The bench press is the most popular exercise for growing larger pecs and increasing upper-body strength. Even the NFL combine includes this exercise, popular among bodybuilders and powerlifters. As a result, Monday is sometimes referred to as “National Bench Press Day,” and many fitness buffs like to kick off their week with this time-tested barbell technique.
The bench press is a great way to create a strong upper chest, but you have many other options. Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for lifters to suffer from shoulder soreness and more than a few ripped pecs because of their bench press routine.
There’s good news: You don’t have to become married to the bench press! There is a slew of other workouts that deliver similar results.
The close grip dumbbell press, also known as the dumbbell squeeze press or crush press, is a valuable but underutilized chest workout. In this article, we’ll take a closer look at it.
Table of Contents
Bench Press with Dumbbells: A Step-by-Step Guide (6 Steps)
In this section you will learn how to do close grip bench press with dumbbells.
- Sit on a weight bench with dumbbells by your knees.
- Kick the dumbbells back toward yourself as you lie down. Keep your arms outstretched, and shoulder blades squeezed back.
- Make sure your palms face down and your shoulders are depressed.
- Inhale as you drop the dumbbells to lower chest level without lifting your shoulders.
- Exhale as you bring the dumbbells together.
- Repeat as needed. Bring your knees to the dumbbells and rock forward to stand up. You can also bring the dumbbells to your chest and drop them.
Bench Press with Dumbbells: Tips Do It Correctly
Let’s see how effective is close grip bench press for your workout schedule. Here are three of the best ways to do a dumbbell bench press:
- Don’t try to fail if you have differences. For example, if you know that one side is stronger than the other or that you move your right or left arm slightly differently, training to failure or close to it will tire out one arm before the other. This will cause your technique to fall apart as your weaker arm fights. This could be made worse by training with techniques that break down. This could worsen the stress on your weaker shoulder and cause you to get hurt.
- As you press up, turn your forearms. If you get strong enough that the dumbbells are heavy and big, the ends of the dumbbells can make it harder to move the top part of the weight. Turn your arms so that the palms of your hands face each other. Then, bring the dumbbells closer together to squeeze your pecs.
- Tuck your elbows to take pressure off your shoulder joints or chest muscles. During the descent, you can pull your elbows closer to your body to take pressure off your shoulder joint or pecs. This will make the triceps and front deltoid muscle get more attention than the pecs. This would be helpful for people who have had shoulder problems because of bench pressing.
- Pay attention to pushing inward. This exercise works best when you push inward. Focus on pressing the weights together as hard as possible to get your chest muscles to work as much as possible. You might find that using lighter weights gives you a better workout. You can then focus on pressing the dumbbells together.
- Use hex dumbbells. Close grip dumbbell pushes work better with hex dumbbells. Also, when you use hex dumbbells, you can press the flat sides together to make it less likely that the weights will slip.
- Stop just short of a full lockout. Don’t lock your arms at the top of each rep to keep the pressure on your pecs. If you don’t stop between reps, your chest muscles will soon start to grow. To build muscle, you need to get a good pump.
- Medium to high reps work best. Some exercises, like squats, bench presses, and deadlifts, work best with heavy weights and low reps. Close grip dumbbell presses perform perfectly with light to medium weights and medium to high reps. A high number of reps and a lightweight are not appropriate for this workout. The best range is 12 to 20 reps per set.
Mistakes People Make When Doing The Dumbbell Bench Press
When it comes to the dumbbell bench press, the mistakes I see most often are:
- You want to bend your elbows to stretch your chest muscles as far as possible, but you don’t want to bend them too much, or you could hurt your shoulder joint. The weights should be at the same level as your lower chest.
- When you lower the dumbbells, it’s hard to see how low you’re going. Feel your arms to determine your bottom range of motion. As you continue through the set, it’s simple to cheat on the flexion and extension by not going as low as you must.
- If you want to keep your shoulders healthy while doing the dumbbell bench press, keeping your shoulder blades back is important. When your shoulder blades are down on the bench, and you are holding dumbbells, it will be hard to move them. Keep them tight to reduce the stress on the stabilizer muscles around your shoulder.
