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Well ever since I started workout out I have always been doing bench presses with dumbbells. A lot of people I talk to always do the barbell bench press. In my opinion, I'm just more comfortable with dumbbell bench press, and do not like doing barbell. However, people tell me the numbers they pull on barbell BP and its A LOT higher that what I've been doing for a while on dumbbell bench press. Is there a difference? can you pull a lot more weight using the barbell prior to the dumbbell? Also, which do you prefer? Which do you think is more effective?

Thanks,

-Tim

You should be doing both.

If I were to pick just one, I would pick barbell. I only do one right now but my goals are very strength oriented. If you're more bodybuilding minded then doing some BB and DB is probably a good idea.

IronWorker

^^^ I believe IW would agree that even if you're strength training, working with dumbbells is a huge plus. I don't believe it fits into his program though. Just wanted to make that clear. I agree with everything else.

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I think the only place where barbells have the clear advantage is in the ability to adjust load weights in small increments, and the ability to load more weight. Heavy DB's are hard to find in most gyms. A 200 DB is practically unheard of unless you have it custom built (prepare to pay BIG cash). Even then, in order to truly effectively progress you would need to be able to move plates on and off yourself, and I think that IronMind is the only company that makes a DB that will handle that kind of weight. And if memory serves it costs a pretty penny. If you stick to Olympic plates as your standard, you will need a lot of tens or fives to make up the weight, as a 25lb Oly plate is too big to be used effectively.

So while I like DB's and think they serve their purpose, I also think that it is very difficult to utilize them to develop strength past a beginner stage. Not impossible, but hard and costly.

Some good points.

Don't get me wrong, I'm definately not saying don't do it. I think for alot of people there would be a balance between using both.

As to what the difference between the two... Dumbells put alot more strain on your chest and stabilizing bench muscles because now you not only have to push up but you have to deal with keeping the DBs are the correct distance apart etc. This is where alot of the differences in strength comes about I would say.

With a barbell you only need to really focus on moving the BB straight up and keep it from moving front to back.

IronWorker

In general DB press is egal to 80-85% of Barbell press. In my opinion both are egaly effective. It's just a question of stabilisation.

The question of how a DB press compares to a BB press is frequently asked, and I think that they really don't cross over in anything more than the most general sense. I don't think you can train DB to get your BB up, and you can't train BB to increase your DB. This probably has a lot to do with those stabilization muscles limiting the carry over. Moving from DB's to BB you probably have not used enough weight to really battle anything significant on a BB. Going from BB to Db you have neglected some of that feedback that DB's require in order to maintain balance and an equal rate of press out of both arms.

Given the option, I would say that I would prefer to have a set of monstrously heavy DB's. I think that the application of DB's to sport or athletic undertakings is probably better (assuming you could get HEAVY Db's and you wouldn't be holding back your strength progress by using them).