Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1767: Dumbbells Vs. Barbells

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin compare the advantages and disadvantages of dumbbells vs. barbells when used with eight different goals in mind.  Comparing the advantages and disadvantages of dumbbells versus barbells, and when appropriate to use with 8 different goals in mind. (2:35) #1 - Range of motion. (4:36) #2 – Overall maximal strength. (8:50) #3 – Central Nervous System (CNS). (11:15) #4 – Aesthetics. (13:01) #5 – Athletics. (16:00) #6 – Muscle imbalances. (19:53) #7 – Explosive power. (24:07) #8 – Upper/lower body. (28:55) Bonus: If you had to pick one to use forever, which would you choose? (32:11) Related Links/Products Mentioned March Promotion: Limited Time Power Bundle! MAPS Strong and MAPS Powerlift for the low price of $79.99 Visit ZBiotics for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! A Brief History of Dumbbells Mind Pump TV - YouTube Olympic weightlifting training improves vertical jump height in sportspeople: a systematic review with meta-analysis Mind Pump #1572: Is Tonal Worth The Money? With Aly Orady Mind Pump Podcast – YouTube Mind Pump Free Resources

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. You just found the world's number one fitness health and entertainment podcast. This is Mind Pump right in today's episode. We talk about dumbbells and barbells. The debate is which one is better for all the goals. We talk about range of motion and strength, aesthetics, athletics, muscle and balance

is power, and which one is better for upper body, and which one is better for lower body. Now obviously, you want to use both. That's ideal. But this will help give you some insight as to which tool is better for each specific goal. So we hope you're going to enjoy this episode. Now this episode is brought to you by our sponsor, Zbiotics. They're the world's first and only genetically modified probiotic drink that you drink before you drink alcohol. So here's what you do, right? You take your Zbiotics, you drink it, then you

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MindPump22 for 10% off your first order. Also, all month long, we are running a huge sale on a bundle of two workout programs. The first program is Maps Strong. This is a strong man inspired workout program. So unconventional lifts, lots of conditioning and strength and strength speed, lots of fun, posterior chain focus. So you get a lot of glute and back development. And we've combined this with Maps Power Lift. This is a power lift or program. So get good at the bench press, the squat and the deadlift. This is good if you want to compete is a power lifter program. So get good at the bench press, the squat, and the deadlift. This is good if you want to compete in a powerlifting competition or if you just want to get

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Now, I know usually the conversation revolves around machines versus free weights. We've talked about this in the past. We've done that. But I want to make it a little bit more challenging. I want to compare barbells to dumbbells. And not very many, I haven't seen too many fitness experts or influencers or whatever, talk about or compare the two because they tend to get lumped together, right?

Barbells and dumbbells are free weights, so they're all the same. But I don't think that's true, right? They're very different, the way they feel they're different. Their benefits tend to be very different. And of course, before people start commenting, use them both, obviously, ideally you want to use them both. But for the sake of this episode, I think it would be fun if we had to pick,

which one, which one's most appropriate for whatever attribute you're trying to seek out? Or, you know, yeah, whatever exercise specifically think has ways a little heavier for barbells versus dumbbells. Yeah, pretty close though. I wouldn't say they're not as different as free weights to machines.

No, no, but they're different enough to where, you know, for example, the some exercises that are totally inappropriate with barbells and vice versa, with dumbbells. And I think it's cool to talk about kind of the pros and cons of each and maybe go down a list of like attributes, you know, physical attributes you would get from resistance training or strength training. And again, to make it fun, we have to pick.

We're gonna have to try to pick one or the other unless it's a complete tie. Well, I think just a general overview of like a general overview of what the benefits of, say, barbell being by-loaded for the most part and being able to generate probably the most amount of force in one controlled sort of a movement versus with the dumbbells. I mean, it has a lot more independent type of loading and also, like, you could vary a lot of the loading. I think the move is to discuss a specific adaptation

we're chasing or a specific attribute you'd like. Which one benefits most? For example, the first thing that comes to mind for me for where I like to use dumbbells over a barbell is range of motion. Yeah. So I love a real deep dumbbell chest press. Yeah, you can't do that of the barbell, right? Because the barbell gets in the way. Right. Bring the barbell down. Yeah, you can go

