Thanks for the help so far everyone. To address some of the things people have said:
I am factoring in the weight of the bar. It is a standard Olympic bar, 45 lbs.
My back is actually one of my stronger areas, along with my legs.
When doing dumbbells, I bench using full ROM. On a couple reps maybe I don’t go down all the way, but I always make a conscious effort to have strict form.
This is still confusing me. I can do 100 pound dumbbells for incline bench (6 reps), and yet my flat BB bench is about the same. I think it might have something to do with my form or body type on the flat BB. Still not sure. I appreciate all the help though.
Look this has happened to me and every training partner I have had, if we don’t sufficiently switch between the two.
After focusing on Dumbbell presses for 8 weeks plus, my barbell bench takes a significant hit. Most likely because I haven’t trained the movement for a long time. The biggest hit I have taken is 335 down to 245, and it takes me a period of approximately 2-3 weeks to build the weight back up, and increase the poundages.
Me and my training partener’s bench went up signifantly with this simple switch in technique. I had the same problem when it came too the BB. Give it a shot! After a few sessions you will see a diff providing your doing it correctly.
Was this a one-time thing? In that case there could be many reasons, and it doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re always weaker on the BB bench. If it’s been the same every workout, my guess would be that you’re having a technique problem - maybe you’re coming down to close to your head, or something similar.
[quote]TDog305 wrote:
Look this has happened to me and every training partner I have had, if we don’t sufficiently switch between the two.
After focusing on Dumbbell presses for 8 weeks plus, my barbell bench takes a significant hit. Most likely because I haven’t trained the movement for a long time. The biggest hit I have taken is 335 down to 245, and it takes me a period of approximately 2-3 weeks to build the weight back up, and increase the poundages.
Hope this helps.[/quote]
This does sound true. I have never just focused on DB bench so, I never encountered hitting the barbell and losing that much strength after DB only for an extended period.
For me rather it’s been the opposite mostly bar work for an extended period then occasionally hitting the DB’s but remaining strong on them.
Recently after focusing on barbell only for an extended time and getting up to 315 for a couple of reps, I went to lift with a friend at a gym that had heavy DB’s after a good warm up I hit the 115’s for three sets of six solid reps. So, my dumbbell strength increased even without using them along with my bar bench.
Best advice would be a good mixture of both to keep things even and for the different stimulus which is always a good thing.
Those are really big disparities, I believe it, but I would like to see it as well, maybe it has something to do with getting used to a certain joint angle at a certain point in the motion and being able to go wherever you are strongest with dumbells and being restricted with a barbell… I also feel like a barbell is more raw power…
I knock out 130’s on flat bench for 3 clean reps with db’s but can only bang out 4 clean reps with 275 on bbell. On the other hand, my buddy who does 315 for 3 reps can’t touch anything higher than 120’s for dbell’s.
Barbell #'s are what everyone brags about, so I know how disheartening it can be to bench only a few extra lbs on a somewhat easier exercise - but then again, I hardly train bbell because of the wrist strain I experience thereafter.