Improving Dumbbell Bench Press

Well he probably has better genetics than you, or is eating better and recoverig better.

Your only real choices are:

  1. Train more - Sneak in some extra workouts, or extra sets, when he’s not looking
  2. Train less - Try 3x5 or 5x3(prolly not for dbs though)
  3. Eat more and sleep more
  4. Strengthen your shoulders
  5. Get a new partner

#1 will work if you aren’t currently doing enough or too much, but will fail miserably if you are doing too much

#2 will work if you are currently doing too much

#3,4 will ALWAYS help

and #5 is probably the easiest but dumbest solution.

Here’s what I would do. Since you said you are stronger at tricep and chest isolation movements, stop worrying about those, and focus on the presses and shoulder stuff. Dont completely cut them out, but put a lot less focus on them.

You said you are weaker on db press and shoulder press. So there are a few options here. You probably should start working both incilne and flat pressing more. The question is what angle for the incline. I could see vertical, 45 deg. or 30 deg. Any of those would be fine. And then keep the flat the same.

So to make it simple, go with 3x5 on incline, and then 3x5 on flat. You could even go 5x5 on the incline if you are very weak.

You may initially be lifting less when it comes time to flat bench, because you’ll be tired from the incilne, but when you get your flat back up to 42kg+ then you’ll be a lot stronger.

Theres some pretty bad advice going on in here. No offense, but some of you guys dont know what you are talking about and shouldn’t be suggesting things.

Since when is 5x5 bad for strength?

And if the guy has strong triceps, why should he be doing floor press

How is switching to neutral grip gonna make any difference.

“Hanley wrote:
You kick his ass on tricep stuff… he kicks yours on dumbbell bench… what would be the logical issue and solution?”

"Kanew wrote:
He has strong shoulders (in things like overhead press), you reckon this could have something to do with it?
"

This take a very minimal level of reasoning to figure out.

If the OP is stronger in triceps and flyies, but his friend is stronger in pressing, AND the OP is looking to gt stronger in pressing, then MAYBE, just MAYBE he should focus more on pressing?

I dunno, it would be nice if he could get some clear suggestions, but instead it seems like everyone is just spouting off random thoughts from the back of their minds.

***As a side note OP, I dont know if you should be worrying about anything. You shouldn’t always compare yourself to other people. It was the first workout with a new weight, so you AREN’T suppposed to hit all your reps anyways. You got 3 out of 5 sets on your first workout with the new weight. And he got 4 out of 5. Big deal. Maybe he has slightly better endurance, or recovery than you. If you guys were VERY similar and had been training together a long time, and he started to really take off in his strength, while you were stalling, then that would be something to worry about. But you are talking very minute differences in performance on ONE WORKOUT. Hope this helps.

huh… “5x5 not good for strength”, this is a joke right? many people, including myself have made excellent strength and size gains using 5x5 for db bench.

  1. I believe 5x5 is great for building strength if done right.

  2. It doesn’t matter if you’re stronger at flye’s, you’re pressing, so his CNS might be better equipped to recruit more motor units in compound exercises than you. Sounds like a show vs. go type thing. Just because you can do 70lb. DB Flye’s doesn’t mean you can press 150’s, or does it??? Anyway, I like the idea of taking out your isolation work, and focusing on your compound stuff like Hanley said. Incline, flat, decline, dips, even weighted pushups. You need to press to get better at pressing.

[quote]kanew wrote:
Apologies if this is in the wrong forum, powerlifting seemed like the right place.

I’m trying to improve my dumbbell bench press, and keep up with my training partner.

Went for 5x5 with 42kg DB last night, it was a new weight for both of us but I could only manage 3 of the sets where as he busted out 4 (neither of us managed the full 5; hit failure and were genuinely f*cked).

This is a trend that has been continuing for a while. He seems to be able to perform so much better in the press than i can and i can’t understand why: when we do something predominantly Triceps like dips, or pectorals like flyes or something similar i kick his arse.