a bit lower. Some point it hits your chest. With dumbbells, you could go down, you know, with good technique, obviously, you have to have control, but you could go down way deeper. Not only can you go deeper, but it actually will, it'll, it'll move at move at your body's morphology, right? Yeah. Everyone's a little, so if you have a straight, the last little subtle rotations in there too. That's right. So if you move on the barbell, you have this, you know, line that you have to stick with

the entire time where dumbbells, I can let my elbows slightly come in and that's going to be slightly different than you and slightly different than you. So not only do I get an increased range of motion, but it can also move through the most I think optimal path for my body. I think that's an advantage to that. Yeah. And back to the chest press, with if you look at the action of the peck, right, it's what is a horizontal adduction of the humerus, right, the upper arm, bringing it across the

body. With the barbell, I'm fixed with my hand. This is his bodice. I can't bring my hand in any closer. With a dumbbell though, I could come up and bring them together to get more of a range of motion. Rose, let's look at Rose, for example. If I'm doing a row with the barbell,

the bar gets stuck at my midsection. Whereas with dumbbells, I can go back even further or one at a time, I can rotate with the dumbbell into a row, right? Shoulder press, here's another one. With the barbell, I'm limited with how far down I can go. With the dumbbells, I can do like an Arnold press where I really bring the dumbbell back. That's spiral line going all the way up, which is anatomically a little more, it feels a lot better, essentially.

By the way, I don't know which one was invented first. I think dumbbells were invented before barbells. Maybe Doug could find. Yeah, didn't they look weird though? Isn't it dumbbells were first? They looked, they were shaking different. They were shaking their legs. They were shaking their legs.

Is that what they looked like? They looked like kettlebells. Is that right? Yeah, so kettlebells. Kettlebells were what the original dumbbells essentially looked like and then somebody, the reason why they were called dumbbells was because this is the story goes,

somebody noticed that Bell ringers, which I didn't even know that was a job, but apparently Bell ringers had really muscular forearms. So what they would do is take the middle part out, so it didn't ring and they would do exercises with it because it was a heavy metal... The original shake weight. Yeah, exactly.

Bell ringers was a job. Like somebody sat up at the church bell and just all day long just for the one hour. I have no idea. No idea. She worked for a whole 30 seconds per hour. I have no idea. I just remember reading this,

but what they do is they take out the middle part that would go back and forth. And so it was a dumb bell, right? It makes no sound. And then eventually they filled it full of iron to make it. Now it's just like one of those things, like the origin of 420 and we think that's what it is.

I think so. Like it's, or is there like real proof of that? Yeah, I think so. I think it's like the 420 origin. I do think so, but I know I'm pretty sure the original ones look more like kettlebells and then they had the handle with the two round balls on each side.

And barbells look like this too. They were long skinny bars with two big round balls. Yeah, two like cannon balls, they sort of fused on there. Yeah, what does it say there, Doug? Well, they say the use of dumbbells dates back to ancient Greece. Oh with weight They would have waited that's right Crescent shaped in the handle for the jumper to easily grab when it was time to compete There used to be a jump that that Greek athletes would do in their Olympics where they would use these weights

And they would use the momentum of the weight to make them jump further. And that was the first use or documented use of, you know, the weight swung them out and then we're catapulted. I don't know how they would do it, but that was the thing that they did. So the first attribute that we're gonna say is

range of motion slash contour to your body because I know we didn't list that as like an attribute but we both following the body bodies morphology like you said. Yeah, yeah. Range of motion dumbbells, it has to be. Yeah. You just you just don't the bar gets in the way with dumbbells, you can go far deeper and you can move more in different planes because it's more free because it's connected to

just one hand running. So the strengthening end ranges and things that you normally wouldn't be able to kind of address with a barbell. Totally. All right, now let's move to the next one, which is strength. Overall, maximal strength. Now, both obviously develop strength

and they're both very effective at doing so. But the barbell allows you to use more load. Like, quite a bit more. Way more, like you're not gonna be able to to usually, for the most part, you're not going to be able to dumbbell chest press as much total weight as you would with a barbell. So let's say you could, you know, you're a strength athlete and you could bench press 300 pounds, you're not going to be able to do 250 pound dumbbells for the most part, right? Well, I mean, especially lower body movements.

