Flat bench barbell press vs. Flat bench dumbbell press.

[stan4]

Dumbell press will be more effective at hitting all your stabilizers, allowing more ROM, etc.
But the bench shouldn't be your home base for your chest workout.

[RD5050]

[Mod cut: orphaned]

Originally Posted by Mr.Triny33

Which on is better for building your chest muscles.

Building your entire upper body (lats, pecs, delts, back, traps) will help your overall chest look bigger.

Also ... please do not modify the content of my quotes! If you wish to say something ... do it in your own quote.

[Billy Millennium]

I prefer using dumbbells. Reasons:

-Better range of motion
-safer and no need for a spotter
-Working stabilizer muscles is a good thing I suppose
- Less risk of shoulder injury I hear

Only issue with dbells is a lot of gyms (including my current one) don't have enough weight. So you may not be able to advance in weight which is big negative.

[td333]

saying the BP is overrated is like saying squats are overrated

[schmedes2]

I like db's better simply because I don't need a spotter to use them. So you can max out on your own and not worry about getting stuck under the bar nor is their any need to take up the single power rack in the gym to bench with.

[sholomar]

I use dumbbells because I can go to complete muscle failure without a spotter, holding that last rep in place until I just can't hold the thing up any longer and it slowly lowers down and rests against my sides or hits the floor.

[Mr.Triny33]

Thanks for the info to all, I usually do both DB and BB presses, along with chest press machines and pectoral fly machines. I admit I haven't been doing as much shoulder and back exercises as I should, and started focusing more on that a couple months ago, and have been noticing better results since. Thanks again everyone.

[Engineer_Guy]

Originally Posted by stockwiz

I use dumbbells because I can go to complete muscle failure without a spotter, holding that last rep in place until I just can't hold the thing up any longer and it slowly lowers down and rests against my sides or hits the floor.

Hitting failure every workout is really not desirable for continual progression.

[Engineer_Guy]

I prefer barbell bench press as a main exercise because it is more trainable than dumbbell bench press. You can add weight more easily to a barbell and you will press more weight thus triggering more neural adaptations. All of this also allows for longer linear progression to be made on the barbell bench press.