- People still try to lift the same weight with a close bench press grip even if they don’t have a spotter or a smooth machine at the gym or home.
- Never use momentum to try to lift the weight. Not only does it make close grip bench press workouts less effective, but it also makes it more likely that you will hurt your sternum.
- If you want to use the close grip bench press to lose weight, don’t do too many reps.
- If you want to do a close-grip bench press instead of a regular one, talk to your gym trainer first to find out how much weight you should lift.
- If your hips are coming off the bench when you do a close grip bench press, you should lower the weight.
Strength Training Muscles Employed in Bench Press Exercises
The dumbbell press with a neutral grip works the upper body’s main pressing muscles. The neutral grip is used to reduce the use of the shoulders, especially the front delt, and increase the use of the chest and triceps. Here you will get to know about the muscles worked in close grip dumbbell bench press.
Pectorals
When you press, you use your chest muscles, also called “pecs.” That doesn’t change if you use a neutral grip. However, by turning your palms toward each other, you can reduce how far your shoulders move away from each other. This takes some of the load off your shoulder muscles and puts it on your chest and triceps so that you can lift more weight.
Triceps
During the neutral-grip dumbbell press, you use your triceps to extend your elbows and keep your chest up. Most pressing exercises use your triceps, but if you use a neutral grip, you can focus on them, even more to build lockout strength without putting stress on your shoulders.
Shoulders on the front
Numerous lifters select the neutral grip dumbbell press to minimize shoulder involvement. Still, your front delts are being used to some degree. They’ll help keep the lift steady and help the whole thing move. But they won’t control the movement if you keep your grip in the neutral position.
The Rotator Cuff
The Rotator Cuff is made up of four different muscles: the supraspinatus, the infraspinatus, the teres minor, and the subscapularis. Its job is to maintain your shoulder joint stable.
Dumbbell Bench Press Advantages
Close grip dumbbell bench press benefits include:
1. Make your chest and triceps bigger and stronger
The neutral-grip dumbbell press works your chest and triceps the same way as other horizontal presses. The main difference between this exercise and others is that you don’t put as much stress on your front shoulders when using a neutral grip.
By taking a neutral grip, you move your shoulder joint less to the side, which reduces the stretch on your shoulders. Moving the focus away from your shoulders puts more pressure on your chest and triceps. When you’re trying to build a big chest, this isolation helps. It’s also helpful to add more weight to your chest workouts without putting too much stress on your shoulders.
2. Work out despite shoulder pain
Lifters often have to train around injuries as part of their journey. You will probably need to be smart and take care of injuries, get stronger, or fix imbalances. For example, many lifters use the neutral-grip dumbbell press to build a strong chest while healing from surgery or shoulder injuries.
The neutral-grip dumbbell press is a good place to start if you have pain or shoulder discomfort when barbell bench pressing or if you are getting back into pressing after an injury.
3. Focus on the middle and bottom of your chest
Even though the neutral-grip dumbbell press isn’t exactly a lower pec exercise, it can help you target more of the middle and lower pec muscle fibers.
When you move the weights toward your lower chest, you shift the focus to the muscle fibers in your lower chest. So even though you don’t want to go too far, you can still lower dumbbells further than a barbell. This makes your muscles stretch more when loaded, making the middle and lower pecs even stronger.
4. Use lighter weights to get a good workout
When you push the dumbbells together, you activate more muscles. This is a type of training with tension. You should be able to get a great workout even with light weights because you are pressing the weights both in and up. This is a great exercise for working out at home when you don’t have heavy dumbbells.
5. Greater triceps size
The close grip dumbbell press is a chest exercise, but it also works your triceps because your arms move through a wide range of motion. Close grip dumbbell presses work the triceps in the same way that narrow grip barbell bench presses do.
6. Each arm can carry its weight.
Each arm holds a separate weight that isn’t connected to the other side. So, when you do the exercise, each arm will need to put in the same effort. This is great for people whose stronger arm isn’t always their dominant arm.
