The dumbbell chest press offers some major advantages over its big brother, the barbell bench press. With dumbbells you can isolate your chest better and you keep your front shoulder heads more out of harm’s way. But then you have to perform the exercise correctly and that’s what it sometimes lacks. Below are five of the most common mistakes made with the dumbbell chest press.
1. NO SHOULDER PACKING
As with the barbell bench press and many other exercises, the dumbbell chest press starts with the correct body position. The most important part of this is shoulder packing. That is, before you start the exercise, you squeeze your shoulder blades together and press down. So like this:
Make sure you’ve ‘packed’ your shoulders before placing your bum on the bench:
Shoulder packer is essential. It makes you stronger and you mainly use your chest and not your anterior delts. In addition, you prevent nasty shoulder injuries.
2. ELBOWS AT A 90 DEGREE ANGLE
Speaking of nasty shoulder injuries, make sure to keep your elbows slightly in, at about a 45-degree angle to your torso. All too often we see protruding elbows, at an angle of 90 degrees, so that although you use your chest muscles to the maximum, you also risk shoulder injuries.
However, don’t keep your elbows too close to your body, because then you make it more of a triceps exercise. In short, choose the golden mean.
3. HANDS AND ELBOWS OUT OF ALIGNMENT
Another form error that can cause shoulder injuries: the positioning of your hands in relation to your elbows. Make sure they are aligned throughout the movement and not like this:
4. NOT HANDLING FULL ROM
As with almost any exercise aimed at maximum muscle growth, the dumbbell chest press requires a maximum range of motion or a full range of motion (ROM). That means that you lower dumbbells in such a way that you feel a good stretch.
This is also an advantage of the dumbbell chest press compared to the barbell version: you can sink just a little deeper than your chest surface, because you are not hindered by a bar.
5. NO CONTROLLED ECCENTRIC PHASE
This instruction also applies to almost every exercise you do: do not let the weight ‘drop’ in the eccentric (negative) phase, but lower it in a controlled manner, so that you can exert sufficient load on the trained muscle. You don’t have to do reps overly slow, but don’t do it like this:
SUMMARIZING
If you take all these cues into account, your dumbbell chest press will look something like this: