This might sound like a stupid question, but I’m just curious. I haven’t done a flatbench barbell press in a few years because of strain it puts on my shoulders. I’ve been using dumbbells only and getting good results. Just wondering if theres any of figuring how much you’d be able to barbell press by the weight you can put with dumbbells. Say, if you press 100lb db’s, is it possible to figure out approximately how much you can bb press? I’m guess it would have to be much more than 200 lbs. Thanks for your help. -ryan
why does it matter? if you want to know how much you can do in a flat barbell bench so you can brag about it, just do it. it is really annoying when people try to extrapolate and brag what they can do on lifts based on other lifts. its like people claiming kovacs can bench over 800 pounds because he can do reps with 600 pounds on an incline smith machine press. just do it (in a competition in his case) and find out.
In my experience, my flat bench has been about 20-25% percent more than I could do with dumbells. But I imagine at some point, just because of the sheer size of the darn things, that the gap widens the heavier the dumbbells.
I find the same as aikigreg. I can lift about 20% more with bb than i can with dumbbells. I consistantly switch between the two. I press 100lb db’s for about 6-8 reps, while I press 225 for about the same on the bb.
I have found there is not much of connection between my dumbell pressing strength and barbell pressing strength. I have made improvements on one with a minimal change on the other. Your body is going to adapt to whatever stress you put on it. You might be missing a large opportunity for gains by omitting barbells from your workouts.