7. The exercise’s instability makes it important to control the fall.
Because of how the exercise is done, holding on to the weights makes you feel less stable. Because of this, you must focus more on controlling the weights and move more slowly. This slowing down of the repetition movement increases the amount of time the muscles are under tension, which is good for building muscle.
8. Makes your muscles stronger:
The close grip tricep bench press’s effects on different muscle groups are its most important benefit. The exercise works mostly on your triceps. Aside from that, the CGBP workout also works the chest and shoulder muscles.
9. It makes your body stronger:
A close grip bench press is the right exercise for you if you want to slowly build up your body’s resistance and your ability to lift heavy weights. Chest and shoulder muscles aren’t used in most weight lifting exercises, but that’s not the case with a close grip tricep bench press. Using these muscles, you can lift weights you couldn’t before.
10. Easier to use than a regular lift:
The traditional bench press is often hard for people just starting. If you have the same problem, a close grip bench press might be the best solution. The CGBP workout uses a narrow grip, which can reduce shoulder strain and help the lifter bench more weight.
Cons of Bench Pressing using Dumbbells
The dumbbell bench press has three problems:
1. Inconsistencies can be found
If you have bad differences in strength on each side, to begin with, they are likely to show up if you make the exercise harder. This means that someone in your position shouldn’t go for heavy loads and low reps or come close to failure in each set.
2. It’s hard to set up when trying to lift heavy weights.
Most of the time, if you want to get stronger, you want to lift heavy weights. If you want to lift as much weight as possible, the dumbbell bench press is not the best choice. In addition, setting up this exercise by putting the dumbbells in the starting position can be hard and risky, and there is a higher chance that you will fail or drop the weights.
3. You can’t make the range of motion the same for each rep.
Because it is easy to cheat on this exercise’s range of motion, you can’t ensure that all of the reps are of the same quality. This makes it hard to know if your performance has improved or if you’re lifting more weight but moving through a smaller range of motion.
Variations and Alternatives of the Close-Grip Dumbbell Bench Press
You don’t have to only do the close-grip dumbbell press to build your chest. There are several variations and other exercises you can do instead. Use these tried-and-true exercises to avoid getting stuck in a training rut or stopping your progress.
1. Dumbbell Bench press with a close grip on the incline
On an incline bench, you can do close-grip dumbbell presses to work both your upper and inner chest simultaneously. Try different angles between 15 and 45 degrees. Your shoulders will have to work harder if the angle is steeper. You may also be a little weaker when sitting at an angle.
2. Dumbbell press with a close grip on the decline.
Set your bench, so it slopes down by 15 to 20 degrees to work your lower pecs more. Most lifters find that decline presses make them stronger than flat and incline presses. Decline presses have a shorter range of motion and tend to be much easier on the shoulders.
3. Dumbbell floor press with close grip
If you don’t have a bench to work on, this could be the variation for you. Just lie on the floor and do close-grip dumbbell presses as described above. When your upper arms touch the floor, each rep is over. This limits how far you can move, taking stress off your shoulders. But because you press the dumbbells in, this variation is still a good way to work your pecs.
4. Svend press
The Svend press is a lot like the close-grip dumbbell press in that you also press two weights together. But for this exercise, you use weight plates instead of dumbbells.
What to do:
- To begin, bend your arms and place two five- or ten-pound weight plates in front of your chest while keeping your back straight.
- Move the plates away from you until your arms are straight. Press your arms in at the same time to squeeze the plates together.
- Bring the plates in toward your chest while bending your arms at the elbows, and repeat the movement for the desired number of repetitions.
- You can do Svend presses while standing, sitting on a bench, or lying on the floor. If you choose to lie, be careful not to drop the plates.
5. Push-ups with a medicine ball
Close-grip dumbbell presses and medicine ball push-ups are very similar, but you’ll be lifting your body weight instead of dumbbells. This is also a good way to work on your balance and core.
What to do:
- Put a medicine ball down on the floor and begin. Squat down and put one hand on each side of the ball at the top.
