Q: I work out in a commercial gym, so I can do either cable chest presses or dumbbell decline presses. Which one [of those ideal chest exercises] is better for stimulating the most muscle growth?
A: I talked about this in a previous newsletter, but it’s always good to review…
Both cables and dumbbells have their positives, and both have their negatives. Speaking of negatives, let’s start there…
With cables, there is weight-stack drag, no matter how perfect or expensive the machine.
So the negative, or eccentric, stroke on a cable machine is lighter than the positive. Research says that the negative is very important for fiber activation and growth stimulation. If anything, the negative stroke should be heavier.
With dumbbells the negative stroke has the SAME resistance as the positive—no drag. That’s better; however, at the top of a dumbbell decline press, there is zero resistance.
In other words, you lose tension on the target muscle at the top. Not good. But with cables, if you set it up correctly, you will have some resistance at the contracted position.
That means with cables you get continuous tension; with dumbbells you don’t.
So to summarize, with cables you lose on the negative stroke of each rep, but you gain in the continuous-tension category.
With dumbbells, you gain in the negative-stroke category, but you lose continuous tension at the top.
Solution: Do both. Try cable chest presses at one workout and dumbbell decline presses at the next.
Or do three sets of dumbbell decline presses and one or two sets of cable chest presses.
Bottom line: Both exercises are almost ideal, but not perfect—a lot like a spouse.
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Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
Steve Holman
Former Editor in Chief, Iron Man Magazine
www.X-Rep.com
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