Incline Dumbbell Fly
By keeping the elbows only slightly bent, the fly turns pressing into a pure adduction movement, so the upper chest does the work with little help from the triceps. The incline angle biases the clavicular fibers and delivers a strong stretch at the bottom. Use it as an accessory after your pressing to add quality upper-chest volume.
- Body part
- Chest
- Type
- Strength
- Browse by muscle
- Pectoralis Major Clavicular
- Browse by movement
- Horizontal Adduction
- Target
- Pectoralis Major Clavicular
- Secondary
- Pectoralis Major Sternocostal, Deltoid Anterior
- Tertiary
- Biceps Brachii Short Head
How to do it
- 1
Set a bench to about 30 degrees and lie back with a dumbbell in each hand over your chest, palms facing each other.
- 2
Keep a soft, fixed bend in your elbows and lower the dumbbells out to the sides in a wide arc.
- 3
Stop when you feel a stretch across the upper chest and your upper arms are roughly level with your torso.
- 4
Squeeze the chest to bring the dumbbells back up along the same arc until they nearly touch.
- 5
Keep the elbow angle constant; do not turn it into a press.
Tips
- Think about hugging around a barrel rather than bending and straightening the elbows.
- Use a lighter load than you press with; flyes place the chest at a mechanical disadvantage.
- Do not drop below a comfortable stretch, which can overstress the shoulder.
Variations
Common mistakes
- A bench set steeper than about 45 degrees turns the movement into a shoulder raise; at 30 degrees the upper chest still owns the arc.
- The dumbbells drift back toward the top of your head at the bottom rather than out to the sides, which loads the front of the shoulder instead of the upper chest.
- Nothing pins the shoulder blades on an incline unless you set them, so they slide up toward your ears as the arms open; pull them down into the pad before the first rep and hold them there.
- Once the last reps get hard, only the top few inches of the arc keep moving, so the stretch that makes the incline version worth doing disappears.
Frequently asked
- How many sets and reps of the incline dumbbell fly should you do when you are new to the exercise?
- Ten to 12 reps for two or three sets, with dumbbells around a third of what you incline press, placed after your pressing rather than before it. Earn a rep before you earn a plate: a 2 kg jump per hand changes a fly far more than the same jump changes a press, and the bottom of the arc is where you feel that difference.
- What can I do instead of the incline dumbbell fly at home?
- Anchor a band low behind you and sweep your hands up and together on a diagonal, which follows the upper-chest line of pull closely. Feet-elevated push-ups are the other option; they are a press rather than a fly, so the triceps come back in, but they bias the same upper-chest fibers and need nothing but a chair.
- What is the incline dumbbell fly good for, and when should I not use it?
- It adds upper-chest volume with the triceps taken out of the equation, so it earns its place as an accessory after incline or flat pressing. It is not a strength lift; the long lever keeps the loads modest no matter how strong you get. If your shoulder complains at the bottom of the arc, shorten the range or move to a machine, because the stretched position under load is where a cranky shoulder gets worse.
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