6 Dumbbell Bench Press Variations To Grow Your Chest
The bench press is one of the most popular exercises in gyms around the world. Whether it is using a bar or dumbbells I tend to see people doing the same exercises time and time again with no variation in exercise, tempo or rep range.
Often people just get caught up on how much weight they’re lifting instead of the actual adaptation they’re looking to achieve. They miss the whole point of serious muscle contraction and motor unit recruitment. As a result, the reps are lazy and they’re just trying to get through the set.
Here are some of my favorite dumbbell bench press variations to add some variety into your program.
VARIATION #1: Continuous Tension Dumbbell Bench Press
When trying to increase strength or muscle mass, using a full range of motion is typically always recommended. This will develop your muscles to their greatest potential and accelerate your gains. However, there are a couple of things you must consider.
Bodybuilders understand the importance of keeping tension on the working muscles and increasing the time under tension for each and every set – this is a critical component to building muscle. One advanced method they use to achieve this is the principle of Continuous Tension, a technique that is in direct contrast to locking out on every repetition.
In ‘Supertraining’ by Mel Siff, continuous tension sets are defined as:
“Any set in which each repetition is done smoothly without ballistic bounce, cheating or significant pause at either end of the motion. Characteristically, the movements are executed fairly slowly without the joints locking completely at any stage of the exercise.”
The way to perform the continuous tension technique is to stop right before the weights are locked out at the top of the movement and move immediately back downward into the next repetition.
VARIATION #2: Continuous Tension Sets With Slow Negative
If you wish to further increase greater muscular tension and metabolic stress, a slow negative (lowering the weight for a count of 3-5 seconds) can also be used with the Continuous Tension technique.
VARIATION #3: Band Resisted Dumbbell Bench Press
This is a great exercise to bust through a strength plateau. Your triceps and chest will experience tremendous force as you drive the weights up to lock out. The resistance band tension increases with greater loads, eliciting a great response.
VARIATION #4: Band Resisted Dumbbell Bench Press With Bands Anchored
With the conventional dumbbell bench press, the pec major acts against the weight to adduct the humerus to the midline. The load acts vertically across the system (intermuscular coordination) of the chest, triceps and shoulders.
In this variation, we add a force vector to the system that acts diagonally, driving the arms and dumbbells laterally away from the midline. As you can imagine it will force you to fight just to keep the dumbbells on their intended vertical path and creates an insane muscular contraction just to push the dumbbells together at the peak of the movement.
VARIATION #5: One-Arm Dumbbell Bench Press
This is an exercise that will create superb full body tension, and it offers a lot in the way of core anti-rotation strength. It’s a great accessory exercise to help in improving your bench press numbers. Brace your lats, keep your core tight and press your feet into the floor. Keep the reps per set at 8 or under to avoid getting sloppy.
VARIATION #6: Slow Negatives With Isometric Holds
studies have shown that your body can tolerate up to 1.75 times more weight eccentrically than it can concentrically. If you emphasize the eccentric (negative) portion of your lifts, then you’re certain to increase muscle growth.
I’m not suggesting you do eccentric only training, though. I’m suggesting you take advantage of your body’s potential to handle more weight while still doing the full movement. Slow negatives allow more time under tension during the eccentric phase (where we can handle more load). The great thing about this is it allows you to workout at a higher intensity, and higher intensity means greater stress, which means greater adaptation.
The isometric holds again take advantage of another type of contraction. A very significant benefit of isometric training is that it produces a greater level of activation than any other contraction regimen. Combining both slow eccentrics and isometric work on each rep creates a highly effective and challenging exercise.
An element you can add to the isometric part is to have a partner try and add a small amount of pressure (just below the wrists) to pull the dumbbells apart. I do this with my clients and find this helps fully contract and activate the pectoral muscles.
