Dumbbell Bent Arm Pullover

Muscles worked

The prime mover is the pectoralis major, which drives the upper arm forward and across the body.

Because more than one joint is moving, the work does not stay in one place: the deltoids stabilise the shoulder and add force at the top of the range; the triceps straighten the elbow to finish the movement; the lats keep the upper arm drawn in toward the torso.

Every exercise for:ChestShouldersTricepsLats

How this movement works

The working muscles shorten as they drive the load away from you, and more than one joint changes angle to do it. Load spreads down a chain instead of sitting on one muscle, which is why a compound push handles more weight than any single-joint alternative — and why joint position, not the muscle, is usually what fails first.

It is filed under strength: produce force against resistance for a countable number of repetitions, and progress the resistance over time.

What you need

A bench fixes the torso angle and gives you something to drive against, which is what lets the load go up without your position wandering.

Dumbbells let each side work on its own, surfacing a strength difference between limbs that a barbell would quietly cover for, and leaving the wrist free to rotate through the movement.

Every exercise using:BenchDumbbell

These train the chest too, using equipment this one does not:

• Extended Range One-Arm Kettlebell Floor Presskettlebell
• Flat Bench Cable Flyescable
• Incline Push-Upbody only
• Leverage Chest Pressmachine
• Medicine Ball Chest Passmedicine ball

Difficulty

Listed at intermediate level. It assumes you already own the underlying pattern and can hold position under load — if the position breaks before the target muscle tires, drop back to a beginner variation until it does not.

Of the 105 chest exercises in this database, 22 are listed at intermediate level.