I've always been under the impression, that BB work was great for strength development, and that DBs were better for size development. Put plainly, what's the story?

Also, how do you guys mix up your BB work and DB work? If at all?

For example chest: I tend to favour flat bench BB, and do inclines using DBs - but how does it affect your strenght/muscle development?

From a guess, you have to have the balance and individual control of the DBs meaning concentrating on both arms/hands and how they move - whereas BB your balance is less of an issue but less cheating is possible?

I guess the initial obvious one is that you can add more weight to a BB - however does BB help hide a particular weakness by enabling the other half of the body take the slack?

I've never really thought about it and just wondered and tended to flip between BB and DB owing to my mood without really knowing what the differences were.

Seems to be a pretty personal thing to what you get on better with really.

DB's i think, particularly in pressing movements, tend to limit the load you can use because of the extra neural effort required to stabilise the DB's throughout the movement... lesser load is the disadvantage. However, the greater freedom of movement and not being limited to fixed distance between your hands allows a greater ability to contract the target muscle in the most appropriate phase of the exercise, thus allowing the best stimulation of growth for that muscle.

I tend to find things go best when i spend a few months on a particular kind of movement using a BB to build strength more quickly, and then another few months using DB's to 'sculpt' the muscle a bit more.

Combine this with progressions for a BB focused on lower reps and increasing load, and using lighter loads and focusing on increasing reps with DB's and i think you've got a good all round strategy for both strength and mass.

Dumbbells give you greater ROM in a lot of movements (some say this work the chest better when benching, I don't notice much difference myself), require more stabilising (a good thing), and are kinder on your joints- just as machines lock you into one plane of movement than barbells do the same to a lesser extent, this is a particular concern when benching as your shoulders are forced to work more internally rotated than they'd really like.

The only real advantage of barbells is that you can move more weight, which may or may not be relevant to your goals. Doing all your squats/pulls/Oly lifts with dumbbells would also obviously be a bit gash.

Yeah I like to mix it up. I had a suspicion, but wasn't sure that the case was as you've just highlighted. However I noticed that my strength has increased on flat BB since spending time doing DBs for a month with no BB work. I now do a bit of both, but it's nice to know that balancing both movements helps get the best out of the exercise. I'll re-evaluate my routines. Obviously as you say with DBs you're limited to weight, but greater input is required as a result of the fact the hands can move independently... I wasn't sure whether or not they were mutually exclusive of each other or not as I quite enjoy BB work and am after strength as well as size - however joints are a concern and something I want to make sure are healthy.

On more developed individuals the barbell is less clumbersome as the 50s i have tried pressing are that big they just get in the way and allow less ROM

generally i use BBs for strength stuff and DBs for hypertrophy. Can't really add to whats been said. Although the uni S&C coach reckons BB curls are the ultimate bicep exercise due to the fact they totally supinate your arms. Have to admit, they hurt me alot more than DBs and i've seen some bicep growth in the 2 weeks ive been doing them.

Karlos wrote:generally i use BBs for strength stuff and DBs for hypertrophy. Can't really add to whats been said. Although the uni S&C coach reckons BB curls are the ultimate bicep exercise due to the fact they totally supinate your arms. Have to admit, they hurt me alot more than DBs and i've seen some bicep growth in the 2 weeks ive been doing them.

Shit homie. BB curls? WTF B?

I'm not advanced enough to think about that, I just go for DBs as they're more likely to be free at the gym.

Well, and I feel they improve overall strength better, as you're exercising your grip and stability muscles more.

Karlos wrote:Although the uni S&C coach reckons BB curls are the ultimate bicep exercise due to the fact they totally supinate your arms. Have to admit, they hurt me alot more than DBs and i've seen some bicep growth in the 2 weeks ive been doing them.

Well that's what happens when you change to a different exercise.

They are not the "best" biceps exercise as they preferentially work the short head of the biceps. A biceps exercise that works both heads (long & short) is a better choice when suggesting the "best" biceps exercise.

There are such exercises. But as always, varying the biceps exercises (choosing long & short head preferentially recruited exercises) is a good way to do it.

db's allow more neural recruitment
to pick up on health's point, there is a good but simplistic book on muscle recruitment by a guy called Per Tesch, it shows in diagramatic form which specific muscles are used in certain exercises- thus allowing you to properly target weak points.
from memory it is called target bodybuilding

So ultimately it's all about mixing it up really? I have to say I always believed the reasoning of BB = Strength DB = Size. Interesting info thanks chaps.

Rilla wrote:

Karlos wrote:generally i use BBs for strength stuff and DBs for hypertrophy. Can't really add to whats been said. Although the uni S&C coach reckons BB curls are the ultimate bicep exercise due to the fact they totally supinate your arms. Have to admit, they hurt me alot more than DBs and i've seen some bicep growth in the 2 weeks ive been doing them.

Shit homie. BB curls? WTF B?

lol.

H4, i curl to my face which brings the long head into play doesn't it? I personally wasn't saying it was the king of bicep exercises, i agree with you wrt variation. In fact I believe a lot of what this coach says is crap. I was intrigued about the point of full supination though, which you don't get with EZ or DB curls.