The major muscles in the upper body include the pectorals, deltoids, trapezius, latissimus dorsi, triceps and biceps. Working these muscles involves pushing and pulling a resistance for a given amount of repetitions. Free weights, such as dumbbells and barbells, give you an advantage over machines when it comes to power and strength gains. Dumbbells and barbells have similarities and differences.
Muscle Imbalances
Bench presses, shoulder presses, back rows, upright rows and pullovers are exercises performed with both dumbbells and barbells. The difference is that dumbbells cause you to stabilize each weight independently. This requires more balanced strength on each side of your body. For example, during a bench press, you need to keep each dumbbell even as you lower and lift it. Otherwise, you run the risk of dropping a weight or causing injury. When you use a barbell for this same exercise, however, you have the ability to push higher with one side and cause muscle balances. This will create dominant strength on one side of your body.
Weight Ranges
When doing upper body exercises, it is important to use a resistance that will fully tax your muscles to achieve maximum development. A standard barbell weighs 45 lbs. To increase the resistance, you need to add weight plates to the ends of the bar. These range from 2½ to 45 lbs. Starting at 5 lbs., they go up in increments of 5 lbs. This gives you the ability to lift a broad spectrum of weight as you get stronger. The weight plates get anchored on with collars. Dumbbells also give you the ability to use a wide selection of weights. These start at 1 lb. and go all the way up to 120. lbs. The Mayo Clinic advises to increase your weight with exercises once you can easily perform 12 easy repetitions with a set.
Versatility
Dumbbells give you more freedom than barbells when it comes to exercise selection. For example, most barbell exercises require you to use two arms. Dumbbells allow you to do single arm exercises, such as triceps kickbacks, one arm back rows and concentration curls. This gives you the ability to zero in on one muscle at a time. Bodybuilders often use this technique to isolate certain muscles. You also have the ability to use one dumbbell with both hands for exercises like pullovers and overhead triceps extensions.
Changing Resistance
Being that you have to remove the collars and add weight plates, barbells take longer to set up when doing exercises. When using dumbbells, all you have to do is set a pair onto the rack, grab another pair and go. This comes in handy with upper body circuit workouts where you take short rest breaks in between exercises. Circuit training helps improve strength, flexibility and coordination all in one session. Dumbbells also give you an advantage when you perform strip sets to burn out your muscles at the end of workouts. Strip sets involve doing a set, reducing the weight, doing another set, reducing the weight and continuing until your muscles burn and you can go no further.
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