I mean, you're all going to be able to lun lunge so much deadlift so much and squat so much holding on the dumbbells Right, right. I mean how I mean what max mode the average person would say max is holding 80 to 100 pound dumbbells in a Shand which that would make you pretty strong to be able to comfortably hold on that kind of weight and then squat So you're talking about 160 200 pounds tops that you could squat with or deadlift with. Yeah, but even if you go, even if you compare exercise to exercise where the grip and whatever is an issue, like rows or overhead press,

if think of what your overhead press max is, most people could not cut that in half and operate two dumbbells that equal the same amount. So if you could overhead press 200 pounds, you're not gonna be able to 200 pound dumbbells in each hand for the same amount of reps. It just doesn't work that well. The thing about the barbell is like, it kind of mass a little bit of the imbalance,

the dysfunction in terms of like one side versus the other. It's less balanced. Yeah, so you could actually make up for it a bit and then still be able to express a lot of force together simultaneously to lift a lot more away versus when you do have independent loading it really exposes like the weaknesses. Yeah, you just you can't lift as much with dumbbells. Even if you add both dumbbells up, you're just not going to be able to. So if you're looking for like max strength, especially with those big gross motor movements.

Barbells clearly are gonna be the victor on this. So, is there benefit to that? Absolutely, right? Being able to lift more load overall tends to activate more muscle fibers, tends to, you know, you're generating more force, which has its own values. It's a lot louder signal that your body has to respond to. Totally. And pushing together, pulling together on a fixed bar just allows you

to generate a lot more force. So when it comes to strength, just like with range of motion, I think it's pretty clear the winner here. And instead of being dumbbells, what do you think about the, the CNS in this situation? Because I could, I could make a case for both, right? So the, the independence of the dumbbells is going to challenge the CNS in its own way. And then the ability to lift more with the barbell, you're going to get challenged to do that. That's a good question or a good point. So I think the CNS is obviously getting activated a lot with both, but with a barbell, the CNS is able to direct more of its force in one direction.

Slightly, yes. Right? So if I'm pressing a barbell, my CNS can activate my muscles with more of a singular focus. Press the way versus when I'm using two dumbbells. But the stabilize. Yeah, more of it's going to have to be focused on balance. A little bit of a leak of performance, I would think, in that regard. Exactly. So, uh, strength. But also making the case, what you said, how we started this podcast, why one contributes to why they're both so beneficial because I you think about that you you get the stability down really well with the dumbbells and that's going to transfer into the force generation that you're going to get with

the bar. Yeah and again I think that what you're going to find with this conversation as you're watching is that they're going to be so complimentary it makes no sense to stick to one or the other yeah but we made that point right so we're no sense to stick to one or the other. But we made that point, right? So we're not trying to say, do one over the other, but it is interesting to talk about the benefits of each because they're not interchangeable. I do think sometimes people think they're interchangeable.

Oh, I bench press with a barbell. Why would I do a chest press? Oh, I do overhead presses with a barbell. Why would I do overhead presses with dumbbells? This is sort of the predicament we get into, even when we're programming for the general audience, too, it's like we have something very much in mind about the best pathway to get there,

but also there are alternatives. So dumbbells sometimes will fit into alternatives, but for that specific exercise, it would be best to have a barbell, and we want to be clear about that. Totally. Now let's talk about what most people work out for, which is aesthetics. Yeah, and I have a bone to pick with you on this one, because let's talk about what most people work out for, which is aesthetics.

Right. Yeah, and I have a bone to pick with you on this one, because if this one you pick this is a tie for the tool. I would say it's a tie, but I would love it. And I would debate on it. Yeah, I would argue that dumbbells is better for this. And it mainly because, especially with bodybuilding, there are you, many times a day, a training day,

I'm targeting very small muscles. And it's not like your typical client that you're training for overall strength a training day, I'm targeting very small muscles. And it's not like your typical client that you're training for overall strength or even overall fitness, but when you are sculpting the body, you are constantly looking at yourself and going, like, oh, I need a little more rear delt here, I need a little more calf,

or oh, I need a little bit more of my bicep for more. So you start looking at, you start separating muscle groups on your body and the dumbbell just lends itself better to isolate than the barbell does. It does, but then when you factor in mass and strength, barbells win, right? So aesthetics, yeah, sure, if you've built all your mass already and you're very big in muscular, can you get away with it just dumbbells? It's really just focused on fine tuning

and sculpting your way there. Yeah, but if you're like the average person watching this, you need to build muscle also to contribute to your aesthetics. Good luck trying to build a lot of muscle or building as much muscle as you could if you didn't with dumbbells that you could with barbells, especially with the lower body or especially with big gross motor movements.

