Monday, February 27, 2012

Two In One: How To Do Dumbbell Fly and Overhead Press

by

healthy_blogging

I really enjoy weight lifting, but when a routine becomes outdated, I need to ratchet things up a notch. So today I'm going to show you how to do another amazing two in one workout that will not only challenge your body to become stronger, but save you valuable time, too. The exercise I'm talking about is the standing dumbbell fly and overhead press and you're going to learn about it in the next section. But first here's a list some of the benefits of this compound exercise:

  • strengthens your chest muscles
  • strengthens your shoulder muscles
  • strengthens your upper back
  • strengthens your core
This is an exercise that you should definitely add to your workout arsenal because it combines two of the best upper body exercises you'll ever do.

How To Do Dumbbell Fly and Overhead Press

You'll need a pair of dumbbells for this exercise. You should start out with a warm up set, so grab a pair of lightweight dumbbells. Stand up straight. Bring the dumbbells up to chest level. Hold them close to each other. Now, move the weights apart performing an arc movement. For this part of the exercise you'll be relying on your chest muscles. Stop once you feel a slight pull in the chest muscles. Now bring the weights back together again. That's one repetition of the standing dumbbell fly.

Now you need to do the overhead press. Begin by turning the weights upward until your knuckles are pointing toward the ceiling. Make sure that your arms are shoulder width apart when you do this. Next, use your shoulder muscles to press the dumbbells above your head. Now lower your arms down until the dumbbells are at eye level. You've just completed one rep of the dumbbell overhead press.

Alternate between standing dumbbell flys and overhead presses until you've completed nine more reps. After this, you can select a pair of heavier weights.

If you're going for strength use heavy weights and low reps (4 - 6 reps) over three sets. If you just want to tone your muscles, use light dumbbells and go for 10 - 15 reps spread over three sets.


As you can see, this workout is more challenging. You're training multiple groups of muscles to coordinate with each other. You shouldn't pause between the flys and presses, since this is a combined exercise. If done correctly, you'll experience strength and endurance gains in a matter of weeks.
That's it for now. While you're here, check out the other amazing articles on this blog. They're listed in the sidebar.

"Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts: Two In One: How To Do Dumbbell Fly and Overhead Press" copyright 2012 Great Chest and Whole Body Workouts.