I didn’t know if there was any guidance you guys could offer me in any movements / methods / muscles I should be working on to improve? [/quote]

Why are you failing on set 3?

When you do 5x5 or something, the first 4 sets should set you ‘in the groove’ or to help you practice for your 5th set. On your 5th set you should use your heaviest weight and go all out.

So, don’t use the 42’s for every set.

Do something like:

1: 25kg x 5
2: 30kg x 5
3: 35kg x 5
4: 42kg x 5
5: 47.5kg x 5+

This will help your overall strength, your partner probably is able to do another set because he has better endurance/can recover faster. Not because he’s necasserily stronger.

Infact, he could just have a better diet than you.

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
Why are you failing on set 3?

When you do 5x5 or something, the first 4 sets should set you ‘in the groove’ or to help you practice for your 5th set. On your 5th set you should use your heaviest weight and go all out.

[/quote]

The way a lot of people do 5x5 is different. Instead of ramping up and maxing out on the last set, they do the same weight for all sets. If they get 5x5 and make all the reps with good form, then they increase teh weight the next workout. Usually, they’ll get 3-4x5 on the next workouts and then the reps will drop off. Then, when they get all 5x5 again, they increase teh weight again.

So his sets might have been:

5
5
5
3
2

And his friend might have done:

5
5
5
5
3

Both of them are right on track with how it should be, but if being stronger than his friend is really that important then he’s gotta try something different. There are a TON of options, but all of them involve pressing more and doing less isolation stuff. He could go back down to the previous weight, and work up to 5x6, 5x7 or 8x5. It really depends on where his weaknesses are. If he is just as strong as his friend at a 1rm, but cant keep up when it comes to the 4-5 set, then his training should be a bit different than if he’s weaker than his friend, but has goood “endurance”

The only other thing I can think of on this is that OP you might not have been resting long enough between sets. It sounded like you said that aftr 3 sets of 5, your reps tanked. There are a few possibilities here.

#1 You pushed too hard and hit failure on set 3.
#2 You may need to rest longer than your friend. Not everyone recovers at the same rate.

So if your sets looked like this:

5
5
5
2
1

Then you may have been better going for this:

5
5
4
3
3

Or maybe you just needed to rest a bit longer and you would have been able to hit 4 or even 5 sets at 5 reps.

well 5x5 may be good for “strenght”…but when yur training a powerlift it quite sucks…tu much sts/reps …not enought weight…or to much weight

and weel if you wanna be strong at db press simply get srong at the bench press

[quote]zombiec wrote:
well 5x5 may be good for “strenght”…but when yur training a powerlift it quite sucks…tu much sts/reps …not enought weight…or to much weight

and weel if you wanna be strong at db press simply get srong at the bench press [/quote]

None of this really makes any sense. Too many sets/reps? Not enough weight, YET too much weight?

It can and DOES work, even for POWERLIFTING

[quote]scubasteve2105 wrote:

  1. I believe 5x5 is great for building strength if done right.

  2. It doesn’t matter if you’re stronger at flye’s, you’re pressing, so his CNS might be better equipped to recruit more motor units in compound exercises than you. Sounds like a show vs. go type thing.

Just because you can do 70lb. DB Flye’s doesn’t mean you can press 150’s, or does it??? Anyway, I like the idea of taking out your isolation work, and focusing on your compound stuff like Hanley said. Incline, flat, decline, dips, even weighted pushups. You need to press to get better at pressing.[/quote]

THIS

Also DO NOT NEGLECT BACK WORK! Do shit loads of bent over barbell rows and one armed rows and chins(oh my). The rest of this thread is retarded.

This thread went dumb pretty quick. You kick the dude’s ass in all exercises but one. Big deal. If it’s that important to you, practice it more than him and you’ll win, simple concept of life.

[quote]zombiec wrote:
well 5x5 may be good for “strenght”…but when yur training a powerlift it quite sucks…tu much sts/reps …not enought weight…or to much weight

and weel if you wanna be strong at db press simply get srong at the bench press [/quote]

How do you put people on ignore?