Because barbells contribute more to strength in that overall muscle mass, now if you're going to get that and then the dumbbells do what you say, like try doing a lateral with a barbell, try doing a rear fly with the dumbbell or flies or, you know, and these other exercises, try isolating the rear delt with your... That's why it's a tie, like I couldn't pick one because they're both so beneficial. Now, I could see how if you pick a specific person, how maybe you could lean one way or the other.

If I'm talking about the guy or girl who wants to build more mass and kind of get and started, I would say, okay, just if we had to pick, I'd go barbell. If I was talking to somebody who built lots of muscle mass already and they're telling me, I just need to, which would be a stupid thing to say, but let's just say they said, I want to pick just barbells or dumbbells, then I may go with just dumbbells, because now I can start to sculpt or whatever,

because they have that mass, right? But I can't pick one of those. I mean, that's a fair argument. I mean, you're gonna lay a more solid foundation as far as overall mass using the barbell than you are the dumbbell. But then I think of like the dumbbells as like the chisel, right? Like that's what's going to. Single joint movement, you know, preferred tool.

Yeah, it's what's going to, you're going to be able to sculpt the body better with dumbbells and you're going to be with a bar. And it's not to say that you couldn't with both. I mean, you absolutely could build an incredible aesthetic physique with, you know, just using one or the other, ideally both. But I see where you're going with that now is that if you didn't have, if you had not laid a foundation at all, the gains that you'll get, they'll come on faster with barbell lifting at the beginning. Totally. All right. Here's one for you, Justin. Let's talk about athletics. Athletics would be your performance.

So who cares about how you look? How strong are you? How fast are you? How agile are you? I also labeled this one a tie because barbells, like strength and power, win, but dumbbells, just mobility and balance and stability, you just superior.

And again, to the range of motion, kind of point with that, to address a lot of that, when you're in certain positions, you're in the split stance with the majority of the time you're competing in most athletics. Or it's usually like one limb versus the other, or some contralateral type movement, which a barbell doesn't really provide that type of training towards, but the barbell is essential again, to be able to create a louder signal for force production because with athletics, you really need,

as much of a loud as signal as possible immediately. Yeah. And then you need to be able to react and decelerate and stabilize and all that kind of stuff, but the initial bit of athletics and power and strength, I mean, that's the baseline for anything you're going to see. If you had to choose. I mean, traditionally, athletics have pig barbells overdone. Yeah, I would probably go barbells just because of the skill training is going to cover a lot of these extracurricular type of movements that you can fine tune as you're going through

the very specific type of movements you need for your sport where if really if you're just going to draw from the strength and power, you could get that from the barbell. Yeah, traditionally it's been barbells, right? Power cleans and back squats and in some cases dead lifts and push presses, those are all barbell exercises. But part of the reason I'm going to argue now in the contrary, I think part of the reason why athletic trainers have picked barbells over dumbbells is because at Olympic lifting got way more credence than bodybuilding did for athletics. And rightfully so, Olympic lifting gives you more performance gains than bodybuilding well, right? So I think dumbbells have always been kind of

relegated to bodybuilding. So athletic trainers like, oh, that's for bodybuilders. Olympic lifters are like athletes, so let's use the barbell. But I think if we're being really fair, can you do power movements with dumbbells you can? Oh, absolutely. But there's some movements you can't really do effectively with dumbbells you can? Oh, absolutely. You know, but there's some movements you can't really do effectively with dumbbells like dead lifts.

Honestly, I see it because you put me in a corner with it. Yeah, I totally would use dumbbells, especially when I'm getting into multi-plane or movements and things I want to strengthen and range. That's crucial for athletics. Now, this is a little bit of a twist on this whole thing that we're doing right now, but what about kettlebells in there? Yeah, yeah.

