Your feet and your knees are still hip-width apart, and this is where, again, you’re going to use your abdominals to keep that nice little neutral spinal position in your low back. Straight line over from the hands right over the shoulders.Hands on either side of the dumbbell, bring the dumbbell to sit straight up overhead.At this point, we’re going to be sharing the weight.Then you’re going to take it between the hands and turn flat onto your back.Then the top arm is going to grasp the weight.That extra grip is always really nice with the weight sitting right over your head.Īnother important tip is how to safely retrieve a weight that you’re going to be using from the floor position. If you haven’t invested yet in weight training gloves - you can also use well-fitting cycling gloves - now would be a good time to do so. When you do the straight arm dumbbell floor pullovers it will be one of the first times you’re going to be holding a weight over your head. This is one of the Active level strength exercises in Exercise for Better Bones. Note that I will demonstrate proper dumbbell pullover technique to avoid injury and increase the effectiveness of this exercise. The following are the instructions to complete the straight arm dumbbell floor pullovers exercise. For those that may not known, the pullover denotes a lost, tried and true exercise from the bodybuilding days of the 60’s, Arnold’s era.This article was last updated on Straight Arm Dumbbell Floor Pullovers To learn how to perform the pullover to emphasize chest and lats, refer to any number of articles posted, T-Nation, Poloquin Group, etc. To learn how to perform the exercise to target the long head of the triceps, lookup Paul Carter’s video on YouTube. BTW, all three methods are going to have some effect on the abdominal muscles to some degree since you are essentially stretching the area along the center of the abdominal wall. Return or perform the concentric part of the movement by extending the elbows then pulling the shoulders forward to return to the starting position. To emphasize triceps, maintain a soft flexion in the elbows b4 lowering the barbell/dumbbell to 180 degree shoulder flexion at which point lower the barbell/dumbbell as much as you can using elbow flexion. This in turn well serve to target the lats more than the chest in performing the pullover. To emphasize lats, you need to provide a certain amount of elbow flexion throughout the movement without turning the exercise into a triceps extension. Return to the starting position maintaining the same amount of elbow flexion. Begin the exercise by extending the arms back lowering the barbell or dumbbell as far as you can behind the head while maintaining soft elbow flexion throughout the exercise. To emphasize the chest, lay down on a flat bench holding a barbell/dumbbell with arms extended directly above the head/chest. An increase in the flexibility of this region will benefit all other related exercises in your weight lifting routine.ĭepending upon how you perform the pullover will determine the muscle group most effected, i.e., chest, lats, or triceps. #3 Improve FlexibilityĪlthough the dumbbell pullover is no substitute for a stretching routine, the stretch involved in performing the technique is effective for maintaining or improving flexibility and range of motion in your chest and shoulder region. Poorly developed stabilizer muscles can be a “weak link” that causes a plateau. Stabilizer muscles don’t actually do the work to move the weight, but they support the muscles that do by holding them steady or balanced. The dumbbell pullover clearly does your chest justice, but it’ll also test many stabilizer muscles throughout your body spefically those in the abs, upper back/scapular region and the gluteal muscles. I should note, though, that contrary to populare belief, this exercise does not work the serratus anterior (the “rib muscles”), at least not in any substantial manner. So get ready for thicker chest and back muscles. Listed below are the top dumbbell pullover benefits: #1 Build Upper Body MuscleĪlthough it’s considered to be among the isolation chest exercises (since it’s a single-joint movement), it also effectively works the triceps and lats. The dumbbell pullover offers a few key benefits that you can experience if you are among the best candidates for this movement (i.e. If you are planning to add this exercise to your routine, be sure that you know how to do the dumbbell pullover. Discover the dumbbell pullover benefits and see how this isolation chest exercise might be able to help you reach your goals faster.
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