[quote]Hanley wrote:
zombiec wrote:
well 5x5 may be good for “strenght”…but when yur training a powerlift it quite sucks…tu much sts/reps …not enought weight…or to much weight

and weel if you wanna be strong at db press simply get srong at the bench press

How do you put people on ignore?[/quote]

dude that’s an option?!

This thread is really awesome.

How to increase dumbbell bench press.

Christ on roller skates, what is happening here?

Appreciate all the genuine (and good) advice, thanks. I pretty much got all the information I was after and some interesting opinions.

Can’t be bothered to quote all the posters who mocked my question as if it was stupid; I don’t see what’s wrong with asking advice on improving something from people I felt would know more on the subject than I did.
I appreciate it is as simple as pressing more, but there is obviously more variables than that; hence the above discussion so I reckon it was a fair question.

As for why I would want to be better than my partner, I guess I’m just competitive, and if that’s enough to drive me to wanting to continuously increase my strength I think it’s a good thing.

[quote]Joelsopher wrote:
how tall are you? and how talls your partner…[/quote]

Yeh, he’s quite a bit shorter. A proper pain in the arse when we do box squats as we only have one level to squat to (I suppose that means i get more out of it though)

[quote]apwsearch wrote:
This thread is really awesome.

How to increase dumbbell bench press.

Christ on roller skates, what is happening here?[/quote]

…and yet the thread title was intriguing enough to pull you in.

[quote]Hanley wrote:
zombiec wrote:
well 5x5 may be good for “strenght”…but when yur training a powerlift it quite sucks…tu much sts/reps …not enought weight…or to much weight

and weel if you wanna be strong at db press simply get srong at the bench press

How do you put people on ignore?[/quote]

Click on their profile. It is an option next to “Interact”.

[quote]dankid wrote:
Goodfellow wrote:
Why are you failing on set 3?

When you do 5x5 or something, the first 4 sets should set you ‘in the groove’ or to help you practice for your 5th set. On your 5th set you should use your heaviest weight and go all out.

The way a lot of people do 5x5 is different. Instead of ramping up and maxing out on the last set, they do the same weight for all sets. If they get 5x5 and make all the reps with good form, then they increase teh weight the next workout. Usually, they’ll get 3-4x5 on the next workouts and then the reps will drop off. Then, when they get all 5x5 again, they increase teh weight again.

So his sets might have been:

5
5
5
3
2

And his friend might have done:

5
5
5
5
3

Both of them are right on track with how it should be, but if being stronger than his friend is really that important then he’s gotta try something different. There are a TON of options, but all of them involve pressing more and doing less isolation stuff. He could go back down to the previous weight, and work up to 5x6, 5x7 or 8x5. It really depends on where his weaknesses are. If he is just as strong as his friend at a 1rm, but cant keep up when it comes to the 4-5 set, then his training should be a bit different than if he’s weaker than his friend, but has goood “endurance”

The only other thing I can think of on this is that OP you might not have been resting long enough between sets. It sounded like you said that aftr 3 sets of 5, your reps tanked. There are a few possibilities here.

#1 You pushed too hard and hit failure on set 3.
#2 You may need to rest longer than your friend. Not everyone recovers at the same rate.

So if your sets looked like this:

5
5
5
2
1

Then you may have been better going for this:

5
5
4
3
3

Or maybe you just needed to rest a bit longer and you would have been able to hit 4 or even 5 sets at 5 reps.[/quote]

You think too much.

Bottom line: Using the same weight and trying to get 5 sets of 5 with it, is stupid.

[quote]Goodfellow wrote:
dankid wrote:
Goodfellow wrote:
Why are you failing on set 3?

When you do 5x5 or something, the first 4 sets should set you ‘in the groove’ or to help you practice for your 5th set. On your 5th set you should use your heaviest weight and go all out.

