Question: I understand the fact that dumbbell chest press helps stabilizer muscles, but shouldn’t that help with barbell bench press? Every time I work my dumbbell chest press weights up my barbell seems to suffer. How can accommodate/balance this problem? Any exercises or tips would be much appreciated.
Answer: Strength is very “lift specific” as I like to call it.
Although I am not a huge fan of barbell bench press, if your goal is to bench press as much weight as possible, then barbell bench presses will (practically) always need to be in your routine. Otherwise, when you return to barbell bench presses your strength will quite possibly be down a bit… simply because you have not used that specific motor program in some time.
Please note, however, that just because your strength on the barbell bench press itself may be diminished after a training cycle using dumbbell presses instead, that does NOT mean that your pectoral development has diminished. In fact, your chest will appreciate the variety of stimuli.
Likewise, assuming your training and nutrition have been on point, you will most likely regain any strength you may have lost on the barbell bench press within a few weeks of re-implementing it into your chest training routine.
All the best,
Dr Clay
