First I would like to start by thanking all for making this site a perfect resource for my needs!
Enough of that, on to the questions.
Background (you can skip if you want):
I had my wife take a picture of myself last night and I think that I am lacking in the chest area. But I am very concerned about injuries related to certain exercises; i.e. bench press and rotator cuff injuries. A buddy of mine that know from college just recently came back from the doctor with a rotator cuff injury. He frequenctly does heavy bench presses.
Question:
I am looking for alternatives to the bench press to increase strength and size of my chest. I routinely do push-ups and weighted dips.
You are smart to be careful when training your chest. If you are not built properly (barrel chest shorter arms) the Bench Press will harm your shoulders, it’s just a matter of time.
I have found that because of the range of motion Dumbbell Bench Pressing is much easier on the shoulders.
I also like weighted Push-ups. You can do these with either a plate on your back (best with a partner), or a weight vest.
I like dips if they are not taken to low, as that movement can also cause damage to the shoulder if not done properly.
The first line of defense is to strengthen the rotator cuffs! After your pressing workout (or on it’s recovery workout) perform rotator cuff training.
Also, weighted dips are just as bad for your rotator cuffs as anything else.
You can try crossover-machine cable-flys, where you do flys on a bench in the crossover machine. Also, you can press in the crossover machine, which activates your pecs a lot better. I am using something similar (Freemotion chest presses) to bring my chest up, since I have big anterior delts and tris which do all the work when I bench.
I have found that Dips if not gone down to far will not harm the rotators. Then again, if you Barbell Bench Press and do not go all the way down to your chest that too will protect the rotators. However, most consider this an incomplete movement and won’t perform it in that fashion.
You really need to protect your shoulders you have no idea how important they become when you get into your forties! (just trying to make my point-ha ha)
You are smart to be careful when training your chest. If you are not built properly (barrel chest shorter arms) the Bench Press will harm your shoulders, it’s just a matter of time.
I have found that because of the range of motion Dumbbell Bench Pressing is much easier on the shoulders.
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Technically, why is the dumbell press better than the barbell bench press?
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I also like weighted Push-ups. You can do these with either a plate on your back (best with a partner), or a weight vest.
[/quote]
Good idea. I will try it!
[quote]ZEB wrote:
I like dips if they are not taken to low, as that movement can also cause damage to the shoulder if not done properly.
favorite pure chest routine: dumbell bench press supersetted with full arm extension dumbell flyes. Use atleast 80% intensity in the bench press and then take half that weight and do flyes with it. Go for 5-6 reps for both. 6 supersets like that is enough to blast me for a long time. laters pk
[quote]pkradgreek wrote:
favorite pure chest routine: dumbell bench press supersetted with full arm extension dumbell flyes. Use atleast 80% intensity in the bench press and then take half that weight and do flyes with it. Go for 5-6 reps for both. 6 supersets like that is enough to blast me for a long time. laters pk[/quote]
This sounds like one of my chest days, but I add pullovers as well.
Peace…
You do not get the full extension on the downward stroke with dumbbells that you do with a Barbell. Therefore, the integrity of the shoulder joint is not harmed.
You do not get the full extension on the downward stroke with dumbbells that you do with a Barbell. Therefore, the integrity of the shoulder joint is not harmed.[/quote]
ZEB…I am not sure if I understand your comment. I would figure that you could get MORE of an extension with dumbells. Then again, I am not exactly sure why doing bench presses with a barbell damages the shoulders. Would anyone have any articles to read?
Should the link not work–I’m a computer moron–check out chekinstitute.com and look for the article “Big Bench, Bad Shoulders.”
It’s enlightening. I first read it over two years ago, and have completely changed the way I train chest since. As a former powerlifter, I suffered from years of shoulder problems and rotator tears. My shoulders still hurt from the old abuse, but I haven’t re-injured them since using Chek’s methods.
In many cases you only bring the dumbbells down so that the plates touch the delts. This does not put as much pressure on the rotator cuff.
As I also stated you can do a partial Barbell Bench Press and probably not have any problems.
I debated this topic exhaustively on another thread a several months ago. You can go to that thread if you like. I think it was entitled “The Shoulder Horn,” or something to that effect.
[quote]ZEB wrote:
In many cases you only bring the dumbbells down so that the plates touch the delts. This does not put as much pressure on the rotator cuff.
As I also stated you can do a partial Barbell Bench Press and probably not have any problems.
I debated this topic exhaustively on another thread a several months ago. You can go to that thread if you like. I think it was entitled “The Shoulder Horn,” or something to that effect.
Good Luck with your training,
Zeb [/quote]
I think it has more to do with your hands being fixed in barbell presses vs. dumbbells. For example, when doing DB presses, my thumbs will start to angle downwards (in towards my pecs) at the bottom of the movement, which takes the stress off of my rotators and keeps it on my pecs. During BB presses, the wrists are fixed which transfers the stress from the pecs to the rotators at the bottom. I know this is a non-scientific explanation, but that’s the difference I feel between the two.
Incidentally, you can hurt your rotators doing pushups as well, particularly weighted pushups because your shoulder joint is in roughly the same position as at the bottom of BB presses - assuming you go all the way down.
I personally love DB presses, but when going for high % of 1RM, I have trouble clearing the DBs (I work out alone), whereas I can go much heavier with BB presses. Changing weights is also a lot faster on BB than on my old adjustable DBs. (I’d love to have a full set of DBs but can’t afford them right now).