What's up, guys?
Jeff Cavaliere, ATHLEANX.com.
We have another Iron Face Off here today.
This time, pitting variations of the bench-press up against each other to determine which one
is the one.
If I had to choose just one that’s going to give you the most bang for your buck.
Now, I’ve got to say right off the bat, in all these Iron Face Offs I like everything
we do.
There’s a purpose and meaning for everything we do that we’re going to cover here today.
But again, gun to my head, which one am I going to pick?
I’m going to have to pick one.
So, we’re going to break them down one by one.
It starts here with the dumbbell variation of a bench-press.
Now, why are we doing a dumbbell bench-press?
A couple of reasons.
Number one: we do know that this is an exercise we can load up fairly heavy and uses a progressive
overload exercise.
We can get a great range of motion with the dumbbells because they can come down slightly
lower than the chest itself.
That might be stopped by the barbell.
We also have the opportunity to create a bigger range of motion.
As I bring my arms up straight, I can also bring them toward each other.
However, I will caution you on this.
Do not think this is a resisted adduction exercise.
It’s not because when we’re in this plane here, whether we slide left or right is not
really impacted by the weight that’s in our hands because gravity is acting downward
on these weights.
What you are feeling is your ability to contract your chest into more adduction, but it’s
not a factor of the resistance of the dumbbells providing extra there.
So be careful about that.
But that brings us over to this.
This is a standing machine press.
Some guys might go “I knew it!
Jeff was going to say, ‘the athletic standing exercise is going to be the best option’.”
So, it would be something that would look like this.
We come out here and we press out.
We get into a staggered athletic stance, we press out in front of us.
We have more resisted adduction here, right?
It is ground based.
However, two things are wrong here.
Number one: this requires a tremendous amount of core activation to put myself in position
to do this properly.
As I start to load up, I have to push this weight out toward you.
As much weight as I could possibly handle, if I’m looking for that progressive overload.
But each amount of weight that I have to push out toward you is going to be countered by
the fact that my core has to be able to stabilize that and keep me here.
The weights are going to try and pull me back.
I have to stay here, and I can only do that with my core activation.
Which means you’d better have a strong ass core to overcome the fact that you’re going
to want to press some heavy weights.
I don’t think you’re going to be able to keep up in that race.
So that’s the first thing.
The second thing is, of course, getting into position here and then having the adduction.
Again, it’s not optimal when it comes to adduction because of the angle here of the
weights.
Now, you might be thinking “I knew the cables are still what Jeff likes.”
You’re going to want to go down to a flat bench and do cables like this.
Now, in this case, you are getting a tremendous amount of resisted adduction at the top.
You have peak resistance at the top of this range of motion because of the cables, but
one thing you do not have is a good opportunity to smoothly do this exercise.
You’d better be able to curl a hell of a lot of weight because you’ve got to pick
this cable up from this down position and get in position on the bench to be able to
perform it.
That is a struggle in itself.
I can tell you this: no matter how much you can bench-press, you’re never going to be
able to curl that much weight to get yourself in place to do it.
So where does that bring us?
It leaves us over here with the good, old, barbell bench-press.
Now, what is the good advantage of the barbell bench-press here?
Is this the winner?
I’ll tell you this: the barbell bench-press provides us with a slightly less amount of
range of motion because you’re simply pushing this up, straight overhead.
But we don’t have that adduction component because our hands are fixed here by the bar.
So, there’s slightly less range of motion in that regard.
However, I minimize the contribution of that extra range of motion when we talked about
the dumbbell bench-press.
What you do have here is, because we don’t have to worry about the demand of stabilization
the dumbbells provide, is an opportunity to push more weight.
So, we can get here in the barbell setup, come down, and press.
Not sacrificing all that much in terms of depth, even though the bar is stuck, in terms
of how low you can go because of your chest.
But what you have is an opportunity to press more weight.
As anybody that’s performed this lift can tell you, you have a greater dispersion of
the weight and a longer distance.
More like a see-saw – than you do when all that weight is concentrated in your hand in
a dumbbell.
Which makes it a little easier to press this.
Sometimes in the order of 20% more weight here.
So, if you’re looking for an exercise that’s going to build your strength, this is the
winner.
We know how important, as a strength and conditioning coach, strength is to the foundation of what
you do.
A barbell bench-press will be the winner.
I will offer you one other combination, though.
If you’re looking to create more hypertrophy, more stress, more inefficiency as I’ve talked
about in our videos before, when it comes to applying more stress to your chest, so
you get more growth, you’d want to perform your bench-press.
But then you’d come right up here and perform a standing crossover.
Something that allows you to get into resisted adduction with a much more significant weight.
The dumbbell bench-press is not applying that.
There is no real resistance up top here because you’re in that frontal plane.
Here, I’m using all my strength to be able to create that adduction across the body with
a much more significant amount of stress and weight against this adduction.
So, I have the ability to overload the adduction and I do it in a drop set format that allows
me to take that bench-press one step further.
Throw in the fact that, yes, we’re again on our feet for that athletic additional benefit
that always comes from being on your feet.
So, guys, if you’ve found this video helpful make sure you leave your comments and thumbs
up below.
We have others in the Iron Face Off series that you’re going to want to check out.
In the meantime, let me know what else you want me to cover and I’ll do my best to
do that for you in the days and weeks ahead.
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Guys, I’ll see you back here again in just a couple of days.