Do These Dumbbell Chest Exercises to Get the Toned Buff Chest You’ve Always Wanted
People are creatures of habit that find comfort in doing rituals. All of us stick to at least one thing that we repeatedly do because we’re used to it. For example, when we want to develop our chest muscles, our first instinct would probably be to do bench presses and then barbell lifts. But there’s another more targeted way, and that’s through dumbbell chest exercises, in particular, those that target the chest.
Dumbbells give you the advantage of motion, flexibility, and of course a more symmetrical sculpted chest – since you’ll be using both of your arms, with the power coming from your chest to really level out the weights that you are lifting.
For beginners who have not yet mastered the proper posture of using a barbell, the exertion could force their bodies to contort without them noticing. This could be risky and could end up with you getting injured.
After we’re done with this article you should have fully understood the advantages of doing dumbbell workouts and will be better prepared to start reaping the rewards.
Tips that MUST be Followed When Doing Dumbbell Chest Exercises
Let’s start off by making sure that you understand that more weights does not necessarily mean more mass. Of course, we know that lifting heavier is better, but let’s not forget that lifting heavier weights without mastering the proper form is like baking a cake without knowing what the ingredients are.
Don’t listen to your ego, it’s not a numbers competition. You can bench less than your friend and yet have a sexier and a better looking sculpted chest.
Maintaining Proper Form While Doing Dumbbell Chest Exercises is Key
That’s right, proper form is the key. You can lift as much as you can, but without proper form, you’d just be wasting your time. Always remember to watch out if the other half of your body is giving way.
Get the power from muscle that’s targeted specifically by the workout that you are doing, and use only muscles, that’s secondarily targeted, for support.
Always keep your back on a natural “arch” so that you have a slight gap between the bench and your back, avoiding injury and unnecessary usage of power from other parts of your body.
We want to concentrate on the chest. Keep your core or the “abs/midsection” always tight to support your spine. This can be neglected often, especially by beginners. Keep in mind that we don’t want unnecessary back aches after a strenuous dumbbell workout.
Spotter or No Spotter With Dumbbell Chest Exercises?
Most of the exercises recommended here can be done without a spotter, but it doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t need one. It’s an entirely personal choice. When you have a friend available, it’s better to have him around to break the weights for you than you breaking your shoulders.
Let’s not get too excited about starting our routines by just pulling up the dumbbells straight away. You could risk injury just by doing this. Instead, gently place each dumbbell on the leg closest to it, and then do a leg lift to bring the dumbbells up.
If you should be on a lying position, start off by going on a sitting position, put the dumbbells on your legs, then gently go down on your back holding the dumbbells in sync, coming from your legs, as you lie down.
Make every rep count on a controlled slow pace. Feel the burn on each rep that you do. Going bouncy and fast on reps defeats the whole purpose; you’d be wasting precious energy and not get the effect you want. It also makes you prone to injury. So…feel the burn, go slow, and squeeze it.
Doing the Dumbbell Chest Exercises:
Here are some great dumbbell chest exercises from out Dumbbell Exercise Series that would give you excellent chest mass gain results while having fun at the same time. Check out the sample exercise videos for a quick demonstration of doing dumbbell chest exercises.
Dumbbell bench press – an excellent (or even better) alternative to doing barbell bench press. For beginners to advanced body builders, this exercise develops your chest primarily with secondary effects on the triceps and shoulder muscles. The advantages of doing dumbbell bench press (also known as dumbbell chest press) are more symmetrical chest development with less chance of risk injury due to the fact that you are not holding a fixed bar meaning you have more control and motion. Since you have more motion, you’ll achieve maximum chest development, which is after all what you’re after. This one doesn’t require a spotter, so you need to be the one to give yourself all the motivation you need.
Incline dumbbell press – this is a great dumbbell chest workout variation that specifically targets the upper chest muscles, with targeted secondary muscles as well (front delts and triceps). In order to fully execute this workout, your body must have more muscle fibers to keep the weights balanced. Most people do this exercise but never fully get its maximum benefits, because they do not know how to do it in optimal form.
Incline dumbbell flys – targets the muscles of the clavicular head of the pectoralis major or in layman’s term the “upper chest.” This is a great exercise to do if you want to add Juggernaut-esque mass on your upper chest. Much looooved by the pros, and enjoyed by the beginners. To fully obtain maximum result, this exercise should be done early on, as this is usually used as a pre-exhausting exercise. Why? For one simple reason only, you work out your chest until failure before affecting any other secondary muscle groups (triceps, deltoids) that you would need in other exercises – giving you the most benefit from your overall workout regime.
Dumbbell flys – primarily develops the chest without the assistance of the triceps muscles. This can be done using various angles such as: decline, incline, or using a stabilizer ball. Dumbbell flys focus on the chest and shoulders, yes; but it also strengthens muscles in your back, as well as your triceps. Keep your arms straight and don’t forget to only use your chest power for this exercise to avoid injury and get maximum results.
Decline dumbbell press – probably the most underused chest exercise in the history of bodybuilding. You won’t believe how underrated it is even though full usage of this will give your chest the best sharp cut look going down and carves up to complete the separation of your abs to your chest. This rounds up your chest giving it that fuller and muscular thickness look. It targets the lower pectorals primarily and gives a great deal of stress right on the middle and upper chest as well. Very good for beginners, and once the form has been mastered, enormous chest gains await. Give a decline dumbbell press a chance and you’ll see very noticeable changes in the development of your chest.
Possible Selective Exercises with Dumbbells
There are lots of different chest exercises that you can do, but as for selectively choosing workouts, there are only about 5 that you can put your focus on, and only 2 of these that you can do using dumbbells. You may modify the workouts using dumbbells, but the results would not be the same.
Here are the workouts that you can selectively choose to enhance your upper torso.
- Dumbbells Press
- Dumbbells Fly
- Straight Road on a Flat Bench
- Straight Road on an Angle Bench
- Butterfly Machine
All of the exercises mentioned above would give you the shape and fitness you’ve always wanted. It’s going to be slow at first, but you’ll notice the difference when the pace starts to pick up.
Stomach in, Chest out!
When you complete our recommended dumbbell chest exercises, it’s natural for muscle fatigue to set in. There’s a trade-off however, to all that weariness and that’s when you see yourself developing the cuts that you admire in others.
Just imagine, if thinking about getting a sculpted body already leaves you feeling great, then what more could completing a whole set of chest-targeted dumbbell program do for you?
You’ve done proper form, soon you’ll be perfecting it, opening the opportunity to lift heavier weights and gaining more chest muscle mass. Your sculpted chest will be the symbol of your dominance, your alpha male tag, next to your arms and core. In no time the ladies will be staring at your beautifully sculpted upper torso physique and may be inclined to want to touch it.
They won’t be able to keep their gaze away from you, amazed at the wonderful creature that just passed them by, and guys will be staring at you too, envious at your nicely developed muscles.
Growing more and more confident each day, attracting the ladies, and being happier with the way you look are just some of the many rewards that you can reap from a dumbbell chest workout.
We hope that you’ve enjoyed this article and received value from reading it. In the last article we covered dumbbell back exercises, so now move on from the dumbbell chest exercises to the next article. There we can further talk about how you can develop your legs doing dumbbell leg exercises to turn you into a lean and mean machine, so keep on reading!
