The Best Dumbbell Exercises for Chest

Today I’m going to share my favorite chest exercises… but there’s a catch. 

We can only use dumbbells!

And when it comes to chest size and strength development, some training goals become much harder if we can’t use a barbell. However, the truth is that sometimes we’ve got equipment limitations such as when we’re doing a home workout, so we need to find some workarounds.

I’m not going to give you a random collection of dumbbell chest exercises…

Each of my choices has got a purpose behind it!

These exercises will help you hit the upper, mid and lower chest using dumbbells only.

I’ll show you what to do whether you are training for hypertrophy, strength or power. I’ll also give you the best options for metabolic overload, total body and corrective, as well as one effective chest exercise that helps us address the lack of adduction that we have when we’re strapped with dumbbells as our only implement.

I recommend that you use a couple of these exercises in your chest day workouts depending on your goals, rather than trying to use all of them in a single chest workout at home with dumbbells. If you’re looking for a complete chest day workout plan, and you’re NOT limited by equipment, you can check out the Chest Workouts guide I put together.

BEST EXERCISES FOR YOUR DUMBBELL CHEST WORKOUT

1. Dumbbell Weighted Dip
2. Plyo Tap
3. Eccentric Floor Fly
4. Ladder Style Dumbbell Bench Press
5. Bench Press Up
6. Pec Minor Stretch
7. Dumbbell UCV High Raise
8. Dumbbell UCV Low Raise

The first exercise below for developing a stronger chest is going to require an equipment modification using a dog leash.

Yep, that’s right. A dog leash!

(And no, you’re not going to be resisting the strength of a Mastiff or a Great Dane pulling you around.)

It’s a cheap and easy hack for building strength if you don’t have access to a complete gym. If you don’t have one in your home gym arsenal, I recommend you invest in one.

So, let’s get started and I’ll break it down, one by one!

STRENGTH

Progressively overloading the chest is much easier if you can use barbell training.

The barbell bench press would be the ideal option to build your chest strength, but we need to come up with something using only heavy dumbbells.

Before we make a jump to the dumbbell variation of a bench press, let’s look at another great exercise for chest strength, the weighted dip.

The weighted dip is a good exercise for overloading the chest, although it involves some other muscles as well. You can favor the chest in this exercise by leaning forward more and making sure your shoulder blades are down and back.

Now what happens when we try to substitute dumbbells in these two exercises?

If I go from a barbell flat bench press to a dumbbell bench press variation I run into a little bit of a problem. I’m never going to be able to press the same weight that I could with barbell presses once I split the weight between the two dumbbells in each hand.

The stability requirements inherent in the use of two dumbbells in the bench press will undermine our ability to press with the same amount of strength as we could in the barbell version of the bench press.

You’ve probably experienced that firsthand if you’ve ever tried to move from a barbell bench press to a dumbbell bench press.

So, now let’s reevaluate that dip.

We can substitute dumbbells for the heavy barbell plates as the extra resistance in this exercise with one simple tweak.

I’m using a dog leash here. It’s a simple, no excuses way to do this.

I just wrap the dog leash around and through the handle, around the dumbbell, and then to itself. Of course, you can use this dog leash trick with weight plates as well!

Now you’ve got a perfectly weighted dip belt of any weight!

1.) DUMBBELL WEIGHTED DIP

When training for strength, it’s important to focus on safely lifting that heavier weight, and in the process we want to be sure not to sacrifice shoulder stability. When moving to a dumbbell version of the bench press you will find that your shoulder instability from holding separate heavy dumbbells will undercut your overall strength.

POWER

The element of speed is critical to maximizing the effect of power training for our chest.

Whenever we want to work on power, we are looking for an exercise that we can move as quickly as possible without having to sacrifice the weight.

My preference for this is a sled push away, because it allows us the ability to release the load that we’re trying to accelerate, but it’s not a dumbbell exercise.

So if we’re limited by equipment, we’ve got to find an exercise with dumbbells that allows us to do the same thing, because it’s critical for maximizing power development.

Let’s say we wanted to do a dumbbell bench press and opted to accelerate the weight as fast as possible.  We’d find that as we approach full extension, the body inherently slows down the weight  as a protective mechanism for the joints and to prepare for the next rep.

This deceleration is exactly the opposite of what you want if you’re trying to maximize force development.

However, we do have a chest dumbbell option that allows us to accelerate through the entire rep and then release the weight as we did with the sled push away.

Technically it’s a bodyweight exercise using the dumbbells just as targets.

Check out this explosive Plyo Tap.

2.) PLYO TAP

It’s key that you perform these to a submaximal level. Don’t take them all the way to muscle failure.

Leave a couple in the tank, but maximize the force and speed with which you push, and I promise you the best chest gains from this exercise!

HYPERTROPHY

You’ve probably heard at some point that you don’t need to get sore in order to build big chest musculature.

