dumbbells up over your chest you are going to want to tilt them ever so slightly so as your thumbs are pointing up towards the ceiling and your pinkies are tilting downward. This will have the effect of letting the inner half of the dumbbell raise higher than the outer half.
It is important to point out that you are going to want to do this from a position of your hands facing forward during the press, not towards each other. The reason why this alteration in the position of your hands has such a profound effect on the muscles in your chest is because of what it does to the upper arms when pressing.
By having your thumbs ride upwards as you press the dumbbells up, you are getting your biceps to get closer to each other during the ascent. This has the effect of increasing horizontal adduction at the shoulder which is a key component of chest activation. On the other side of this however is that fact that if you do the same exact movement with your thumbs but out of a neutral (or palms facing each other) grip, you would be doing the opposite of what you are trying to do. Here you would be activating your front deltoid muscle substantially more.
For most of us, this is the exact thing we are trying to avoid during the dumbbell bench press. If you feel most of the work being done by your shoulders during a bench press you will definitely want to avoid the neutral grip position as well as the changes and cheats to your wrist placement during the press.
Finally, if you have a bad shoulder and you feel too much pain in the joint during the bench press you can try the variation that I show here last. In this case you want to lead with your pinkies instead of your thumbs. This will take a lot of the strain off of the shoulder and shoulder capsule and instead let the triceps help out the chest to perform the movement. As I said, this is really useful if you don’t want to have to give up dumbbell bench pressing entirely because of shoulder pain.
If you found this tip helpful and wish you could train with a complete program that has these tips and more built into it to help you get much more out of your training, be sure to head to athleanx.com/ and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System.
For more videos on how to get a bigger chest and the best home chest exercises for mass, be sure to subscribe to our channel here on youtube at youtube.com/user/jdcav24
All Comments (21)
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i don't understand how Jeff still makes content he literally covered everything
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He's like the strong version of Di'maria
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I can finally feel the burn in my chest, just shows you don’t realise if you have bad form when you start out
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You're awesome Jeff, I was experimenting with different grips on chest press and couldnt figure out why I got a better burn. You the man.
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This guys physique, is the product of his knowledge..
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After years of struggling with chest exercises, i believe this advice is breaking me through to a new level. I put it into practice yesterday evening and wow, what a difference! Thank you, Jeff!!
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Fantastic insight. Have had an annoying pain in my left shoulder from pressing for months now. The leading with the pinky variation has helped drastically. Love the channel Jeff. Have seen far better gains since watching your vids.
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The variation of dumbbells is extremely useful for a small person like me youtube.com/post/UgkxP26Tir6n60vUkdtn4mbwhRO8cwuJQ… But the dumbbell size being large it's hard to do certain exercises like deadlift ( I have to have my hands and legs a bit wider to accommodate the size of the DB )Otherwise happy with the purchase. No excuse not to lift weight when it's snowing outside.
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1:02 am I the only one who heard Jeff struggling to get back up 😂😂😂 "so uh-
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I WAS LITERALLY JUST LOOKING UP WAYS TO SPICE UP MY CHEST DAY. JEFF HEARS MY MIND
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I love how mechanical the explanation is. Very easy to understand for a non-pro lifter too. I came looking for proper form to do the bench press because I was having issues with shoulder pain. I not only got a good good form explaination but also a freaking alternative I can use to shift some of that strain to my triceps instead which is one of my strong muscles. This channel is amazing.
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I had a shoulder injury a few years ago I follow your videos and I can't express how thankful I am, thanks to all your lessons I've been able to work out again and get stronger every day I really like the change in your thumbnails they are more positive, thank you very much for all this effort you put in all of your videos.
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When I first found out about athlean x 6 years ago, I didn't realize it would change my life. Lol. Thanks Jeff. You didn't allow me to have any more excuses.
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THANK YOU JEFF!!!! Just the video I have been needing to work around my sore shoulder that has been hindering my bench!
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Jeff you are so ripped and for your age that's just phenomenal
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Hurt my shoulder bench pressing and by leading with the pinky and getting the triceps involved I'm putting up numbers I'm proud of. Thanks for spreading the knowledge!
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This made a huge difference for me over the course of two weeks. Thanks!
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It feels like Jeff knows what I am having trouble targeting and makes a video on it the same day.
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Cannot express enough how much your videos help me with my workout, man. Just wanted to say THANK YOU.
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Of all the online trainers i've seen on youtube over the years, you sir, are the most knowledgeable. Great content, you cover so many points on your videos, as opposed to trainers who are all over the place and say the same things over and over. You're so concise and organized with your sharing of knowledge.