Because I feel like kettlebells seem better. That's why I was wondering if you would, if you, because there's a lot of things that you can't really do as well that it's explosive with the dumbbell. That's because of the way it's loaded. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, one that just forms into, you know, the way that it's loaded, it just feels a little bit more controllable.

And also you can get ballistic with it and really dynamic with kettlebells versus dumbbells. They're just a little more clunky the way that they're balanced. Dumbbells. So, yeah, I would probably personally prefer kettlebells over them. Now, if you were, that's over dumbbells, but if you were still, if I still put you on the spot and said, okay, now you have an option of kettlebells, dumbbells, or barbells for athletic training, are you were, that's over dumbbells, but if you were still, if I still put you on the spot and said, okay, now you have an option of kettlebells, dumbbells, or barbells for athletic training, are you still gonna defer to the barbells?

You're still probably do barbells for it. Yeah, that's it. I mean, I think it's fair to say though, it's a tie, right? Yeah. This one is all have application. This one's really impossible to pick one or the other. Of course, all of these we're gonna go down are your best using both,

but in some of these are so close, I think we had to call it a tie, and the athletic one has gotta be one of those. All right, this next one was kind of easy for me to label, and that's muscle and balances. I think dumbbells crush barbells. When you're loading the body you in a lateraly, muscle and balances are way easier to see.

You can hide muscle imbalances pretty damn well with a barbell. I know because I did for a long time. I did lift it really heavy with this kind of alternate grip and I favored one side. And I developed a muscle imbalance in my erecuspin A muscles that didn't become evident until I saw some pictures of myself really lean.

I could see one side was more developed than the other. With dumbbells, I wouldn't have gotten away with that, right? I've done this too as a kid, where I bench press with barbells all the time, went to dumbbells, and one side was so much stronger than the other. I didn't notice with the barbell. The barbell move pretty smooth, I couldn't tell.

Well, and what I love about dumbbells too is you can do unilateral movements, and you can really then, if there is any kind of discrepancy, you can really focus on bringing that up versus with the barbell It's just kind of a technique and you know, you're really not going to be able to isolate one versus the other when you're generating force all simultaneously Yeah, I like there's a little bit of argument and almost everything we've done so far are a little bit of a debate Back and forth where this isn't even close. No, not even. That's a little bit of argument and almost everything we've done so far or a little bit of debate back and forth where this isn't even close. No, not even.

That's a good point. Because I think the barbell, if anything, will actually mask and hide some of these issues and you can create a balance with the barbell. Right, I think they could make it worse where the dumbbells, I think, is that's the first move if I have a client that has any sort of discrepancy from left to right, especially if it's glaring,

we're going to go all unilateral dumbbell work. Totally. So, that's like the first thing you do. Yeah, to put it differently, if you're pressing on a barbell, a hundred pounds, you're thinking, I'm lifting 50 pounds with each arm, but that's not quite the case. If my right arm is a little bit stronger, my left arm, now if it becomes really obvious, you see the barbell turn, right? You start to see it one side lower than the other.

But sometimes you don't see that. Even though one arm is pushing three or four pounds more, then the other arm because it's on a bar, and you won't necessarily see that on the barbell. You won't see it until it becomes five, six, seven, or ten pound difference between the two. Now you might think, what's two or three pounds? Well, you train for years doing it that way, and you're gonna develop one side more reactive

and stronger than the other, and it's gonna be quite glaring. When you go to dumbbells, you'll tell right away. Well, and you're pointing out the shoulder, but the true, I mean, the compensation runs all the way down to connect chains. You're also gonna have someone arching their back and slightly rotated to one side,

even if it's not obvious to the average person, if there is any sort of discrepancy from left to right on a movement like a push press like that, they're gonna press over. The stronger side's not only in the shoulder gonna carry them well, but then your body's gonna overcompensate throughout the rest of the connect chain.

Yeah, it's actually back in the day before I became more versed in finding muscle imbalances. This was how I found muscle imbalances. This was how I found muscle imbalances. It's an early trainer not knowing how to look like I do now. I would just have a client lift with dumbbells and it became much more obvious. I could see, oh, we're doing a lateral.

