This Dumbbell Chest Workout Will Also Fire Up Your Abs

You don’t need a gym for a terrific upper-body session: So long as you may have access to a couple of weights, you may get in a solid dumbbell chest workout right at home.

And there’s good reason to achieve this. Constructing strength in your pectoral muscles—also referred to as your pecs, or your chest—has carryover for a bunch of on a regular basis activities, like pushing an object back on a high shelf or sliding a heavy box across the ground, ACE-certified personal trainer Sivan Fagan, founding father of Strong With Sivan, tells SELF. It’ll also allow you to reduce your risk of injury since stronger chest muscles may also help stabilize your shoulder joints and shoulder blades.

While you would possibly have heard some people on the gym speak about “chest day,” the very best exercises to incorporate in your workout routine aren’t going to be ones that only hit that specific area. Relatively, you’ll wish to give attention to the encompassing muscles too, says Fagan.

With chest training, you wish to hit your pecs, sure—which include the big pectoralis major and a smaller one underneath called the pectoralis minor—but you furthermore may want to point out the muscles that support them some love too. Think: all of your “pushing” muscles, like your chest, deltoids (shoulders), and triceps (which run along the back of your upper arms).

Your pec muscles may be the principal driver in traditional chest exercises just like the barbell bench press, incline bench press, or dumbbell chest fly (and even in body weight moves just like the push-up), but your smaller shoulder and arm muscles are working to allow you to complete the movements, too. So if you wish to get stronger or construct muscle, including exercises that concentrate on these supporting muscle groups are only as essential.

That’s why within the dumbbell chest workout Fagan created for SELF below, you’ll work an entire bunch of upper-body muscles. And also you’ll achieve this with a giant give attention to unilateral, or single-arm, training. This may allow you to pinpoint and alleviate muscle imbalances from one side to the opposite—something which most of us naturally have, says Fagan.

“While you push each dumbbells at the identical time, your body just desires to get them from point A to point B. Your stronger side might take it through the total range of motion, but the opposite side might take it on a shortcut,” she says. “It’s really hard so that you can notice it on your individual until you isolate your sides, and then you definitely’re like, ‘Hold on, I can’t do it on this side.’”

Single-arm work also comes with a comfortable bonus: It really challenges your core stability, which turns these upper-body exercises into abs exercises too. As you push each dumbbell, your core muscles have to fireplace to maintain your body from rotating in the wrong way, Fagan says.

The dumbbell pec workout starts with alternating-arm versions of probably the most difficult compound moves—the chest press and shoulder press—in a superset (meaning, you’ll go right from one exercise to the subsequent with minimal rest). You’ll keep the repetitions lower here than throughout the remaining of the workout, so don’t be afraid to challenge yourself with heavier weight (so long as you maintain proper form).