T Nation 25th Anniversary Giveaway - Enter Now
Categories: Bigger Stronger Leaner

Tip: Build Your Chest With Bands & Iron

The barbell bench press has its place, but dumbbell benching has a few advantages over the bar. Bench pressing with dumbbells allows you to work stabilizer muscles that are ignored by benching with a bar. It also gives you a great opportunity to really work the pecs hard at the top of each and every rep with certain variations. Want to really ramp up the dumbbell bench press? Add bands.

Band-Resisted Bench Press

Use this one to bust through a strength plateau. Your triceps and chest will experience tremendous force as the tension on the band increases with every inch you drive the weights up.

Band-Resisted Bench Press, Bands Anchored

In the regular dumbbell bench press, the pec major acts against the weight to adduct the humerus (brings it closer) to the midline. The load acts vertically across the system (intermuscular coordination) of the chest, triceps, and shoulders.

In this variation we add a force vector to the system that acts diagonally, driving the arms and dumbbells laterally away from the midline. As you can imagine, it'll force you to fight just to keep the dumbbells on their intended vertical path, which creates an insane muscular contraction, particularly when you push the dumbbells together at the peak of the movement.

Recent Posts

  • Stuff We Make

Mag-10

2 years ago
  • Bigger Stronger Leaner

Question of Strength 65

Ask Me Anything I receive great questions in my T Nation Community Coaching Lab. If…

2 years ago
  • Bigger Stronger Leaner

Question of Strength 64

Ask Me Anything I get a lot of great questions in my T Nation Community…

2 years ago
  • Bigger Stronger Leaner

Your Warm-Up Is Killing Your Workout... and Gains

An Exaggerated Warm-Up Isn't Helpful I don't know when the lengthy warm-up became a thing,…

2 years ago
  • Bigger Stronger Leaner

Assess Your Metabolic State, Dominate Your Workout

Training and Your Metabolic State When I think "workout," I think of speeds. Your metabolic…

2 years ago