This arm is not moving like the other arm or we're doing a curl or a skull crusher with dumbbells or whatever. You could see it quite clearly between right? It's just daily patterns. I mean, you prefer to grab something, you know, typically with one arm, like for the majority of the time, or just the way that you do things,

you usually step and push off one foot versus the other. And so all those things over time, I mean, one's gonna get substantially stronger than the other, it's just a never. Oh, dude, barbell squats. Like I could squat quite comfortably. I could squat a lot of weight. And then I went, I started noticing some,

remember I think it was like a year and a half ago, I told you guys, I'm gonna stop doing barbell exercises from my lower body, because I feel like I have an imbalance between my right and left. Man, I did back, I remember when I first really went and focused on lunges. And I mean, when I was squatting, I couldn't tell.

You could watch a video of me. My back didn't shift, everything looked fine. When I went to lunges, my right leg was significantly stronger. Like I had split stance. I'm like, whoa, this is a huge difference. All because I did split stance. And so, you know, that's what we're talking about, right? You know, lateral type exercises.

So yeah, with, I'd say with imbalances, you're right Adam, this one's not even close. Power, let's talk about explosive power. This one was tough for a second, because you can get explosive with dumbbells, but here's the problem with barbells because I'm using both arms at the same time. I can generate more force in the name of the game

with building power as force. How much force can you generate? I do, now besides the name of the game with building power as force. How much force can you generate? Now besides the complexity of the exercises, I think it's pretty safe to say that the Olympic lifts are probably some of your best power generating exercises and they're all done with barbells. This one to me, once I thought about it for a little bit, kind of became pretty clear, power goes to the barbell. Yeah, and I mean, most expression of power you want to be equally balanced and have both upper body, lower body contributing simultaneously. To be able to see that expressed in a way that's not kind of funky, the barbells really

do play a good part of that. It's tough though, because if you break it into like specific movements, like I'm throwing a baseball, you know, you're in a split stance and we're going one side versus the other, but in terms of exercises and like what, you know, can train the body as like the loudest signal and force production instantaneously, I would say barbell, you can direct it better. That's a really good interesting point though, Justin, like what sports, okay, so you throwing a ball, that's one. Obviously throwing a punch, you're going to be like that.

What else are you going to be like that sports wise, where I'm trying to get like your main sports football basketball. Even just like in the sprinter stance, you're going to be pressing off one versus the other off of the start. And there's just a lot of them where you're gonna be split or you're gonna preference being that you're gonna even throw or shoot a basketball or do something a bit one side of versus.

Historically athletic trainers have done this. They've gone and used complex barbell power movements in the gym and then they would practice power movements specific to the sport. Right? So they would like, how fast can you take off from the line? That's where the skill training comes in.

Yes, right? So what they didn't do is mimic the movement in the gym with dumbbells. They went Olympic lifts clean, like thing about like a football play, like a clean is a state, it's probably, I would love your input on this, Justin, but I'd say besides the back squat, it's got to be one of the most staple football exercises with

weights, it's a clean. It is, yeah. It's got to be, right? And when you're doing playing football, you're not cleaning anything, you know, I mean, you could argue when you're hitting someone, I guess, a little bit of it, but it's not really a clean, but the translation and power is obviously... He's called SNAP. And then it really, it's connecting hips and upper body together.

Like, that gives you so much more crazy amount of force that you need to push somebody off and you can do. Oh, it's a move to shift. And almost every position requires that. So that makes a lot of sense to me, like obviously for football, but that's the only one I can think of where, like a traditional barbell movement, power movement really translates to the field. Other than that, then now I say. We even vertical jump, too, because it's a little triple extension and to be able to

pull that out. Okay, that's a good point. Have you guys ever seen the studies on Olympic lifters and their athleticism? Have you ever seen this? Like they'll take Olympic lifters who don't play any other sports and they'll measure their vertical and their sprint and it's insane. It's like they're like they've trained in athletics. For a while.

