- The best exercise to train your chest in the gym
- Forget the classic dumbbell flyes and do this instead…
- The 15 best chest exercises to improve pecs
- Full chest training: only 5 exercises for pecs of steel
The chest is a very important muscle group, but it is not difficult to train it. It is primarily made up of two muscles (the pectoralis major and minor), and its main job is to perform a very specific action: pulling the upper arms toward the midline of the body (ie adduction).
In doing so, your chest helps you push things together, which is why exercises like pushups, bench presses, and dumbbell flyes are so popular for building these key upper-body muscles.
But just because an exercise is popular doesn’t mean you should do it. Like the dumbbell flyes. While performing this common chest adduction exercise doesn’t guarantee injury, it certainly doesn’t help prevent it either, and there are several alternatives you can do instead that can increase your strength without compromising your safety. The key to all of those moves, of course, is chest adduction.
Why you shouldn’t do dumbbell bench flyes
Like the classic crunch, there is nothing inherently wrong with dumbbell flyes. But the move is just hard to perform correctly (i.e. safely) without having a trainer or other certified fitness professional offering guidance on proper technique, which will likely score following a few focused reps no matter your approach. ..
You probably already know that the dumbbell fly is performed in the prone (face up) position, and its key action is bringing the weights up above your chest (that’s adduction, which you’re using to squeeze your pecs to grow your chest). chest) . The problem lies in the execution. When many spread their arms out to the sides, they spread them too wide, moving the elbows below the plane of the chest and, due to the load, straining the shoulders in the process.
Another problem with the dumbbell fly is that it doesn’t maximize the “squeeze” at the top of the rep. The closer you get to the top position (weights together), the less resistance you’ll get from gravity. That’s why elite trainers and expert weightlifters skip this dumbbell fly in favor of a handful of more effective chest exercises that eliminate that dead zone and increase your pecs’ time under tension.
What to do instead of dumbbell flyes
The best alternatives to the dumbbell fly are those that prevent you from hyperextending your shoulders at the bottom of the rep and/or compensate for the decreasing effect of gravity at the top of the rep.
The best exercise instead is: ditch the bench, swap your dumbbells for resistance bands or the cable machine, and perform the chest fly in an upright position (kneeling or standing, staggered). Another option is to hold the dumbbells and shift the bench across the floor or change your position on the bench so that only your shoulders are in contact with it and the bench and your body form a “T.”
Either option will prevent your elbows from going below parallel with your body and your shoulders from experiencing undue stress as a result, allowing you to build muscle without increasing your risk of injury. That way, your primary focus can be on the movement that will grow your chest, adduction, rather than the stress your joints face under load.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information regarding this and similar content at piano.io
