As the weight is going up I’m having trouble positioning the dummbells on the flat bench. I tried doing 100lbs using my old method where I just have the dumbbells on the floor in front of me and I swing them up to my knees while I’m in the seated position. I then just lean back and start pressing and drop them from a low height when I’m done.
This is getting harder and I feel like I’m gonna throw my arm and shoulder out as I’m swinging them up to my knee. I can’t imagine how you guys do this with 120’s and up. Any pointers?
I walk them out of the rack and then just hold them against my thighs and sit down. They end up on my knees that way. I carry them back after the set as i don’t do the same weight twice.
At the end of a set i let my arms come forward from the top position and sit up at the same time so they end up on my thighs again.
Just as DJS said… Also, once you have them on your knees you can use your legs to kick the weights up one after the other.
If you can get a training partner to hand you one (or two guys to hand you both db’s), that’d obviously be even better as then you can get your shoulder-blades tucked before taking the weight and all that…
Thanks Vegg and DJS. I’m gonna give that a shot and see if its easier. Sounds like it should be. Most of the big guys in my gym workout together and give each other hand-offs so I never go to see how an experienced person did heavy dumbbells. Good to know.
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Just as DJS said… Also, once you have them on your knees you can use your legs to kick the weights up one after the other.
[/quote]
When you say kick the weights up, do you mean kick them to your chest or kick them up to the lock out position. In other words does the 1st rep start from your chest or lockout?
This is an even bigger issue if you use DB’s for push presses. You basically need to power clean the DB’s to start each set. I know I could just use a BB in the rack, but I really feel the DB’s have been doing better things for me than the BB push presses have done in the past.
Kick them up to your chest. If you can manage to kick them up to lock out position then you’re not using enough weight. Or perhaps you’ve developed some incredible and/or dangerous ab exercise.
If theyre on the floor deadlift them up safely at your sides and when your standing place them on your thighs, sit down, lay back while simultaneously using your knees to kick the dumbells up to your chest or shoulders (exercise depending).
[quote]sam_sneed wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Just as DJS said… Also, once you have them on your knees you can use your legs to kick the weights up one after the other.
When you say kick the weights up, do you mean kick them to your chest or kick them up to the lock out position. In other words does the 1st rep start from your chest or lockout?[/quote]
Don’t kick off at all, since you’d have to kick each side up individually it might affect your position on the bench, and every little thing matters when getting into the 3-5 rep range with dummbbells.
Also if you do this you won’t be able to retract both shoulder blades simultaneously (as easily) to give yourself a good base to push from.
[quote]Mutu wrote:
sam_sneed wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Just as DJS said… Also, once you have them on your knees you can use your legs to kick the weights up one after the other.
When you say kick the weights up, do you mean kick them to your chest or kick them up to the lock out position. In other words does the 1st rep start from your chest or lockout?
Don’t kick off at all, since you’d have to kick each side up individually it might affect your position on the bench, and every little thing matters when getting into the 3-5 rep range with dummbbells.
Also if you do this you won’t be able to retract both shoulder blades simultaneously (as easily) to give yourself a good base to push from. [/quote]
You kick them up and then you lie down. How is this going to affect your positioning?
As I said in my post in the part you chose not to quote, it’s better to have people hand you the DB’s so that you can lie down and ready yourself before taking the weight…
But if you don’t have spotters and you need to get 160+ lbs per hand up, well, how do you propose that is done then?
[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Mutu wrote:
sam_sneed wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Just as DJS said… Also, once you have them on your knees you can use your legs to kick the weights up one after the other.
When you say kick the weights up, do you mean kick them to your chest or kick them up to the lock out position. In other words does the 1st rep start from your chest or lockout?
Don’t kick off at all, since you’d have to kick each side up individually it might affect your position on the bench, and every little thing matters when getting into the 3-5 rep range with dummbbells.
Also if you do this you won’t be able to retract both shoulder blades simultaneously (as easily) to give yourself a good base to push from.
You kick them up and then you lie down. How is this going to affect your positioning?
As I said in my post in the part you chose not to quote, it’s better to have people hand you the DB’s so that you can lie down and ready yourself before taking the weight…
But if you don’t have spotters and you need to get 160+ lbs per hand up, well, how do you propose that is done then?
[/quote]
come on man
i doubt most the people in a typical gym can even pick up a 160 pound dumbell off the rack, let alone place it in your hand lol.
[quote]LiveFromThe781 wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Mutu wrote:
sam_sneed wrote:
Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
Just as DJS said… Also, once you have them on your knees you can use your legs to kick the weights up one after the other.
When you say kick the weights up, do you mean kick them to your chest or kick them up to the lock out position. In other words does the 1st rep start from your chest or lockout?
Don’t kick off at all, since you’d have to kick each side up individually it might affect your position on the bench, and every little thing matters when getting into the 3-5 rep range with dummbbells.
Also if you do this you won’t be able to retract both shoulder blades simultaneously (as easily) to give yourself a good base to push from.
You kick them up and then you lie down. How is this going to affect your positioning?
As I said in my post in the part you chose not to quote, it’s better to have people hand you the DB’s so that you can lie down and ready yourself before taking the weight…
But if you don’t have spotters and you need to get 160+ lbs per hand up, well, how do you propose that is done then?
come on man
i doubt most the people in a typical gym can even pick up a 160 pound dumbell off the rack, let alone place it in your hand lol.[/quote]
That’s why it’s more fun training at gyms where people actually lift
Anyway, the number doesn’t matter.
If the DB’s are heavy relative to your strength level and provided that you aren’t a beginner still who lifts weights so light that you can just high-pull them up or something and you have no spotters and want to do shoulder or flat or incline presses…
What now?
