Do Dumbbells Help With a Bench Max?

The bench press is one of the standard exercises that serves as a barometer for total upper-body strength. From sports to powerlifting competitions, your performance on the bench press goes a long way to developing the strength and muscular endurance necessary to succeed. To improve and increase your one-rep max for the bench press, you need to do more than standard bench presses. If incorporated properly into your routine, dumbbell presses can help develop the stabilization necessary to push past your current barbell bench press max.

  1. Bench Press Max

    • Like any lift, you have a ceiling on how much weight you can move through the plane of motion of the exercise. The technical calculation of your bench max is called the one-rep max (1RM) for the barbell bench press. Basically, this is the most weight you can press for one complete repetition. Often, official bench marks for recording your 1RM bench press will require that you complete two reps to ensure that you genuinely press the weight through one full repetition. The muscles used for the bench press go beyond just the chest; your triceps, deltoids, trapezius and core muscles all contribute to pressing the weight upward and controlling it downward.

    Dumbbells and Muscle Engagement

    • Training with dumbbells for improving your bench press max should be done as a complementary exercise. You won’t ever be able to surpass your barbell bench press max using dumbbells; what dumbbell bench presses will do is engage a broader network of stabilizer muscles in the arms, shoulders, neck and core. This increased stabilization, over time, will improve fast-twitch muscle response that will work in conjunction with your barbell presses to increase the weight you can press.

    Equalization of Strength

    • Another benefit of dumbbell work is that it will help equalize strength in each arm. Barbell exercises tend to broadly distribute force across the bar, which lets your dominant arm overcompensate for your weaker arm. If this is the case, it means that when you try to press your max on the bench press, you’re performance will be less than your potential. It’s like pressing with one and a half arms. Dumbbell presses help each arm become equally strong, which improves barbell bench press performance over time.

    Impact on 1RM

    • Dumbbell work can improve your max weight for the bench press, but only if you fold in exercises correctly. Obviously, you need to continue with your barbell bench presses, but you can also do one to two sets of dumbbell presses once or twice each week. Also, use a set structure that promotes the development of power, such as a pyramid set or a progressive 5x5 set. For two or three sessions every five to seven weeks, swap out barbell presses for dumbbell presses only. This will reduce the level to which your body acclimates to your routine. Also, alternate between lateral, incline and decline presses with barbells and dumbbells to increase your lateral bench press max over time.