A dumbbell chest workout is a great way to take your workout program to the next level and build a torso that stands out from the crowd.

Dumbbells offer several advantages over barbells. They offer a greater range of motion and they require greater involvement from the stabilizer muscles. Also, they allow both sides of your body to lift independently, ensuring that one side is not compensating for the other side. This gives your muscles a more balanced look.

With advantages however, come disadvantages, and there is a trade off to using the dumbbell chest workout. The greater range of motion means that there is the possibility of injuring and over stretching both your pectoral muscles and the shoulder joint. As a result, we recommend that only advanced lifters use a dumbbell only routine to build muscle.

Another disadvantage of using dumbbells is due to the increased coordination necessary to do dumbbell movements. You will not be able to use as much weight as you would with the barbell.

As a result, we recommend that you mix in not only this dumbbell only chest workout into your overall chest development plan, but also blend in a few dumbbell exercises into routines that also utilize barbell exercises to build muscle fast.

Advanced Dumbbell Chest Routine
Exercise     Sets     Reps
Dumbbell Incline Press     3     8 to 12
Dumbbell Bench Press     3     8 to 12
Dumbbell Decline Press     3     8 to 12
Dumbbell Fly (Flat or Incline Bench)     3     8 to 12

This workout targets the chest from top to bottom by utilizing various bench angles. The incline dumbbell press targets the upper pectoral region, while the decline press really works the lower portion of your chest. The flat dumbbell press hits the overall chest extremely well.

The workout offers a shaping isolation movement by incorporating a dumbbell fly. You can choose the incline or flat bench depending on the part of the chest you prefer to target. As a side note, the dumbbell fly is a great exercise to incorporate into your barbell chest workouts.

Do the exercises in the dumbbell chest workout using a 2-1-2 tempo meaning 2 counts lift, 1 count squeeze at the top, and 2 seconds to lower the weight.