Thread: Bar vs Bench

I personally vary it up between the two. Its always good to mix it up a little for some variety

Originally Posted by Metman07

Which is better overall? Or should both be used? At the moment, me and my friend to inclined and declined skull crushers. For the flat bench we still use the bar.
Do you think it's better to switch to dumbells exclusively?

Call me crazy but ....WTF did he just say?

Originally Posted by WilliamB

Call me crazy but ....WTF did he just say?

Lol I'm not 100% sure, but I interpretted as him trying to decide on using DB's or BB's for Incline and Decline Bench.

Derr....that was stupid. The title of the thread should have been Dumbells vs Bar. Yeah basically I was asking is it better to use bar weights or dumbells for flat, inclined and declined bench.

At the moment I just do the flat bench using the bar and I used dumbells for inclined and declined bench.

Where did the skull crushers come from then?

Originally Posted by WilliamB

Call me crazy but ....WTF did he just say?

thats what i am saying

Originally Posted by WilliamB

Call me crazy but ....WTF did he just say?

Try this:

My friend and I do inclined and declined skull crushers using dumbbells,
but when we do them on a flat bench we use a barbell.

Do you think it's better to switch to dumbells exclusively?
Which is better overall? Or should both be used?

I personally use dumbells for pretty much all of my bench exercises. There are a lot of different angles that you can hold your hands to hit different stablizers and muscles with dumbells. Sometimes I will do a couple of sets on with the barbell then switch to the dumbell. I have made some great gains without using the barbell for bench.

Dumbbells are far superior in my opinion. They work your stabilizers much more and require more balance and strength to use (try DB pressing what you bench... you probably can't come close). I can also never feel anything in my chest when using a BB, and with DBs I can definitely feel the stretch and the work out. With the BB it just feels like my arms are doing all the work.

So you only feel it in your arms with BB? Hmm... So from this statement I would say BB is good for building triceps and DB is good for building pecs. Yay nay?

Originally Posted by Metman07

Derr....that was stupid. The title of the thread should have been Dumbells vs Bar. Yeah basically I was asking is it better to use bar weights or dumbells for flat, inclined and declined bench.

At the moment I just do the flat bench using the bar and I used dumbells for inclined and declined bench.

If you are doing skull crushers with a dumbell then you are deffinantly the one who needs to be saying "Derr".

fuck i had my terminology wrong. i thought skull crushers was the work out where you get two dumbells and you hit them together. basically like bench press with dumbells. i just looked it up on the net and found that it was something totally different.

I'm udderly confused, but I will say do both just switch them up on an irregular basis.

Skull Crushers are for triceps and i do them with the EZ-curl bar, as far as the DB vs. Barbell I would use a combination, its not good to use strictly all DBs or all BB's right now im doing incline/decline barbell and bench DB, but my last program I had Bench barbell, incline DB and cable crossovers., you just gotta switch it up and shock the muscles every 3 to 4 weeks IMO

Here is a skull crusher-like movement with dumbells, the Tate Press:

http://www.weightliftingdiscussion.com/tatetri.html

Originally Posted by Mudge

Here is a skull crusher-like movement with dumbells, the Tate Press:

http://www.weightliftingdiscussion.com/tatetri.html

Interesting... has anyone here ever used that with satisfactory results?

Powerlifters use it, dont know what else to tell you.