dumbbell chest fly

The Dumbbell Chest Fly is an excellent addition to your chest or upper body workout plan, particularly if you're looking to enhance and strengthen your chest muscles. With the ability to target the upper, mid or lower areas of your chest, this exercise can help you achieve your desired chest shape.

Start by mastering the flat bench version, keeping in mind that everything you’re about to learn can also be performed on an incline or decline bench, targeting the upper and lower pectorals.

Muscles Worked When Performing the Dumbbell Chest Fly

Pecs: To be exact; the pectoralis major, this is the primary chest muscle that is engaged during the chest fly.

Anterior Deltoids: The front part of the deltoid (shoulder) muscles are also engaged during this exercise.

Serratus Anterior: The serratus anterior muscles, positioned near your ribcage, assist in stabilising the shoulder blades during the chest fly.

Biceps: By default you will also engage your biceps with this exercise.

You can use the muscle highlighted image at the top of this page for a visual guide of the muscles worked.

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How to Perform the Dumbbell Chest Fly

1.Set Up: You will need a flat bench and a pair of dumbbells that you feel you can safely manage.

2. Start Position: Lie back on the bench, ensuring your upper back is pressed firmly against it to establish stability. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, extending your arms fully over your chest, with your wrists facing each other.

3. Open Up: From the start position, slowly open your arms from the shoulder, allowing them to move out to the sides while slightly bending your elbows. This action should create a stretching sensation in your chest, akin to opening your arms for a hug.

4. Full Extension: Continue this motion until your upper arms are parallel to the floor.

5. Return: Gradually bring the dumbbells back together through the same controlled movement until they meet at the top, directly over your chest, back in start position.

6. Go For Reps: Throughout the exercise, concentrate on feeling the tension in your chest and upper arms, emphasising the chest muscles with every single rep.

Benefits of the Dumbbell Chest Fly

Chest Definition: The Dumbbell Chest Fly defines and strengthens the chest muscles, contributing to a fuller and more sculpted chest.

Chest Power: This exercise will support you in building your upper body strength for all chest exercises.

Chest Isolation: This exercise is designed to isolate and engage the target muscle groups, allowing you to hone in and build them effectively.

Dumbbell Chest Fly: Common Mistakes to Avoid

Maintain Proper Form: Sloppy reps can lead to acute or repetitive strain injury, which will not only hinder your results, it may see you out of your chest workouts entirely for a period of time. You should always focus on maintaining correct form throughout the exercise.

Refrain From Overloading: Don't use excessive weights, especially if it compromises your form. Gradually progress to heavier weights as you build strength.

Mind-Muscle Connection: Always keep the chest muscles in mind when performing the Dumbbell Chest Fly. A strong mind-muscle connection guarantees targeted results. If you’re not feeling this exercise where you should be, you’re doing something wrong. Go back to basics and try again.

Reps and Sets

The number of reps and sets you perform depends on your current strength with this exercise.

Beginners: Start with simply mastering the move. Keep in mind that if you’re just starting out, 3 reps is a valid set.

To determine how many reps/sets of the Dumbbell Chest Fly you should start with, you first need to figure out how many reps you can comfortably perform. Then add 2, and perform that number of reps for 3 sets.

For example; let’s say you can perform 4 reps comfortably. Add 2 to make 6 reps. Perform those 6 reps 3 times over, allowing yourself sufficient rest inbetween.

Experienced lifters: You know your body and its abilities better than anyone, use your own judgment.

We recommend that you avoid performing more than 12 reps per set. If you’re comfortably performing 12 reps for up to 6 sets, it’s time to make the exercise more challenging.

How to Make the Dumbbell Chest Fly More Challenging

This is already a challenging exercise, and progression is almost always about adding more weight. There are some other Dumbbell Chest Fly variations that you can use to challenge yourself, these include setting the bench up to an incline or decline position.

You can also slow this exercise right down, increasing your time under tension. Another thing you can do is slow down one half of the exercise, so open your arms out at your usual tempo, and bring the back together in a much slower, yet controlled movement. Or vice versa; open slow, close at your usual tempo.

How to Incorporate the Dumbbell Chest Fly into Your Workouts

The Dumbbell Chest Fly belongs in your Chest Workout or upper body workout plan. Because it is a dumbbell exercise, it should be performed after your barbell exercises, but before your cable/machine exercises.

Always start with the exercise that expends the most energy and uses the most weight, work your way down through barbell exercises, dumbbell exercises, cable/machine exercises and finish up with bodyweight exercises. You can learn more about the importance of exercise order here.

Exercises That Work Similar Muscles to the Dumbbell Chest Fly

The incline/decline variations mentioned above are the perfect way to help further strengthen your ability to perform the Dumbbell Chest Fly with maximum power. Keep in mind that compound exercises are crucial for muscle growth since they allow you to move more overall weight than isolation exercises, helping you build the muscle faster. So don’t neglect your regular bench Presses and such variations.

You can also pair this exercise with other exercises, such as the Dumbbell Chest Press or Press Ups. If you’re looking for more chest isolation exercises, you can try the Pec Deck, Seated Chest Press Machine, or Cable Chest Flys. A combination of compound and isolation exercises is recommended for well rounded results.

You can find more Chest Exercises at the bottom of this page. Or you can check out our entire exercise database broken down by muscle group here.

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