My dumbell bench is more than double my barbell bench.
Is this because I am working different muscles? If so, which muscles does this mean I need to improve to increase my barbell bench?
Otherwise maybe my form is bad?
Help appreciated ! 
Are you counting the bar? It weighs 45 lbs. you know.
yes, it includes the bar…
50% is probably a slight exageration, perhaps 20-30% is more like it…
it seems quite significant …
Do you use a different form in each of the exercises?
Do you bring the barbell down right below the “nipple line”, but bring the dumbbells down higher on your chest?
If this is the case (as it is with me), then you have weak anterior delts.
Make sure your grip is wide enough. Also, if you’re only just starting to BB bench after working exclusively with DBs, it’ll take a little while to adapt to the movement. Give it some time. If your BB bench doesn’t surpass your DB bench soon, there’s definitely something wrong.
[quote]tuppydog wrote:
My dumbell bench is more than double my barbell bench.
Is this because I am working different muscles? If so, which muscles does this mean I need to improve to increase my barbell bench?
Otherwise maybe my form is bad?
Help appreciated ! :)[/quote]
never heard of this before…ever…
How the hell is that possible? Lets say your DB benching 100lbs (nice round number). Now lets just take 5% less of that for your BB (even though you said it was even more 20%-30%) which would mean your benching 95lbs. Thats just crazy!
I don’t even see how your grip would matter. Even if your hands were 2 inches apart or 20 inches apart while benching, your DB bench shouldn’t be 20-30% higher than your BB.
[quote]biglift88 wrote:
How the hell is that possible? Lets say your DB benching 100lbs (nice round number). Now lets just take 5% less of that for your BB (even though you said it was even more 20%-30%) which would mean your benching 95lbs. Thats just crazy!
I don’t even see how your grip would matter. Even if your hands were 2 inches apart or 20 inches apart while benching, your DB bench shouldn’t be 20-30% higher than your BB. [/quote]
I think it was implied that the sum of his individual hands on the dumbbell bench press was greater than the weight he lifted for the barbell bench press. I’ve seen this at my gym. In the instance that I observed, it was due to a lack of depth at the bottom of the dumbbell movement.
-Cloth
I’ve never seen this. Personally my BB is 385/2 atm. The most I’ve ever done DB is 120’s for 6. I can not fathom this at all.
I have seen a guy who could only Incline Press 75 DB’s for 10 reps, but knock out 80’s in shoulder press for 12.
I had a think about it while I did arms today. The answer is a combination of what smallmike and Cloth said above…
I am probably not going quite as deep on my DB bench. And on my BB bench I have tended to lift the bar from further down my chest, probably working the rear delts more (mine are WEAK evidently).
Thanks for your suggestions, really helped.