The way a lot of people do 5x5 is different. Instead of ramping up and maxing out on the last set, they do the same weight for all sets. If they get 5x5 and make all the reps with good form, then they increase teh weight the next workout. Usually, they’ll get 3-4x5 on the next workouts and then the reps will drop off. Then, when they get all 5x5 again, they increase teh weight again.

So his sets might have been:

5
5
5
3
2

And his friend might have done:

5
5
5
5
3

Both of them are right on track with how it should be, but if being stronger than his friend is really that important then he’s gotta try something different. There are a TON of options, but all of them involve pressing more and doing less isolation stuff. He could go back down to the previous weight, and work up to 5x6, 5x7 or 8x5. It really depends on where his weaknesses are. If he is just as strong as his friend at a 1rm, but cant keep up when it comes to the 4-5 set, then his training should be a bit different than if he’s weaker than his friend, but has goood “endurance”

The only other thing I can think of on this is that OP you might not have been resting long enough between sets. It sounded like you said that aftr 3 sets of 5, your reps tanked. There are a few possibilities here.

#1 You pushed too hard and hit failure on set 3.
#2 You may need to rest longer than your friend. Not everyone recovers at the same rate.

So if your sets looked like this:

5
5
5
2
1

Then you may have been better going for this:

5
5
4
3
3

Or maybe you just needed to rest a bit longer and you would have been able to hit 4 or even 5 sets at 5 reps.

You think too much.

Bottom line: Using the same weight and trying to get 5 sets of 5 with it, is stupid.

[/quote]

NO

[quote]Jim W wrote:
apwsearch wrote:
This thread is really awesome.

How to increase dumbbell bench press.

Christ on roller skates, what is happening here?

…and yet the thread title was intriguing enough to pull you in.

[/quote]

Haha. Yeah. Good Point.

I ignored it at first but when I saw it continue to accumulate hits, I just couldn’t resist.

[quote]dankid wrote:
Goodfellow wrote:
dankid wrote:
Goodfellow wrote:
Why are you failing on set 3?

When you do 5x5 or something, the first 4 sets should set you ‘in the groove’ or to help you practice for your 5th set. On your 5th set you should use your heaviest weight and go all out.

The way a lot of people do 5x5 is different. Instead of ramping up and maxing out on the last set, they do the same weight for all sets. If they get 5x5 and make all the reps with good form, then they increase teh weight the next workout. Usually, they’ll get 3-4x5 on the next workouts and then the reps will drop off. Then, when they get all 5x5 again, they increase teh weight again.

So his sets might have been:

5
5
5
3
2

And his friend might have done:

5
5
5
5
3

Both of them are right on track with how it should be, but if being stronger than his friend is really that important then he’s gotta try something different. There are a TON of options, but all of them involve pressing more and doing less isolation stuff. He could go back down to the previous weight, and work up to 5x6, 5x7 or 8x5. It really depends on where his weaknesses are. If he is just as strong as his friend at a 1rm, but cant keep up when it comes to the 4-5 set, then his training should be a bit different than if he’s weaker than his friend, but has goood “endurance”

The only other thing I can think of on this is that OP you might not have been resting long enough between sets. It sounded like you said that aftr 3 sets of 5, your reps tanked. There are a few possibilities here.

#1 You pushed too hard and hit failure on set 3.
#2 You may need to rest longer than your friend. Not everyone recovers at the same rate.

So if your sets looked like this:

5
5
5
2
1

Then you may have been better going for this:

5
5
4
3
3

Or maybe you just needed to rest a bit longer and you would have been able to hit 4 or even 5 sets at 5 reps.

You think too much.

Bottom line: Using the same weight and trying to get 5 sets of 5 with it, is stupid.

NO[/quote]

What the fuck do you mean, no?

Can you bench 225lbs yet?

What is the point of using 42.5kg for FIVE SETS when you can go up to possibly 47.5kg or 50kg?! That is going to create a lot better strength gains, and muscle gains.

An article JUST got posted today that explains my point perfectly, read this: Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION