As time goes by certain exercises seem to lose favor for some reason, ranging from not being glamorous enough, degree of difficulty, replaced by a version done on a machine, seeming outdated and obsolete, or simply forgotten.
The dumbbell pullover is such an exercise, it isn't particularly impressive unless you are using a weight exceeding one hundred pounds and at that level witnessing it being performed seems unreasonably miserable and inconvenient as you need someone to hold down your legs so that the weight doesn't pull you over the bench you are lying across.
Is it worth the discomfort of lying cross ways on a flat bench with only your upper back supporting your weight while being held in place by your legs and pulling a heavy dumbbell from a hanging stretch position behind your head to a position above you at eye level while trying to keep the hanging end of the bell from dragging across your face as your arms and shoulders begin to tire in their effort to maintain proper form and degree of bend in the elbows during execution? The answer is yes, if gains in upper body size and strength are your goal.
The dumbbell pullover is a very versatile and productive exercise that can be adapted to fulfill any of a number of training objectives, making it an indispensable tool in building up your upper body.
As a chest exercise it is best employed as a finishing movement.
In this application after you have worked your pectorals with fly's and presses your pectorals, deltoids, and triceps are tired, so by doing dumbbell pullovers last your latissimus are fresh and they assist and push your pecs, delts, and tris past what they would normally experience without them, driving them to deeper stimulation and growth.
So for chest your best bet is to do fly's first followed by presses, then pullovers.
This way you hit pecs first with flys without tiring your triceps then employ triceps on the presses and push everything with lats on pullovers, a very winning combination that will put meat on your pecs.
To increase ribcage size you perform pullovers with a lighter weight and combine it with deep breathing squats with a light weight, done back to back with no rest between the two.
The emphasis is not on weight but breathing deeply and stretching the ribs.
This is not for the faint hearted because it is very a demanding cardiovascular combination.
You start out doing pullovers first for twenty reps followed immediately by barbell squats for twenty reps.
On the pullovers as you lower the bell behind you, breath as deeply as possible and as the bell reaches as far behind your head as it will go, let the weight stretch your ribcage while keeping your chest filled with air, then as you pull the bell from behind you to eye level exhale, expelling all the air out of your lungs upon reaching eye level, repeat this process for each rep.
On the squat portion of this superset with a light barbell across your shoulders descend while keeping your upper body as vertical as possible until your hamstrings touch your calves, breathing in as deeply as possible, completely filling you lungs as you reach rock bottom position, then as you ascend to standing again exhale, expelling all the air out of your lungs upon reaching the locking out of your knees, repeat this process for each rep.
Start out with one superset and work up to three.
The poundages involved will not be enough to over train your legs if you do this on your upper body workout because as I said this is all about deep breathing and stretching.
One side note on this technique, be careful if your cardiovascular fitness is lacking that you don't become lightheaded and blackout.
When using dumbbell pullovers as a back exercise they can be done first or last.
When done first they will tire the chest, shoulders, triceps and back equally, but as you move to the next back exercise only the back and shoulders remain involved, making the stress on the chest and triceps negligible so as to not negatively impact regular chest and tricep training.
When using pullovers first you hit the lats directly without the involvement of the biceps, then you would do wide overhand grip pulldowns where the biceps are in an inferior mechanical line of pull so as to use your arms as cables for the lats to pull down and back, after this you would move to a shoulder width parallel grip where your line of pull is better and your hand position puts your biceps in a stronger position to pull in a straighter line still down and back, enabling you to pull with your lats, shoulders, and biceps in unison, next you would choose close undergrip pulldowns with hands about twelve inches apart, this puts your biceps into a superior mechanical line of pull.
Keeping chest high and maintaining a good inward arch in your lower back, pull the bar straight down, bringing the shoulders as far behind you as possible, squeezing your back muscles and bringing your shoulder blades as close together as possible.
When doing pullovers last in your back workout your lats and delts will be pushed further by your pecs and triceps which will be fresh, doing for your lats and delts what your lats do for your chest, delts, and triceps when doing them last in a chest workout.
For a quick full torso workout when time is short or as a change of pace put pullovers between a chest and back exercise.
Examples are flat dumbbell flys, dumbbell pullovers, and pulldowns done back to back or incline dumbell bench press, dumbbell pullover, wide pulldown, and close pulldown done back to back.
Do two to three cycles of either and all the muscles of your upper body will be worked, pecs, lats, traps, delts, triceps, biceps, and forearms.
You can also use pullovers as a tricep exercise by using it after a more isolated movement and before a more compound movement.
Examples are two hands on a single dumbbell overhead frenchpress followed by dumbbell pullovers back to back or in regular straight set fashion or lying barbell frenchpress followed by dumbbell pullovers then close grip benchpress done back to back or in regular straight set fashion.
Not many exercises are able to accomplish so much or have the ability to shift their effect depending on where and when they are employed in a workout, being able to effortlessly move between opposing muscle groups to push either past what they could normally could by taking advantage of the unique ability to provide an isolated environment that can be exploited to opposite ends to build a completely developed upper body.
So take another look at dumbbell pullovers in your quest for improved muscle size and strength.