so to sum that up if i were to choose which was more beneficial
of the barbell bench press or the dumbbell bench press
what's going on everybody schuyler diehm here men's fitness coach and in this video we are
going to be examining the differences between the barbell bench press and the dumbbell bench press
which one is better which one is safer we're going to go through a couple different things
and by the end you're going to know exactly which exercise to choose so growing up every monday was
international chest day and i would immediately go to the barbell bench i feel like most men in
today's day and age want to load just a ton of weight on the bar and we just want to press it up
but was that the right decision so specifically today i want to cover three different things so
we're going to cover safety we're going to cover muscle activation and we're going to cover overall
beneficial for strength and so let's start with safety so if we look at the big picture of safety
not only can we address like actual safety of just making sure you don't crush yourself we can also
look at the safety of the shoulder and the chest and making sure that you're not putting yourself
at risk for injury now both exercises of course should be done with the correct form because if
they're not you may put your body at risk for injury so assuming you're using the correct form
for both the barbell and the dumbbell it may be a better idea to go with the dumbbell bench press
now the dumbbell bench press is first of all you can bail right like if you're holding weights and
you get stuck and you don't have a spotter you can easily just drop each dumbbell now yes if you're
not well versed in kind of how to drop it or how to get up it may be a little tough and you may
actually put your shoulder at more risk of injury but it's probably better than having a bar that's
way too heavy for you to handle and no spotter and having that basically crush you along with that
the dumbbell bench press is also going to be more healthy for the shoulder right if we think
about a bar and holding the barbell when you do a barbell bench press your hands are locked in place
right you are basically just putting one plane of motion now yes you can go up you can go down
but your hands are locked in that place whereas with the dumbbell you're holding the dumbbells and
they can actually go left and they can go right and so you're going to activate the stabilizers
in your shoulder which is going to allow for basically stronger stabilizers which is better
for your health and so back when i was doing barbell bench press all the time i never picked
up dumbbells for bench press and i actually found that my shoulders were super super weak when it
came to not only the shoulder press but i actually ended up hurting myself because they were in such
a vulnerable position and they didn't have that stabilizer strength so while maybe a little bit
more difficult to adjust to dumbbell especially if you're used to doing the barbell for the health of
your shoulder for overall safety i'm going with dumbbells on this one category two is going to be
muscle activation now again we're just going to use logic here and so if we look at the barbell
again your hands are locked in place and so you're usually having one specific range of motion with
the dumbbells not only can you come out a little bit wider not only can you bring them to certain
different levels but when you come up you actually have the ability to squeeze them obviously until
they touch and activate the chest more and so they've done a lot of studies on this and they
have found that by using dumbbells you actually can activate the chest more along with that
you're also going to have more muscular tension so you can actually squeeze the chest a lot more if
you're using dumbbells and finally you also have a longer range of motion right you can come back
down to the point with dumbbells where you can't really reach with a barbell because your chest is
going to stop it and then finally along with that because each muscle is working separately you're
going to have a lot better muscle balance than if you were say pushing up a barbell and having your
left side compensate for your right because you're a little bit stronger there so the last category
we're going to talk about is overall strength now there's a couple different aspects to this
the first thing i would say is that if you are loading up a bunch of weight on a barbell
because you're activating both chest muscles at the same time you're going to be able to push more
weight than you would with dumbbells right if you can do 70 pounds with dumbbells you can probably
do a lot more than 140 pounds on bench personally i can work up to about 100 pounds for three reps
or so with dumbbells at the moment and barbell i can do a lot more with 200 pounds on the bar
and so you can definitely add more weight so because of that a lot of people tend to think
that because they're stronger with the barbell it's the better move for building strength but
that's actually not the case so i actually found a study in the journal of strength and conditioning
research where they measured the differences in strength gain and muscle activation with different
football players with the dumbbell press which is a bilateral movement versus the barbell press
which is a unilateral movement and so this study references how some studies have indicated that
unilateral leg training produces a higher hormonal response compared to the bilateral training right
so like a squat would produce better testosterone results than say a bulgarian split squat or you're
using one leg but it also says that other studies have shown that unilateral arm training produces
no significant changes in testosterone levels when compared with bilateral training and so the effect
of unilateral exercise on hormonal response is pretty new so basically further research is needed
to confirm or review previous findings and they also do say at the end of this that it is possible
that supplemental unilateral training could enhance muscular development to greater extent
than bilateral training alone and so a little bit of mixed information here but it does make sense
that if you add more weight and you can push a lot more weight with two extremities and rather than
just using one right barbell versus say a dumbbell it does make sense that you are going to emit more
hormones but the studies just aren't really there yet and then the final pro of the barbell bench
press that i would say is you know for example my gym the dumbbells only go up to 75 and so i
can comfortably rep out more than 12 reps with 75 pounds unless i really slow the reps down and so
in that situation where my strength is kind of being maxed out with the highest dumbbells in
the gym it may be a good idea to every once in a while going over to the barbell so i can do a
lot more lower reps right six reps eight reps to really build the strength and then also make sure
i'm overloading the muscle so a lot of information there so to sum that up if i were to choose which
was more beneficial of the barbell bench press or the dumbbell bench press i would probably
have to go with the dumbbell bench press and of course implementing the barbell bench press here
and there is probably a good idea but if you are looking for overall strength development you are
looking for overall health of the shoulder and the chest the dumbbell bench press is going to be my
go-to so that is our conversation for today do me a favor and leave me a comment what do you prefer
right do you prefer the barbell bench press or the dumbbell bench press let me know and besides that
if you are looking for how to simplify the process of fitness and getting the best shape of your life
make sure to check the link in the description for a free guide we put together on how to use
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