Whats better? Dumbell bench press or barbell bench press?

It was another day at the gym.

I made a new scheduel and was psyched to get to work. :mad:

Then I saw a lot of guys with MASSIVE chests doing bench press', but with DUMBELLS. I was like, "wtf?".

Anyways, faily simple question...which should I do?
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Also, since I don't want to make another topic, I was wondering, I want to bulk, and I always do 7 reps. But then it hit me, 7 reps UNTIL FAILURE?

Then I realized I wasn't doing it. So is this basically how it goes? Until failure?
 
I think you have to do both, you can feel the bench press work your big muscles or pectorials major i think and then db bench hits pectorials minor and a bunch of other muscles for stabalizers and what not. I just hit both, your db bench will be somewhat less weight then your flat though

EDIT**Didnt see the under post...Dont go until failure I read somewhere thats bad for you, if you really want to hit it though and you cant do it, do a few negatives maybe.
 
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Yes, you should do both. But switch up your routine(s). Don't do flat barbell bench press every single time you do chest. You could do one week flat bb and incline db. Then the next week flat db and incline bb etc. Or you could stick to one of those for a few weeks and then switch to the other.

No, you shouldnt go to failure, youll hit a plateau soon.

I would stick to a certain number of reps that you can definitely get like 5 or 6, or do a ladder or a pyramid.
 
Going to failure once in a while is a good thing. It's the best way to figure out what you are capable of. As a general practice, you should train to 1 rep before failure. You will eventually get a feel for where that is and adjust your weight accordingly to hit your target reps. As for the bench question, do them both but on different days.

There is a lot of confusion around "training to failure". The reason is that people confuse set failure with absolute muscle failure. One should never train to absolute failure, as in where the muscle will barely function at the end. Training to set failure periodically is a good thing.
 
Crazylegs said:
Going to failure once in a while is a good thing. It's the best way to figure out what you are capable of. As a general practice, you should train to 1 rep before failure. You will eventually get a feel for where that is and adjust your weight accordingly to hit your target reps. As for the bench question, do them both but on different days.

There is a lot of confusion around "training to failure". The reason is that people confuse set failure with absolute muscle failure. One should never train to absolute failure, as in where the muscle will barely function at the end. Training to set failure periodically is a good thing.

Yeah I totally agree, what i meant was not to go to failure every single time - every workout
 
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