Sports Training

The 100lb Dumbbell Press: How Hard Is It? Should You Perform It? Safe/Overkill?

The 100lb dumbbell press is a milestone that most novice and intermediate lifters strive for. I’ve personally met this goal, and surpassed it, and have a few tips and trick for you that will help in achieving this goal. It’s all about slow and steady progression, and a healthy dose of determination.


The 100lb Dumbbell Bench Press

What Is Dumbbell Bench Pressv

So, you’ve seen the 100lb dumbbells sitting on the rack and thought, it would be great if I could press that weight. You don’t see too many people in the gym moving 100lb dumbbells for a press, and there’s a reason for it. It’s pretty difficult!

How Hard Is The 100lb Dumbbell Bench Press?

How Hard Is The 100lb Dumbbell Bench Press

Well, this entirely depends on how long you’ve been lifting, along with other factors like your size and weight. Moving more weight is easier when you have more weight on your frame. The only exception to this is when that weight is primarily fat, and not muscle, but we’re assuming anyone attempting this is an avid gym-goer.

For someone who is 250+ pounds, and has been lifting for 2+ years, the 100lb dumbbell bench press will be easily attainable with practice. For someone with the same lifting experience weighing 150lbs, it will be quite a bit more difficult. These are generalizations, but in my experience, they hold up in the gym.

Personally, I split the difference at 190lbs, but have been working out for 8+ years. 100lb dumbbells are unwieldy, but getting 6-8 reps for 4-5 sets is something I can do. It will take practice and determination, but it is a goal that can be achieved for most lifters in time. 

The best way to start towards this goal, is to simply do a lot of dumbbell presses. Barbell presses will help your strength, but will not develop the stabilizer muscles necessary for a 100lb dumbbell bench. 

If this is your goal, you’ll need to practice increasing your weight specifically on the dumbbell press.

You might also want to do other exercises to make the shoulder and arms areas stronger to enable you to do a 100lb dumbbell bench press; exercises like the overhead cable curl, dumbbell shrugs or barbell shrugs, or the single-arm french press will help you strengthen stabilizer muscles and make it easier for you to do 100lb dumbbells bench presses.

Is Doing A 100lb Dumbbell Bench Press Impressive?How Its Doing

Well, ask yourself, how often do you see someone doing this in the gym? In my own experience, not often at all. I can count on one hand the number of people I’ve seen dumbbell pressing over 100lbs. But i’ve also seen many people barbell bench the equivalent weight.

Whether or not it’s impressive, is up to you. It is no doubt difficult, and not something you often see. So it has that going for it. Don’t set out on this mission just to be impressive, but know that if you can do it, people will likely take notice of your lift.


What Are The Benefits Of Doing A 100lb Dumbbell Press?

What Are The Benefits

The benefits of performing a 100lb dumbbell press are the same as those for performing any dumbbell press. Dumbbell presses help identify and correct imbalances, improve core muscle strength, and work stabilizer muscles in your delts way more than a standard barbell bench press.

The benefits of specifically being able to rep 100lb dumbbells, is that you will be strong and show you that you’ve been working hard and lifting heavy weights. In order to perform a 100lb dumbbell press for reps, you can’t have any weaknesses in your form, stabilizer muscles, or core.

How Can You Perform A 100lb Dumbbell Press?

Well, it all comes down to practicing for this specific lift. The best way to get better at the dumbbell press and increase your strength enough to lift 100lbs in each hand, is to simply do more dumbbell presses!

No other exercise will prepare you for this lift in the same way that the lift itself will. Hitting dumbbells presses every time you workout, and slowly increasing your weight when you’re able, is the most straightforward way to reach this goal.

There are things you can do outside of your dumbbell bench presses to aid your attempts in reaching this goal. The dumbbell press primarily works your chest, anterior deltoids (front shoulders), and your triceps. Increasing your strength and stability in both of these areas will help!

Here are a few exercises you can do to supplement your training to increase your dumbbell bench pressing power.

All of these exercises will help you to increase your strength, build your stabilizer muscles, and aid in your journey to dumbbell pressing 100lbs.


What Is The 100lb Dumbbell Press Challenge?

What Is The 100lb Dumbbell

The 100lb dumbbell press challenge was invented by two bodybuilders by the name of Mike Rashid and Marc Lobliner. The goal is to do 100 reps of 100lb dumbbell presses as quickly as possible.

That’s a lot of weight, and a lot of reps, in not a lot of time. This will be very challenging, even for the strongest bodybuilders as you’ll see in their video.

Video: The 100lb Dumbbell ChallengeWhat Is The 100lb Dumbbell

You can find the video we’re discussing here. As you can see, both Mike and Marc are HUGE. These professionals are no strangers to bodybuilding and have enhanced physiques that are not attainable for natural lifters. 

Both Mike and Marc take turns repping out dumbbell presses, and you can see they hit a wall fairly quickly despite being enormously jacked. This should give you a sense of how hard this challenge will be for a regular lifter.

Mike decides to take 110lb dumbbells for a spin and impressively completes 100 reps in just under 12 minutes. Marc, with the 100lb dumbbells, completes his reps in 11 minutes.


How Much Weight Can An Average Man Dumbbell Press?

What Is The Result

There are a LOT of factors to consider here. Bodyweight and time spent training are the most important. Strengthlevel.com is a great resource for determining the average amount of weight a man or woman can bench based on user-reported data.

Check out their page on dumbbell bench presses to see where you land based on your bodyweight. For a 200lb man, a beginner will bench 45lb dumbbells, a novice will bench 69lb dumbbells, an intermediate will bench 100lb dumbells. 

The categories continue into advanced and elite, but those numbers are primarily from enhanced athletes who live in the gym based on my own personal experience and 8+ years of training.

Have you ever seen a 200lb man dumbbell bench 175lb dumbbells? Me neither. This video of Ken Jackson is one of the only ones I can find on youtube, and he’s doing partial reps. And Ken is hyuuuuuuge.

Can You Bench More Than 100lb Dumbbells Safely?How Much Weight

With time, and training, yes. The most important thing to focus on is linear progression. This means that you will work your way up to 100lbs slowly, increasing your weight by 5lbs at a time. 

Drastic jumps in weight, especially on a dumbbell bench press, will only lead to injury. Slow and steady progress is king! So get after it, but do so safely.

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