BARBELL PRESS VS DUMBBELL PRESS

Heavy pressing exercises such as the barbell and dumbbell bench press should be at the core of your chest routine. These are essential mass and strength building exercises for this chest.

There are several other effective exercises for hitting the chest: dumbbell, cable or machine flyes for example… all of which are great exercises for stimulating the pectoral muscles. Although these exercises play an important role in an effective chest development program, they’re secondary isolation exercises.

Barbell and dumbbell presses are your primary compound exercises that are always performed at the start of your chest workout, followed by the important secondary isolation exercises.

Starting your workout with these heavy compound presses when you’re fresh allows you to overload your chest with a lot of weight, creating the greatest tension and recruiting the highest number of muscle fibers. They’re the best choice of exercises to progressively add more weight and track your strength progress.

The isolation fly movements are complimentary finishers that will stimulate muscle fibers at different points of the strength curve, and because the contraction is isolated it helps to improve your mind muscle connection.

Today I’m going to examine the two king compound exercises for the chest (Barbells and dumbbells) to see which one is better in terms of building size and strength.

Barbells have a simple, one-piece design, just a single metal bar with weights added on at each end. The barbell press has been standard practice in bodybuilding and powerlifting for many years; and is often the first exercise used to gauge someone’s overall strength.

The barbell bench press is a tried-and-true muscle and strength builder for the chest.

But let’s see how well the barbell stacks up against the dumbbell in the chest development department.

RANGE OF MOTION

The pectoral major (chest) is a fan shaped muscle that extends from the sternum and attaches to the humerus bone of the upper arm. In a nutshell, the main role of the pectoral muscles is to make your upper arms move across the front of your torso – a movement referred to as “horizontal adduction”. When this muscle contracts it shortens and pulls the upper arm, moving it towards the middle of your chest.

When you use a barbell, your range of motion is limited. Picture yourself pressing a barbell. Your hands are locked on the bar and end up out and inline with your shoulders at the top of the movement. You upper arms are positioned slightly out to the side of your torso.

Reference: http://tinyurl.com/zya4k7n