What best do you guys think is best to use, when performing seated dumbell presses? The 90 degree, or the incline bench set at a slight incline? I have been using the 90 degree one, but it feels awkward, but I imagine it isolates my delts better, opposed to if i used a high incline bench, therefore hitting my chest a little too.
You’re better off using a flat bench with no back support at all actually.
Try it standing, with no back support.
I agree with Erik, Ian King in his 12 weeks to super strength gives a full description on it.
But that makes me feel SO weak!
Try it standing. You’ll probably have to drop the weight, but in the end you’ll be stronger for it.
Princess, I urge you to try it standing and groove it until you feel stronger. Most seated pressers arch their back so badly that it dissolves into an upper pec, vertebral jamming drill. I could state my results with doing it one dumbell at a time, but get to standing first
Princess, how’s it goin’? How is my fave T-Vixen hottie?
One thing I was playing around with was leaning forward against a steep incline bench (bench against your chest, not your back). Difficult for me because of tight erectors but it may work for you. In theory, it allows you to push the dumbells behind your head a little more and recruit posterior deltoid a little more and anterior deltoid a little less. Motion becomes similar to behind the neck press. Let me know if you can pull it off.
Hi Rob.
I think I will give it a doing this one of the “hard” ways yoou guys suggested. If I do it standing, should I arch my back at all? I mean, this isn’t a push press with dumbells, right? As for the seated backwards method, there is only one bench at my gym that would allow me to do this comfortably, and it’s the bench EVERYONE wants, so unless I quit my job and train at a different time, that’s out of the question.
Princess, try it standing. My backwards idea was just that, an idea. I just couldn’t get the R.O.M. in my back to create the proper spine angle.
That being said, don’t arch your back! The problem is (besides the pressure on your lower posterior spine) you’ll press the dumbells two far in front of your mid-line. This could cause a muscle imbalance in your shoulders where they look out of proportion, ie. Ant Delt is considerably larger than Post Delt. Your shoulders end up looking sloped forward. Check out Flex Wheeler’s delts. They are perfectly caped. Ant Delt and Post delt are exactlt the same size. Then look at other BB’s. Ant delt is over developed in comparison to posterior delt and their shoulders tend to “slope” forward.
To keep from arching your back, try a variation of Dave Tate’s squatting method. Fill your belly (the tiny little ripped one of yours) with air. then contract your Rectus Abdominus against that air while holding your breath. Because of the tension in your abs, your spine wopn’t be able to tilt forward and cause a curve in your lower back.
This way everything is at a right angle to the floor. The dumbells follow this line exactly.
Make sense? Or am I rambling?
You may see someone’s back arch when pressing a barbell, but this is because the barbell is in front of their shoulders, so they have to lean back a little to compensate. This shouldn’t happen with dumbbells, just keep your technique clean.
Out of curiosity, does anyone else here have trouble doing behind-the-neck presses with a barbell? I just plain can’t do them - it would hurt too much (my shoulders are too tight, and too prone to bursitis). Haven’t done them for years. I prefer dumbell presses for shoulders.
This doesn’t address this issue exactly, but it’s related. Two days ago I did heavy one-arm standing dumbell presses. I tried to keep the weight a little bit out in front of me, which made them harder. I noticed that there is a tendency to lean to the side you are lifting, so I tried to shift my weight to the opposite foot, which also made them harder and forced me to use better form. Today my shoulders are FRIED…and traditionally it’s hard for me to get muscles soreness in my shoulders. I think it was the combo of using heavier weight and modifying my form a bit.
Thanks for the advice everyone! I’m really feeling better about this now. However, I was thinking about using a barbell, but from what you guys are saying, I guess I should stick to dumbells, right? I have tried this a few times in the past, and all I remember is that it’s really hard. However, my freind does this exercise, and she is smaller than me, but kills me on all delt exercises, so I bet it works.
Princess, I think that you SHOULD arch your back. Arch it a lot. While you’re arching it, please have someone take pictures (from various angles) of you doing the exercise and post them here for us to see. Then we can make more constructive comments. Also, it would help if you wore a very tight leotard or some other form-fitting item of clothing, as this would aid in, um, supporting your ventral/dorsal columnar process. Remember, these should be full-body shots, in order to help us help you. Your altruistic friend, Char-dawg.
OK, before you mentioned the clothing, you really had me fooled! And I’m not blonde!
You could dye it couldn’t you?
I am going to try this tomorrow, I hope it works well. I am trying the exercise, not having pictures taken!
I tried the standing version, and my delts are nice and sore today! However, I had a hard time with pushing my abs out, it seems now that I’m lean, they don’t push out at all. Also, someone should have told me to wear a really long shirt, as when I did this exercise, my abs were visible. This is not good, when I am pushing my stomach out, it’s like “look how fat I can make myself look!”