The Best Dumbbell Chest Workout for Getting Your Pecs Jacked

Regardless of whether you’re a man or a woman, your chest muscles play a crucial role in your overall strength and well-being. Now, we understand that the reasons behind training your chest can vary based on your gender: If you’re a dude, you probably want that Greek god body that makes your significant other want to put their head on your manly chest.

If you’re a woman, well, you don’t need that as much, because your chest muscles lie too deep in your pectoral region to be seen with the naked eye. However, you should still want to train all your muscles. For example, if your ultimate goal is to train your glutes and you only do exercises to build a heart-shaped butt, you’ll be left with nothing but muscle imbalance. It doesn’t end with you having stronger gluteal muscles—muscle imbalance can lead to injury, affect your posture, and make your life difficult in the long run.

To do a chest workout, you have several options: a barbell, a machine, or just body weight. These options are all great, but sometimes, you don’t have a barbell or a machine around. Plus, bodyweight exercises can get pretty boring or easy at some point. That’s where the dumbbells come in handy. Using dumbbells for your chest workout is a good option because they’re versatile and will result in you making ugly faces (you should be making ugly faces if you want to see progress!).

In this article, we’ll give you the best dumbbell chest workout to make your chest bigger and stronger.

Top 5 Dumbbell Chest Exercises

You know the great thing about these exercises? It’s that they’re done with a pair of dumbbells. That’s a no-brainer, but let’s look at it more carefully: When you’re working out with a barbell, most of the pressure can fall on your stronger side. So, your stronger side will be doing most of the job while your other side lies there cheating.

Working out with dumbbells stops that from happening since both sides should put in the same amount of effort. That makes your pectoral muscles on both sides equally strong over time.

Plus, there’s this interesting study that compares the dumbbell bench press with the barbell bench press and the Smith machine bench press. The results show us that not only can you do more reps with a dumbbell, but your pecs are also more activated.

Now, without further ado, we present the best dumbbell chest workout:

1. Dumbbell Chest Press

Just like a bench press, the dumbbell chest press is a compound exercise that targets pretty much all the muscles in your upper body, like the pectoral muscles, especially the pectoralis major (more on the anatomy of the chest muscles later), front deltoid, and the triceps.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Set the bench flat and sit on its edge.
2. Grab the dumbbells and put the plate ends on your thighs.
3. Lie flat on the bench.
4. One at a time, kick your feet up a few inches toward your head, helping you to raise the dumbbells.
5. Bring your hands beside your chest at a 45° angle with your torso. Your upper arms should be on the same level as your chest. Your palms should slightly rotate toward your body.
6. Tighten your core, and press your shoulder blades to the bench.
7. Push the dumbbells above your chest while extending your arms.
8. Slowly bring your arms down to the first position.

If you do the dumbbell chest press on a flat bench, you’re targeting your middle chest area more than the upper and lower parts. The chest press has two other variations: incline chest press and decline chest press. They are done in the exact same way. The only difference is the angle of the bench.

The incline chest press is done with a bench angle of 30 to 40 degrees. This variation works your upper chest and anterior deltoid. For a decline dumbbell press, you need a decline bench. This variation works your lower pecs more while your shoulders are used less.

2. Dumbbell Chest Fly

If you want to feel the burn in your chest, try the dumbbell chest fly. It targets the pecs, especially the pectoralis major. It even goes beyond the chest area by working the anterior deltoids and the biceps.

To do a dumbbell fly:

1. Sit on a bench and put the dumbbells on your thighs.
2. Lie back on a flat bench and kick your feet up to bring your arms over your chest.
3. Keep your arms extended but maintain a slight bend in your elbows.
4. Your palms should face each other.
5. Keep your shoulders down and engage your core.
6. Bring your arms to your side while keeping the bend in your elbows.
7. Go down until your arms are parallel to the ground.
8. Push your arms up back up.

The dumbbell chest fly has so many variations you can choose from. Just like the chest press, you can do it in a decline or incline mode. The decline mode targets your lower pecs. Your shoulders will also get in on the action, but to a lesser degree compared to the flat-bench dumbbell fly. The incline variation is exactly the opposite: it targets your upper pecs and shoulders more than the flat-bench version.

There’s more: You can do dumbbell flyes on the floor. This variation stops you from going overboard with the movement and bringing your arms lower than your body, which favors the shoulders.

You can also do it one arm at a time. Your other arm could hold a weight and stay still to your side, or hold no weight at all. These two variations make it more challenging for your core and chest to keep their stability. Plus, they help with muscle imbalances because you can’t balance the weights against each other when you bring your arm up.

3. Dumbbell Push-up

We all know the famous push-up: It’s a great bodyweight exercise for beefing up your chest, front deltoids, and even the triceps. The simple push-up is a great exercise on its own, but a pair of dumbbells can make it even better.

