A horizontal weight bench is standard equipment for home and commercial gyms. Most commercial gyms also have upright or seated benches, which resemble a padded chair. Upright benches aren't strictly necessary, but they're useful aids for monitoring form during seated dumbbell exercises. If you don't have an upright bench at home, you can still do seated dumbbell exercises on a firm, straight-backed chair or even sitting on a stability ball or the edge of the bed.
Curls
One of the most common form errors during dumbbell curls is swinging your shoulders back as you lift the weight. This is usually a signal that you're lifting more weight than you can safely handle, but sometimes careful attention to form and posture --- including the help of an upright bench --- can correct the error with little or no change in weight.
Sit down with a dumbbell in each hand, palms facing up. Bend your elbows, curling the weights up toward your shoulders. This primarily works the biceps; to work the brachioradialis, which crosses from your upper arm to your forearm, do curls with your palms turned in toward your body.
Presses
When you do dumbbell presses while lying down, your chest muscles do most of the work, assisted by your triceps and shoulders. Doing presses while sitting up straight takes your chest out of the equation, leaving your triceps and shoulders to do most of the work.
Try a basic shoulder press: Extend both hands straight overhead, palms facing forward. Bend your elbows, lowering the weights down and out until your elbows are level with your shoulders, weights directly above your elbows. Press back up to the starting position. Once you're comfortable with the shoulder press, you can explore variations such as the Arnold press and the front shoulder press.
Triceps Extensions
If your upper arms aren't burning after doing shoulder presses, you can further isolate the triceps with seated overhead triceps extensions. Hold a single dumbbell by the "bell" or weight on the end, with your thumbs crossed around the handle. Extend both arms straight overhead, elbows pointing forward. Bend your arms to lower the dumbbell back behind your head, keeping your elbows close together. Straighten your arms and repeat.
Considerations
The biggest benefit of doing dumbbell exercises while seated isn't the negligible back support an upright bench gives you, but the tactile feedback of the bench's backrest against your back. If your shoulders don't maintain constant contact with the bench, you know you're swinging your upper body. If your mid-back loses contact with the bench, you're arching your back too much --- and if your lower back contacts the bench, you've gone to the opposite extreme and flattened your back too much. If you're sitting on something without a backrest, pay careful attention to keeping your spine in neutral position, or its natural curve, throughout each exercise.
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