Chest · Dumbbell
Dumbbell Bench Press
The dumbbell bench press is a pressing movement performed lying on a flat bench with a dumbbell in each hand, lowering them to chest level and pressing them back to arm’s length.
Also called Dumbbell Bench, Dumbbell Chest Press. orcatrain matches these names when you search the movement catalogue.
How is the dumbbell bench press performed?
The lifter sits on the end of a flat bench with a dumbbell resting on each thigh, then lies back, bringing the dumbbells to the sides of the chest. From there they are pressed up until the arms are straight, and lowered under control until the upper arms are roughly level with the torso. Each arm works independently, so the two sides must be balanced against each other throughout rather than being tied together by a bar.
What does the dumbbell bench press train?
The dumbbell bench press trains the same chest, front deltoid and triceps pattern as the barbell version, but with each arm stabilising its own load. That independence allows a longer range of motion at the bottom and prevents a stronger side from quietly carrying a weaker one, at the cost of the absolute load being lower than the barbell equivalent.
How does orcatrain score the dumbbell bench press?
Log the weight of a single dumbbell, not the pair — orcatrain scores what you enter, so entering the combined figure would score the movement as roughly twice the load. Dumbbell bench press is scored on its own as an orcatrain strength score, computed with the DOTS coefficient; it is not part of the headline total, which is the squat, bench press and deadlift.
Every scored set is turned into an estimated one-rep max, and that estimate is scored with the DOTS coefficient against your bodyweight and sex — so a set is comparable with your own past work and with lifters of a different size. Sets above ten repetitions are recorded but not scored: the estimate is a curve fit that stops being honest past that point, so orcatrain returns nothing rather than a confident guess. Weights are stored in kilograms.
Track your progress on Dumbbell Bench Press.
Movement names and groupings come from Strength Level, where you can also see their strength standards for this movement. DOTS is computed by orcatrain itself.