- Walk your legs back, so your body is straight, keeping your arms straight. Pull your shoulders back and down and tighten your abs.
- Make a fist and lower your torso toward the ball with your arms. Put in a lot of effort to stay balanced and stable. Don’t let your hips drop or your lower back round.
- Get back up and do it again.
- You can make this exercise harder by putting your feet on an exercise bench, or you can make it easier by bending your legs and resting on your knees.
- Be careful because this exercise can hurt your wrists.
6. Diamond-shaped push-ups
Diamond push-ups are a good way to work your inner pecs and triceps, just like close-grip dumbbell presses. When your hands are close together, your thumbs and fingers shape a diamond.
7. Barbell bench press with a close grip
Close-grip bench presses are often thought of as triceps exercises. This is because they are good for building up your arms, but they are also a great way to work your inner chest, just like close-grip dumbbell bench presses. With this variation, getting into the starting position is easier, and you don’t have to focus on pressing your hands together, so you can probably use heavier weights.
8. Bench press with dumbbells and cables
This exercise works your whole chest by combining two different exercises and training methods. It’s a little more complicated than close grip dumbbell presses, but it’s still a good way to build and shape your pecs.
What to do:
- Center a cable crossover machine with a workout bench in the middle. Attach wrist straps to low cables. Holding dumbbells in each hand, lie down.
- Bring the weights to your shoulders, then press them up and in. Don’t let your arms get pulled apart by the cables.
- Bring the weights back up to your shoulders and do it again.
- This complicated exercise is likely better done with a trainer nearby. Depending on your need, this move can be made on a flat, an incline, or a decline bench.
A Guide To Safe Work Practices
Lifting weights as part of an exercise should be done with extra care. If you want to avoid getting hurt while doing a perfect incline close grip bench press, keep the following safety tips in mind:
- Use a smith machine or spotter if you have access to one in your gym to ensure your safety while performing a narrow grip bench press.
- When doing a close grip dumbbell bench press, it’s important to keep your hands shoulder-width apart to work your triceps muscles well and reduce the risk of getting hurt.
- When you do a close grip bench press, keep your hips on the bench.
- Stop doing close grip presses immediately if you have pain or any other kind of discomfort in your shoulder or wrist.
- Even if you think you’re good at lifting weights, you shouldn’t be in a hurry when doing a close grip barbell bench press. To avoid getting hurt, it’s important to keep the movement under control from the beginning to the end.
- Don’t use weights that are too heavy for you when doing narrow grip bench presses. Lifting heavy weights can give you big biceps, but it can also put you at risk for injury.
- No matter the close grip bench press variation you choose, be sure to use a full standard grip to minimize the risk of dropping the bar.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a Barbell or Dumbbells Better for Bench Press?
To work your chest muscles more, you should bench press with dumbbells. If you want to work your triceps more, you should use a barbell. If your goal is to build muscle, choose a dumbbell bench press.
Why is it harder to bench press with dumbbells than with a barbell?
The dumbbell bench press is more difficult than the barbell bench press since it is more difficult to set up and perform, and the exercise is inherently less stable. In addition, during a dumbbell bench press, the stronger arm can’t compensate for the weakness of the other arm.
Is it good for the chest to do the dumbbell press?
The dumbbell press does help the chest, yes. It works the chest muscles better than many other exercises and gives you an excellent range of motion.
How far to go down on a dumbbell bench press?
Bring the dumbbells slowly down to your chest. Weights should fall as well as out to the sides. Alternatively, you can lower the weights until they are at chest level if your upper arm is parallel to the floor. Always keep your elbows under your wrists.
Final Notes
The question now is, what exactly is the final choice? When it comes to bench presses, which is better: the dumbbell or barbell version? The chest and triceps benefit greatly from both of these exercises. However, the barbell bench press helps you lift more weight and increase strength.
Use a dumbbell bench press to increase your muscle mass and growth. Consider the dumbbell bench press if you’re searching for a less-heavy option that still gives a difficult exercise.