Yeah, the power they could generate so ridiculous. Part of it's obviously genetic, but part of it is the fact that they've been training explosively for so long. Yeah, if you look at the vertical, I remember reading about the verticals of Olympic lifters and it's like, it's pretty damn close to professional athletes. It's pretty insane. But you're right about, because this has been a debate, I think a lot in the athletic space, because you have seen trainers in the past try and emulate a lot of the skilled type of

exercises that they do in the field with weights, and it just doesn't translate the same versus going back and just focusing on the elemental part of that, right? The fundamental part of power, strength, and be able to generate maximal force. Now you do the skill training version of that and it applies greatly. And now here's why, okay. Let's say I'm a boxer. I think this is easier to explain in this sense. Let's say I'm a boxer and I want to improve my explosive power with a punch. If I add weight or resistance to my punch to generate, to be able to build more power, what I've done is I've thrown my timing off.

I've thrown the skill off. And skill is very important, obviously, in athletics, versus building general CNS power and explosiveness and then practicing the skill on the field or in the ring, being able to translate it, which is why they don't take dumbbells and just copy what they skill on the field or in the ring, being able to translate it, which is why they don't take dumbbells and just copy what they do on the field. When they do that, they end up throwing their timing off and then you lose your athleticism. Good point.

No, good point. All right, so now here's what I did. I broke up the body into upper and lower body. And we have to pick dumbbells and barbells for upper or lower body. So we'll start with couple of easy. Yeah, I think, I know, I thought so too. Upper body, if I dumbbells and barbells for upper or lower body. So we'll start with kind of easy. Yeah, I think I know, I thought so too. Upper body, if I had to pick barbells or dumbbells, dumbbells.

I mean, there's way more exercises. Yeah, because you could do. You could do. You could do. You could do. You could do. You could do. You could do.

I like it's just the shoulder. Yeah, I think the shoulder, yeah. The shoulder really is the reason. Such a dynamic joint, right? Right, it's such a dynamic joint. You're gonna have such a different, or such an individual variance between how wide someone is, their ability to, that's why I was making that point earlier about a chest press.

Each one of us, if we were to do a dumbbell chest press and literally took a tape measure afterwards and measured where was the end point, where we'd all be different. So it allows that. So I think for sure upper body dumbbells, I think you're gonna get the best. And if you watch bodybuilders work out, not that they're the ideal people to watch in

terms of examples with training because there's genetic anomalies and all that, but when you watch bodybuilders, I have to more than half of the workouts consist of dumbbells for the upper body. They typically do more dumbbells. You'll see bodybuilders in the early days do more barbell work as they get more advanced. Like a dumbbell chest press, dumbbell incline press, they tend to do that more often than barbell. Presses. Specifically because of the range of motion and all that stuff.

So upper body's got to go to the dumbbells. You hit so many more angles that way that are pressed. Totally. And then the isolation stuff, like you said, like the laterals and the rear flies and the flies and all that stuff and pull overs and you can't do have that stuff with barbells, no he is effectively. Then we go to lower body, I think it's just as easy to pick one and that's barbells.

It's really hard and mainly because it's hard to do heavy stuff. We have to load it. The squad deadlift. I mean, those two which we, everyone would make the case of those. Those are the kings. Two of the most important movements.

Yeah. And if you can't load the two most important movements, then I think you're losing out on so much of your lower body strength. And I would suffer greatly. My lower body development of strength would suffer greatly if I couldn't use barbells. There's nothing I could do.

I couldn't load barbells enough and support them enough to be able to do what I do with barbells. You know, this is a weird transition to talk about this, but this has been a one-on-one anyways. It was one of the things that I disliked about the tonal machine so much. Oh, right. The lower body.

The lower body was terrible, because you have to hold the cable with your upper body in this awkward position, in like this goblet position, or you're putting this cable that's pulling down, and it just, you couldn't load it. So, I mean, yeah, you can get a burn on your legs and you can get, you can get a workout

they have with exercises in there, but really terrible for trying to load it. You ain't dead, you ain't, you're not emulating dead lifting 400 plus pounds, you're not dead lifting or squatting 300 pounds on there. It's like, because the limiting factor is the ability for you to hold it with your hands. And it doesn't have to be that much weight either.

You take someone who could barbell squat 100 pounds. They're not gonna be able to hold 50 pound dumbbells to copy that, right? It's just not gonna be able to do that. Yeah, no, it's totally superior. Even for split stance exercises where dumbbells are great, like lunges and dumbbells are great. I love lunges barbells.

