When your goal is to build a big chest as soon as possible, getting creative with exercise selection is not only unnecessary, but in most cases counterproductive. Machines certainly have their place in a hypertrophy routine, but anyone who tells you he got a big chest by doing only using the cables is a liar. Adding size requires focusing on the most basic lifting equipment in the gym: barbells and dumbbells. So remember to stick to the basics.
Using a dumbbell rather than a barbell will require your body to stabilize the dumbbells. This will involve more muscle groups and therefore provides a different stimulus than a barbell bench press. It is always good to balance dumbbell movements with barbell movements.
The dumbbell movements help work stabilizer muscles and improve coordination, while allowing imbalances to be addressed – for example, if the left side of your chest is larger than the right side, you can perform one armed bench presses to work on correcting that imbalance.
Barbells eliminate the involvement of many stabilizer muscles and require less coordination, so a heavier load can be used to place more tension on the chest muscle. The dumbbell will also allow a fuller range of motion – but be warned, the lower you allow the dumbbell to travel, the more torque you place on your shoulder joint (stress) which can be dangerous, especially for someone with weak shoulders.
As you can see both have their pros and cons. So which one is right? It depends on your goals, incorporating a variety of barbell and dumbbell is the best way to stimulate all muscle groups.
Weeks 1-3
- Bench presses 4x 6-10
- Incline bench presses 5x 6-10
- Flat-bench flyes 5x 6-10
- Dips 5x 6-10
- Dumbbell pullovers 5x 6-10
- Incline Dumbbell press 4x 6-10
- Flat Dumbbell press 5x 6-10
- Incline Dumbbell flyes 5x 6-10
- Dips 5x 6-10
- Dumbbell pullovers 5x 6-10
