Dumbbells vs Barbells - What to Know

Training your body usually happens in the gym, where you have a variety of dumbbell, barbell and machine exercises.

In the context of free weight however, there are advantages to the use of both dumbbells and barbells in your training plan.

If you’ve wondered where each has its place, keep reading because in this article we’ll underline the differences and benefits of both barbells and dumbbells, to help you create your perfect workout plan.

The Specifics

One of the main rules of weight training is to use a variety of equipment, angles and types of grip.

The reason why this is important, is because even a slight change in the grip or angle of a given exercise, changes the specifics of that same exercise.

What this means is that a different type of equipment or a different angle/grip will shift the tension towards different muscles/zones of the worked muscle group.

For instance, the flat bench press will mainly engage your mid and lower chest, while also engaging the triceps and shoulders.

However, an incline bench press will put more tension on the upper portion of the chest, along with increased tension for the shoulders.

From this information, we can conclude that both barbells and dumbbells have their application and there really isn’t a “better” one.

The point is to use each type of equipment for its designated purposes, in accordance with what your goal is.

The Benefits Of Barbells

Barbells are without a doubt one of the most effective ways to stimulate the musculature, whether we’re talking about muscle growth or training during the fat loss phase.

Here’s why:

1. Barbells allow you to lift heavier weights

Because there is generally a fixed point between the working limbs, barbells allow you to lift heavier weights in general.

This is also perhaps because of the fact that barbell exercises are more stabilized by nature, thus allowing your body to activate more of your fast-twitch muscle fibers.

You can check this for yourself - If you’re barbell bench pressing 80 kg for reps, odds are that you won’t be able to dumbbell press 40 kg on each hand as easily.

2. Easier Realization Of Training Principles

When it comes to muscular development, there is one very important principle to consider.

That is namely progressive overload, which implies that you should, overtime, progressively increase the demand upon the musculature (i.e increasing weight, reps, sets, etc.)

Because barbells allow you to lift heavier weights with more stability, increasing your workload is an easy task with barbells, as opposed to dumbbells

Both of these benefits allow for greater working volume overall, which means that barbells are especially good during periods of gaining muscle mass.

The Benefits Of Dumbbells

Though barbells have a load of benefits when it comes to muscular development, that doesn’t mean dumbbells should be totally excluded.

Here are the main benefits of dumbbells:

1. Bringing up weaker muscle groups

Because dumbbells inevitably make you use each side of your body separately, they can be one of your best picks when you’re trying to bring up your weaker side.

The individual load on each side simply doesn’t allow your stronger side to overtake the movement, thus creating sufficient stimulation on the side that creates asymmetry.

2. Muscle Unit Activation

One of the most crucial factors when it comes to lifting heavy weights, is the muscle unit (muscle fiber) activation.

With barbells, movements are generally fixed in a shorter range of motion, while dumbbells allow for greater movement of the arms.

This therefore grants increased muscle activation, even on fundamental exercises like the bench press

Take Home Message

In the context of better overall development, there isn’t really a winner in the fight between barbells vs. dumbbells…

Both have their benefits, which is why you should rather rely on a mix of the two, in your workout regimen.

Use barbells when you want to heavily target progressive overload and lift the heaviest weight possible.

Use dumbbells when you want to bring up your weaker side and work more on joint stability, rather than maximum strength.

Let me know if you have an exercise you like that you want me to do a video on and I would be glad to do it!