It is hard to say one exercise is always better than another because the body is so adaptable, an extremely effective exercise sometimes becomes ineffective over the course of an extended period of time. Because the body can completely adapt to the exercises you do, the best exercises sometimes have to temporarily be put aside so that you can offer the body a “fresh” stimulus with a slightly different exercise. This is true with bench presses. In my opinion, for overall mass development of the pecs, nothing is better then the standard barbell bench press. This exercise positions the body so that the most amount of stress is placed on the pecs- more so then both incline or decline bench presses. In addition, it allows the user to use significantly heavy weights and as any reader of mine knows, I feel the “weight” or poundage one uses is the single most important tool in stimulating new muscle growth, If you can go heavy or get stronger, your muscles are going to grow. Period. That said, even the best exercise such as the standard bench press can become less effective simply because the body adapts to the angle of stress placed on the muscles which leads to less muscle stimulation and less growth. An alternative to barbell bench presses is dumbbell bench presses. Basically, this is a very similar exercise but the user can not use as much weight because in addition to pushing the weight up, he has to balance the bumbells where as with the bar, there is less effort and energy wasted on balancing the bar. The lifter might not “feel” like he is actually balancing the dumbbells- keeping them from falling all round- but, in fact, he is expending both strength and energy balancing the dumbbells. Still, it is a very good exercise. One reason some have come to the conclusion that dumbbells may be better then barbell bench press has to do not necessarily with the exercise as much as the change in exercise. Often a bodybuilder will tell me “Dumbell bench presses are better then the bar. I switched and now my pecs are growing.” The truth here is not that the dumbbells are better. The truth is that the body completely adapted to the regular barbell bench press to the extent that it was no longer causing his chest to grow. Any small change at that point would cause the body to continue to grow. If he switched the grip position for a little wider grip on the barbell bench presses- rather then switch to dumbbell bench presses – his chest would start to change and grow. Changing the angles slightly on an exercise that had previously been a very effective exercise will slightly alter the direction upon which the muscle fibers receive stress and stimulation resulting in continual gains. That is what my training programs are always about – altering angles ever so slightly, all the while staying with heavy weights and with the basic core exercises that recruit the maximal number of muscle fibers. For chest development, nothing beats the bench press; it’s a more productive exercise then dumbbells and machines.
With a medium grip on the bench press where each palm of the hand is 5-6 inches wider the shoulder width, the majority of stress is placed on the core portion of the pecs; the middle portion. As you approach failure where you can no longer perform any additional reps on your own, the inner and outer parts of the pecs are recruited and come into play. Over time, the body adapts, so you can change the angle by taking a slightly wider grip. I think this is a better step in trying to continually stimulate the pecs then switching to a machine exercise that mimmicks the bench press or to dumbbell bench presses. Using a wider grip places a little more stress on the outer pecs, but going too wide can put too much stress on the shoulders leaving them vulnerable to injury- while removing too much stress off the targeted muscle group; the pecs. I suggest when you hit a plateau, when you feel like the pecs are no longer growing, you move to a wider grip for 3-4 weeks, then switch over to dumbbell bench presses for another 3-4 weeks. Upon completing 3-4 weeks of working with dumbbell bench presses, you can go back to what was previously working; regular barbell bench presses

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