The wrists are a limiting factor in push-ups. You put your wrists down on the floor and do a dozen push-ups, sooner or later they will get tired and uncomfortable. On the flip side, if you put your hands on a dumbbell handle, your wrists will be in a straight position, so you won’t have to stop because they hurt. Plus, the fact that your hands are more elevated in a dumbbell push-up will give slightly more stretch to your pecs.

Do a dumbbell push-up like this:

1. Get into a plank position with your hands on a pair of dumbbells and feet on the floor.
2. Your hands should be directly under your shoulders.
3. Your body should make a straight line from head to toe throughout the whole movement.
4. Bend your elbows and bring your chest to the floor as much as you can.
5. Push yourself back up.

If you find it hard to do a push-up, you can try the kneeling variation. Put your knees down and do the push-up like before. It should be easy enough for you to do.

4. Crush Press

The crush press is also called the close-grip dumbbell press. That’s because it’s exactly like a dumbbell press, but with a very close grip. Like most chest exercises, the crush press works your chest and triceps.

Here’s how to do a crush press:

1. Lie on a flat bench with two dumbbells on your chest and your palms facing each other.
2. Squeeze the dumbbells together and extend your hands to bring them above your chest.
3. Bring the two dumbbells that are attached to each other back down to your chest.
4. Let the dumbbells touch your chest gently but don’t let them loose on your chest.
5. Repeat the movement.

5. Dumbbell Pull-over

If you talk about the pull-over with a gym rat, they’ll run to the cable machine, attach a straight bar, and tell you that this is going to blow your lats. That’s not what we’re talking about. With a little bit of adjustment and a dumbbell, pull-overs can be biased to target your chest.

1. Lie on your back while holding a dumbbell with both your hands above your chest.
2. Keep a slight bend in your elbow and hold it until your set ends.
3. Bring your arms above and behind your head until your arms are almost in line with the rest of your body.
4. Push your arms back up while squeezing your chest.

Know Your Chest Muscles

Now that you know the best dumbbell chest workout, are you running to pick the dumbbells up and do the workout fast? Wait! It can be tempting to just do what you’re told, but it will be so much better if you know what you’re doing. That’s why we want you to know what you’re training when you’re doing these exercises.

The chest muscles, or pectoral muscles, have two main parts. The biggest part is called the pectoralis major. This muscle looks like a fan that goes from the breastbone to the clavicle and the ribs. The second part is called the pectoralis minor which looks like a triangle. Generally speaking, it starts in the upper ribs and goes to the shoulder blades. However, research shows that the exact location of the pectoralis minor can be slightly different from person to person.

Functions

Imagine you’re doing chin-ups to grow your biceps. How much do you feel the workout in your biceps? Or when you squat to pick something up, don’t you distinctly feel your glutes and quads working? This sensation might not be so palpable when your pecs are working, but it doesn’t mean that they’re not doing serious work. Pushing a door open, carrying something heavy, or even breathing effortlessly? None of these would have been possible without your lovely chest muscles.

Your pectoral muscles help you

• Bring your arm up
• Bring your arm down to the side of your body
• Bring your arm to your side in a lateral movement
• Rotate your arm in different directions.

As you can see, a buff chest isn’t just an aesthetical trophy, it makes your life easier both in the gym and in real life.

General Advice

Let’s talk about some of the things that are important when training your chest or any other body part. The first thing that people ask is, “How many sets and reps should I do to get the pump?” First things first, don’t get fixated on the pump; it’s only a temporary effect. Now, if you want to build muscle that lasts long, 3 to 4 sets of 8 to 12 reps have been proven beneficial for muscle hypertrophy, aka getting bigger muscles. Plus, if you’re short on time and high on aspiration, you can incorporate myo reps into your accessory moves.

You might think that this number is easy and doable. But the truth is, if it’s too easy, you’re only stroking your muscles. It’s not doing anything for you, except wasting your time. To maximize your gains, you should try to reach failure in every set. What does that mean? It means that the last 2 to 3 reps should be challenging for you to do, but not so challenging that you lose your form. And since we’re here, be extra vigilant of your form and avoid ego lifting; you don’t want an injury on your hands.

Another question: “How many chest exercises per workout?” As a general rule of thumb, try to train each muscle group at least twice each week. If you have a chest day in your workout split, aim for 2 to 3 chest moves as a sweet spot. Make sure to train hard but don’t overdo it.

Final Word

Just like the V-line, having a ripped chest is one of men’s undying cravings. But no matter your gender and physical goals, we suggest that you put some time aside for a chest workout. Now, grab a pair of dumbbells and work those pecs!

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