Exactly. You can go heavy, don't have to worry about holding on to the, it's on your back, and you do your walking lunges with the barbells. So lower body, barbells wins. All right, so now, I didn't put this one up there, but we have to pick one. If you had to pick one over the other forever,

to train, not that we ever would. Personally, not that we ever would. For me, that's easy. It would be dumbbells. Yeah. And I think a lot of that has to do with like, I was talking about the range of motion, the versatility be dumbbells. Okay. Yeah. And I think a lot of that has to do with like I was talking about the range of motion, the versatility of dumbbells. Mm-hmm.

Like I know I would lose out on the squat and deadlift part. Like that would probably really piss me off and I try and find his creative ways I could to try and make up for it with tempo and you know all these other ways. But yeah, the versatility of the dumbbell, I think, if I had to choose one for the rest of my life, plus the things that make the barbell better are also what tend to get me in trouble. The benefits of loading the bar and being able to get after it and go heavy are tend to be the things that get me in trouble.

The fact that dumbbells would limit me on how much I could technically live for like dead lifting and squatting, so like that, I'd probably less likely to get hurt. So it's probably the smarter play for me to go dumbbells. If I could, which I can't, but if I could get my ego out of this question, I would say the same thing. It would help me. I'm struggling with that too. It would be better for balance, it would be better for mobility.

For me at this stage, I've been working out for a long time. If I was a beginner, clear barbell, but because I've been doing this for so long, all the stuff you mentioned, Adam, I would agree. Unfortunately, my ego, I can't, I can't. And so if I had to pick, it would be barbell. I can't get, I would, right now.

Should I go barbell and body weight training? Oh yeah, I can pull that would right now. Should we go barbell in body weight training? Oh yeah, I guess. I guess you're adding a ring pull at, you know, in terms of like still adding some of that, like, multi-planar functional movements. But again, it wouldn't be the same. No. So yeah, but I, I'm trying to think in more in that direction

with just dumbbells and trying to like, you know, pull, pull some of the yigga out of it, but yeah, I'm still. Because I was, I was was even though we were talking about the the drawbacks of dumbbells for the lower body, I was able to develop my quad's quite a bit with Bulgarian splitsquad. Yeah, that's a good exercise. Yeah, you hold you hold on to some, you know, 80, 90 pound dumbbells. 30 pound dumbbells.

We're full range of motion. I'm saying, I mean, and you can get to a place where you're holding some serious weight on there. Same thing with the single leg deadlift. I was doing that with the heavy dumbbells. I would find a way to still get pretty good development on my legs with the dumbbells. I just think that it would be better for me. I know what I need and what I should do.

I think the barbells. Now, if you were talking to 20-year-old Adam who's starting to build mass once the pack on more muscle, would you make it the same answer? No, no, I would definitely go barbells. Knowing what I know, especially since I really didn't go heavy into barbell lifting till later in my lifting career and was surprised how much mass I put on, even that late in my career, I wish I knew that when I was 20 and lifting,

I would have done more bar. I would have stuck to the big five and lifted that. I think that is such a solid piece of advice for the average young lifter. It's like get a barbell, stick to the big five and just get good at those movements. That is gonna lay such a solid foundation for most people. And then where you go from there is preference

in what you think is better. Yeah, and just to add to that, what you need to gain is not what you need to maintain. Right, right. Whatever you do to build, less than that is typically required to maintain. So that's another really good point why I would be okay with dumbass.

Because we've all built a long foundation. I know that I have enough of a foundation that I could train plenty hard enough to maintain a physique that I want. You're not going to lose games. Right. That's a great point. Yeah. But at the end of the day, for all intents and purposes, stupid debate, right?

Use them both. I think that we've made the case that they both have tremendous value. But hopefully this gives you some insight into where you may use one more than the other based on your goals and based on what you're looking to accomplish. Look, if you like our information, head over to mindpumpafree.com and check out our guides. We have guides that can help you with almost any fitness or health goal. You can also find us all on social media. So justin' is on Instagram at Mind Pump Justin.

Adam is on Instagram at Mind Pump Adam and you can find me on Twitter at Mind Pump Sal. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and aANABOLIC, MAPSTERFORMENT and MAPSISTEDIC, 9 months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs.

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