How to do a proper dumbbell pullover

The pullover is unusual because the weight travels in an arc over your head, so it loads muscles that both pull your arm down from overhead and stabilise your torso. The two big players are the pectoralis major, your chest, and the latissimus dorsi, your lats. The triceps and the muscles around your shoulder blades help out, and your core works hard to stop your lower back arching off the bench.

This is where the honesty matters. People argue endlessly about whether the pullover is a chest move or a back move. When researchers put electrodes on lifters doing pullovers, the chest generally lit up more than the lats. So if someone sells you the pullover as a magic lat builder, be a little skeptical. It does work the lats, especially through the stretch, but for most people the chest takes the larger share.

There are two common ways to lie on the bench, and each changes the feel. Pick the one that suits you and keep it simple.

1. Choose your bench position. Lying fully along the bench with your head supported is the easiest and most stable, and a great place to start. The across-the-bench version, with only your upper back on the pad and hips dropped low, adds range but demands more core control. Beginners should stay lying along the bench.
2. Set your feet and brace. Plant your feet, squeeze your glutes, and pull your ribs down so your lower back stays flat against the bench. This brace is what stops your back arching when the weight goes overhead.
3. Hold the dumbbell over your chest. Cup one end of a single dumbbell with both hands, making a diamond with your palms and thumbs, and press it up so it sits over your upper chest. Elbows slightly bent, roughly the same soft angle you will keep the whole set.
4. Fix your elbow angle. This is the key setup cue. Your elbows bend a little and then stay there. If your elbows open and close during the rep, you have turned the pullover into a clumsy triceps extension and lost the stretch you are after.

The whole rep is one smooth arc. Keeping that soft, fixed elbow bend, lower the dumbbell back and over your head. Breathe in as it travels down. Go until you feel a strong stretch through your chest and along your lats, usually somewhere around the point where your upper arms are roughly in line with your torso. That stretch, not a fixed distance, is your bottom.

From that stretched position, pull the dumbbell back over your chest in the same arc, breathing out as you go. Think about pulling with your chest and lats, as if dragging the weight up with your armpits, not levering it with your hands. Bring it back to over your upper chest and, for a moment, resist the urge to relax at the top. Then lower again under control. Slow on the way down, controlled on the way up.

The theme here is control and honesty about load. The pullover puts your shoulder in a stretched, overhead position under weight, which is exactly where going too heavy or too deep causes trouble. Respect that and it stays a comfortable, useful exercise for years.

The pullover is an accessory, not a main lift. It shines at the end of a chest or back session, or as a bridge move on an upper body day, where you want a big stretch without more heavy pressing or pulling.

• Sets and reps: 3 sets of 10 to 15 reps suits it well. Higher reps let you focus on the stretch and the mind muscle connection without loading the shoulder heavily.
• Put it after your big lifts. Use it once the heavy pressing or rowing is done, when a controlled stretch feels better than another max effort.
• Pick your emphasis. Cue your chest and it feels more like a chest move, cue pulling with your armpits and lats and it biases the back a little more. Both are legitimate.
• Progress with reps first, then tiny jumps in weight. Because it is a stretch position under load, add weight slowly and only when the movement stays smooth and pain free.