dumbbell or freebar

trendkill

New member
just wondering on your guy's thoughts on flat bench useing dumbbells or the barbell, i like to switch it up every so often but name some pros and cons of each please...
 
You can definitely use more weight with a bar. I feel that overall dumbells give most people a better workout. Love them both!!!
 
for me dumbells will always be tops. better range of motion bro. helps build all the little stabilzer muscles aswell
 
Barbell:
pros:
Use more weight
stronger tris and shoulders
cons:
If attempting max u need a spotter



Dumbells:
pros:
stimulates more muscle fibers
greater ROM
no spotter required
works the pecs indivudaly
cons:
none really
 
b fold the truth said:
I like the bar, it has the greatest carry over to what I compete in.

B True

yep...

i like the dumbells for shaping and hitting the chest in general....

straight bar for power, and since i powerlift, i need to train with it anyhow....not to many power lifting meets where you use the dumbells...none at all....

E
 
I like using Dumbells, but my gym sucks. The heaviest we have are 100's (used to have 105, but they broke when I was using them :( ) and they really are not heavy enough anymore. I don't like doing barbell pressing, but lately that all I have been doing because i out grew the dumbells.
 
i switched over to dumbells for a while and then went back to the barbell and i was much weaker and did get back again for a long time.
 
BigMoFoCa said:
DB all the way. Makes each side work equally.

Do you think that a barbell can make each side work unequally? I don't see how this would be possible. It is still a freeweight exercise. If you used one side more then that side of the bar would go up farther than the other, and this is a problem with form, not the exercise.

I think that there is one more con of dumbells that wasn't mentioned. To get the dumbells to your starting position can get hard. This is especially true when you start using heavy weights. It also gets hard getting the dumbells in place when you do incline dumbell press.
 
simpllyhuge said:
i switched over to dumbells for a while and then went back to the barbell and i was much weaker and did get back again for a long time.
yes if you use dumbells exclusively for a long time and then go back to a bar it takes a couple week for your strenth to return but once it does youll be even stronger than before if you had increased the poundages on dumbell prior to returning to barbell . same thing just happened to me !
 
when you guys use dumbells, so you bring them to the sides just around ur chest or do u let them go out more if u know what im saying..
 
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