Side Lying Dumbbell Flyes

Why Is This Exercise So Effective?

There are very few exercises other than the cable cross-over that allow you get a full contraction of the pectoral muscles, especially with free weight. This exercise is a great alternative if you don’t have any cables to work with and you want to get an incredibly strong, full contraction in your pecs.

How To Do It

• Lie on your side on a flat bench with part of your upper body hanging off the end of the bench. Brace your non-working hand on the end of the bench to keep your body from rolling forward.
  
  
• The end of the bench should be fairly close to your armpit.
  
  
• If you are lying on your right side hold a dumbbell in your right hand and let it rest on the ground. Don’t worry about losing tension here - the benefit of the exercise lies at the top of the movement.

• Use a fairly light dumbbell with this exercise. You don’t need much weight to get a full contraction and using too much could cause you to lose your balance on the bench.
  
  
• Keeping your arm bent and stiff, raise the dumbbell in a flye type motion in front, around and up until your upper arm is pressed right up against your chest and the dumbbell is straight up in the air.
  
  
• Squeeze hard at the top. You should feel a sharp burning sensation in your mid-pec area right on the cleavage between the two pecs.
  
  
• This exercise will really hit the inner pec area, bring out separation between the two pecs.

How to incorporate this exercise into your workouts:

This exercise is best suited as a finishing exercise.

• Use it last or very near to last in your chest workouts.
  
  
• It works very well placed after a stretch position movement such as the dumbbell flye.
  
  
• This is because it places nearly all of it’s tension on the pec in its most-contracted position.

Common Errors

1. Not squeezing hard at the top

The main value of this exercise lies in the squeeze at the top. Try to get the most contraction possible by moving the weight slowly up to that position, squeezing hard for 3 to 5 seconds, then lowering it back slowly to the ground.

2. Not bracing your non-working hand properly

If you don’t place your other hand on the end of the bench (as demonstrated in the pictures and video) you will roll forward and off the bench.

Tricks

1. Hook your feet around the bench

You may notice as you do the exercise that your lower body starts to fall off the bench even though you’ve braced your hand. You can prevent this by hooking your foot over the opposing end of the bench and pulling with your leg as you do the exercise.

2. Imagine pulling from your inner pec

This exercise targets the inner pec strongly. You can increase the effectiveness of it by visualizing you inner pec fibers pulling the weight up.