Should i do flyes

Every bodybuilding enthusiast needs to be aware of the dumbbell flye. In this simple exercise, the elbow stays at a fixed angle while the hand and arm move through some part of their range of motion. The biggest danger of dumbbell flyes is that people overextend their shoulder joints, fail to keep their elbow at a fixed angle, or add too much weight. All of these mistakes can not only minimize the gains you get but more importantly, they can lead to serious injury.

The shoulder joint is one of the most sensitive in the human body and an injury there can take ages to heal. Far too often, people who are desperate to build muscle leap at the chance to do dumbbell flyes and jump into the exercise with such gusto that they move too fast, jerk their arms through the motion, and again take too much weight. Due to the unique functions of the shoulder joint and the pectoralis major, and also due to the absence of any power from the rest of the arm, you simply cannot handle as much weight during a dumbbell flye as you can with a bench press or other dumbbell exercises.

Dumbbell flyes give the shoulders, chest, and triceps a great workout. The number one thing you need to do is come to terms with the fact that your one-rep max is not coming into play during a flye.

If you just want to show off, get a spotter and stick to the bench press. Dumbbell flyes are for improving range of motion and building upper body strength in three critical muscle groups that are too often left to be worked out incidentally to a bicep-targeting exercise. Safety is a huge component of any chest workout because they so frequently involve the shoulder joint. Fortunately, the safest way to do dumbbell flyes is to do them with the right form, which will also greatly increase the amount of muscle gains they give.

Read on for some tips to get the perfect dumbbell flye form so you can get ripped pectoral muscles and prevent shoulder joint injuries. Also referred to as chest flyes or chest flies, dumbbell flyes are a surprisingly divisive topic in the bodybuilding community.

Bench Press. The bench press is known as a compound exercise because it requires work from multiple different joints — primarily the shoulder and elbow. Because of this, you see direct muscle-building benefit for the shoulders and triceps, as well as the chest. The more muscles you include in one movement, the more efficient your workout. The fly is an isolation exercise because it targets one joint: the shoulder. While your chest muscles rely on help from the front of the shoulders and the biceps during the fly, it's really a chest-only exercise.

The fly and the press focus on separate actions of the chest. This is why both are valuable when it comes to training overall chest and shoulder function. The bench press trains your muscles' ability to push weight; the fly trains your ability to adduct, or bring the shoulders and chest toward the center of the body. Many powerlifters argue that the triceps is mostly active in the top position. I think this is misguided for 2 reasons. Triceps activity is relatively constant during a bench press.

Second, bench presses of any kind are not great triceps builders in the first place. The long head is a biarticulate muscle: it aids not just in elbow extension but also shoulder extension. During a bench press, maximally contracting the long head would cause a significant shoulder extension moment. Since the shoulder flexion moment is likely more limiting than the elbow extension moment during a bench press, this means full contraction of the long head of the triceps is often not desirable.

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Also, simply arrange your workout in a way that those other pushing muscles are completed after your chest session, never before. So it's "chest and shoulders," not "shoulders and chest.

You can also grow stale using the same kind of equipment for months or years on end. If every chest workout you've ever done started with the barbell, you might be due for a change of pace! Plenty of great chests have been built using other types of equipment—particularly dumbbells. Each offers advantages that can be incorporated to reintroduce variety into your training.

Dumbbells are certainly harder to control, but this is actually a good thing. They allow each side to work independently, offering a longer range of motion both at the bottom and top of each move.

They also allow much greater freedom in the shoulder joint, which makes them an option if you experience shoulder pain when doing the barbell version. Many experienced lifters have gone so far as to make the switch entirely. You don't have to go that far, but if you commit to the dumbbell bench as your big-buck chest-day movement for a while, there's a good chance you'll see some results. Because they work the chest musculature a bit differently than the barbell, they can ultimately increase overall chest size—in many cases, better than the barbell bench.

And if you've been dismissing bodybuilding classics like cable cross-overs or machine work—or sleepwalking your way through them—consider this your push to take them more seriously. Both provide great ways to add quality volume to your chest day without the challenge and risk of balancing heavy weights over your head when you're feeling exhausted. There's some sort of gravitational pull to the bench press on Mondays.

In many gyms, there might as well be a little number dispenser, like at the DMV. This is especially strange, because while the bench press on the flat bench is a great chest builder, it's not the only one, and not necessarily the best one. And like every exercise, over time you'll get diminishing muscle-growth results from it. The answer, then, is not to do more of the same old thing! Instead, start your chest session with an alternate multijoint movement.

For example, there's nothing wrong with starting from different bench angles that you might typically do later in your chest session. While the bench press on the flat bench is a great chest builder, it's not the only one, and not necessarily the best one.

Whereas you might be able to decline press pounds for 8 reps when it's slotted in the number 3 position in your routine, doing it first may allow you to handle pounds for 11 reps, or perhaps pounds for 7.