Dumbbell Chest Flyes

• Chest flyes are usually done with dumbbells as a free-weight exercise. Lie on a flat bench and hold a dumbbell in each hand above your chest. Bring your palms together and touch the dumbbells. Unlock your elbows so your arms round slightly. Your arms will make a narrow "O" shape. Lower your arms to your sides as you breathe in. Stop when your arms are at or slightly lower than your shoulders. Exhale and raise your arms back up the starting position. Doing this exercise on a regular flat bench targets the middle portion of your pec muscles. Never use weights that are too heavy for you to lift with good form. Arching your back off the bench or wavering your arms forward or backwards as signs of poor exercise form.
  
  For a greater challenge to your coordination you can alternate the dumbbells lowering one arm at a time. You can also lie on an exercise ball instead of a bench for a greater core challenge.
  
  

Free-Weight Chest Presses

• Chest presses involve a different movement of your arms. You can use two dumbbells or a barbell. Lie on your back and hold a dumbbell in each hand with your palms facing away from your head. Bend your elbows to the sides and lower your weights until they are next to your shoulders. Exhale and press the dumbbells back up. Alternatively, hold a barbell over your chest and bend your elbows to lower it to lightly touch your breastbone. The barbell should be gripped with hands shoulder-width apart, unless you are doing a wide-grip variation in which you will position your hands as far apart as you comfortably can.
  
  

Incline and Decline Variations

• The chest flye and chest press exercise can be done at an incline or a decline to emphasize the upper and lower portions of the pecs respectively. Adjust your exercise bench up or use an incline bench to do incline flyes and presses, or adjust your bench all the way down or use a decline bench to do decline exercises. The movements of your hands and arms are exactly the same with your arms facing straight up to the ceiling. Decline exercises are done with your head at the bottom of the bench lower than your hips and incline exercises are done with your head at the higher end of the incline above your hips.
  
  One way to further vary the incline version of the dumbbell flye is to add supination of the wrists. This simply means that you will do the flye as normal but twist your wrists inwards as you raise your arms to the starting position of the flye.
  
  You can vary the incline of a press by doing a hammer press. The difference is simply that you will turn your palms to face each other throughout the entire movement of the press as if you were holding two hammers. This puts more stress on the triceps muscles but still works the pecs.