Chest Fly

How to do the chest fly

1. 01Lie on a flat bench holding dumbbells above your chest, palms facing each other.
2. 02Set a soft bend in your elbows — around 15 to 20 degrees — and keep that angle fixed for the whole set.
3. 03Pull your shoulder blades down and together and keep them pinned to the bench.
4. 04Open your arms out and down in a wide arc until you feel a stretch across the chest, roughly level with the bench.
5. 05Bring the weights back along the same arc without letting them touch, stopping just short of vertical to keep tension on.

Coaching cues

• Hug a barrel. The elbow angle never changes.
• Stop where the stretch is, not where your shoulders give up.
• Shoulder blades stay pinned back — if they roll forward at the bottom, you have gone too deep.

Common mistakes

FaultBending and straightening the elbows

FixThat is a pressing motion, not a fly. Fix the elbow angle at the start and treat your arms as rigid hooks.

FaultGoing too deep and rolling the shoulders forward

FixDepth is limited by your shoulder blades staying retracted. Once they let go, the load moves onto the joint capsule.

FaultGoing too heavy

FixThe fly is a long-lever isolation exercise. If you need momentum, you are doing a bad dumbbell press instead.

FaultTouching the dumbbells at the top

FixTension drops to nothing when the arms are vertical. Stop a few inches short and turn around.

The chest fly has a reputation as a finisher for squeezing the chest at the top. That is roughly the opposite of where its value sits.

The bottom is the exercise

At the top of a dumbbell fly, with your arms vertical, the load is directed straight down through your bones and your chest is barely working. At the bottom, arms wide and the chest lengthened, the muscle is under its highest tension at its longest length.

That stretched position is where a fly earns its place, and it is why cutting the range short to “keep tension at the top” misunderstands the movement.

Go to a strong stretch, come back to just short of vertical, and turn around.

The elbow angle is fixed

A fly has one joint doing the work — the shoulder. If your elbows bend and straighten, you have converted it into an inefficient press.

Set fifteen to twenty degrees of bend at the start and hold it. Enough to take strain off the elbow joint, not so much that you are pressing.

Depth is set by your shoulder blades

Pin your shoulder blades down and back against the bench before the first rep.

Descend until you feel the stretch — and stop the moment those blades want to roll forward. Past that point, the tension transfers from the pectoral muscle to the front of the shoulder capsule, which is exactly the mechanism behind most fly-related shoulder complaints.

Cables versus dumbbells

Cables maintain tension through the whole arc, including at the top where a dumbbell goes slack. That makes them the more forgiving option and a good choice for higher reps.

Dumbbells load the stretched position harder, which is the part that matters most. If your shoulders tolerate it, the dumbbell version on a flat or slightly inclined bench is the stronger stimulus.