While that is absolutely true, at some point you’ll have to get sore, because you’re going to dry up with how much weight you can continue to load to the bar.

Metabolic training alone – which we’ll talk about next – is ultimately going to become limited in its ability to overload your chest muscles because of the lighter weights that you use to perform those exercises.

In order to build a bigger chest, eventually you’re going to need to explore an eccentrically overloaded exercise option.

That’s why I want to arm you with the best one!

My favorite dumbbell chest exercise for eccentric overload is the Eccentric Floor Fly.

3.) ECCENTRIC FLOOR FLY

If you care about the health of your shoulder joints, DON’T use a weight bench for this exercise! Instead do it as a dumbbell floor press.

In this dumbbell chest fly variation, you can actually use heavier than normal weight to maximize your muscle growth effect. This is because it allows for a cheat up to the top of the rep and also because your shoulders are safely supported by the floor.

Don’t worry about the fact that you’re not flying back to the top. We’ll cover the adduction in our later exercise selections!

METABOLIC

Metabolic training is a good option for building more muscle. However it does require that you leave your ego at the door because you have to do this with lighter weights.

But be warned, light weights alone will not cut it!

Light weights with an applied stress, meant to increase metabolic stress inside of your chest muscles is how you create a change.

I chose the incline dumbbell bench press, although it doesn’t matter whether or not you choose to do it flat or in incline positions on an adjustable bench.

It’s how you perform the dumbbell press that matters the most!

How do we do this?

We perform this incline dumbbell chest press ladder style.

4.) LADDER STYLE DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS

TOTAL BODY

So, how the hell are you going to train your whole body when you’re training your chest?

I’m not always trying to find the exercise that I can load maximally.

When considering total body, I’m trying to find the exercise that I can have a maximum impact on as many areas of my body as possible.

For that, I like the Bench Press Up.

5.) BENCH PRESS UP

In this full-body exercise, it’s not about the weight we’re using. It’s about the requirements of our body to perform it.

Not only do I need to be able to perform dumbbell incline bench presses, but I need to be able to have thoracic mobility to keep those dumbbells up overhead.

It’s a similar concept to a Turkish getup, which is not necessarily programmed for any one specific purpose. Instead it trains our entire body to synchronize its different segments to get us off the ground as efficiently as possible.

That’s what we’re doing with the Bench Press Up.

If during these dumbbell incline presses, you see those dumbbells caving forward, either you’ve chosen too heavy of a weight or you’re lacking in thoracic mobility. Try a more moderate weight and see how it affects your form.

If I want to take this exercise to another level and add an additional body segment, I can try to stand.

Standing from a seated position is very similar to standing from the bottom of an overhead squat, and the requirements for the thoracic spine to be able to do that properly become even more difficult.

CORRECTIVE

Just because the corrective exercises are small movements, it doesn’t mean they’re any less important!

In this case, just as with our power exercise, we’re not using the dumbbells for overload.  Instead we’re going to use them as an implement to accomplish a stretched position on the pectoralis minor.

You’re probably saying to yourself “Who cares about the pec minor? I only want to develop my pectoralis major.”

Your pectoralis minor is a very important muscle because it tends to get tightened and short. This can cause compression and thoracic atlas syndrome, which leads to neurological and vascular issues down your arm – like tingling – things you don’t want happening during your training or in your everyday life.

We want to stretch out this muscle, because when it gets tight it tends to bring your shoulders up and forward which is detrimental to your posture and shoulder integrity, causing shoulder issues down the road.

6.) PEC MINOR STRETCH

ADDUCTION

Adduction of the arm is a key function of the chest that simply doesn’t get hit with just the bench press, pushups and dips.

In order to get full chest muscle fiber activation, we’ve got to get the hand and arm fully across the midline of our body.

You might be thinking, “The chest fly.”

I don’t like to do the fly on a weight bench, and if we do it on the floor, at best we’re only getting to midline, but not across it.

There is a better dumbbell option for this, the Dumbbell UCV Raise.

7.) DUMBBELL UCV HIGH RAISE

This is not about using a really heavy weight.  Instead it’s about achieving that full chest contraction by virtue of getting to full adduction in the exercise.

8.) DUMBBELL UCV LOW RAISE

I’ve given you the best dumbbell chest exercises for a variety of different training goals, as well as my justification for why I’ve chosen each.  Give these exercises a shot whenever you don’t have access to a barbell or if you just want to bring an extra challenge to your chest training! These upper body moves will help you build a bigger better chest, regardless of what your goal is.

Our ATHLEAN programs will give you the fastest and safest training plan for your current goals.  I lay it out step by step with all the best tips, exercise videos and science based explanations behind my exercise choices.  Check out our Program Selector to see which program best suits your training goals and experience level!

BEST DUMBBELL EXERCISES FOR CHEST FAQS