The dumbbell fly is an isolation exercise, which means it involves movement at only one joint and targets one muscle group. Although a basic, single-joint movement, the dumbbell fly has several variations. They all target the chest muscles, but you can emphasize different areas of the chest with different dumbbell fly exercises.
Identification
To do the dumbbell fly exercise, lie on your back on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand. Hold your arms directly over your chest with your palms facing each other. Lock your elbows into a slight bend and maintain this position throughout the movement. Inhale as your lower your arms in a semi-circle. Stop when the dumbbells are at the same level as your shoulders. Exhale and pull your arms back together; follow the same path as when you lowered the dumbbells.
Function
The dumbbell fly exercise targets your chest muscles, or pectoralis major. Two muscle heads make up the chest muscle. The sternal head is the large chest muscle that attaches to your sternum, runs across your chest and attaches to your upper arm bone. The clavicular head is a smaller chest muscle that sits above the sternal head. It attaches to your clavicle, runs across your chest and attaches to your upper arm bone. The dumbbell fly exercise works both the clavicular and sternal chest muscles, but if you change the incline of the exercise, you will target one muscle more than the other muscle.
Variations
Perform the dumbbell fly exercise on an incline bench to target the clavicular head of the chest muscle. Decline the bench to target the sternal head more. Your anterior deltoid, or front shoulder muscle, assists during any version of the dumbbell fly exercise. If you do the fly on a stability ball instead of a weight bench, you will involve your core muscles, including your rectus abdominis and obliques. These muscles activate to help stabilize your torso on the unstable surface of the stability ball.
Considerations
Do not drop the dumbbells too low past your shoulders. This places the shoulder in extreme external rotation and places undue stress on the joint. Keep your head, shoulders and buttocks in contact with the bench; do not lift your hips off the bench. Maintain a neutral wrist position throughout the movement. Do not bend your wrist; keep it straight. The fly is an isolation movement, meaning it does not involve as many muscles as a press, which is a compound movement. Use lighter weights for the fly exercise than you would for a dumbbell press exercise.
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