You don't need a personal trainer, expensive equipment or a fitness center membership to build muscles. By working out at home using dumbbells, resistance bands and bodyweight exercises, you can build your body effectively. Use exercises that target specific muscles you want to build and create complete workouts that include warming up, exercises, cooling down and stretching to maximize your bodybuilding.
Dumbbell Exercises
You can perform many common exercises with dumbbells, including biceps curls, chest presses, squats, deadlifts, lunges, flyes, triceps extensions, kickbacks and rows. Use the maximum weight you can lift or close to it, and perform three to five reps before taking a two-minute rest. Perform three to five sets of one exercise before moving on to the next exercise.
You'll need a bench for rows. Place one knee and one hand on the bench, then lift the dumbbell up and down, bending your arm each time. For kickbacks, change this exercise by starting with a bent arm, then straightening your arm behind you, and then coming back to your starting position after each kickback.
Bodyweight Exercises
Bodyweight exercise, also called calisthenics, uses your body's weight as the resistance. These exercises include push-ups, sit-ups, chin-ups, pull-ups, chair dips, squats, lunges, crunches and chair dips. Perform these exercises slowly, pause two seconds between up and down movements, and use muscle to perform each movement. For example, after you do a chin-up, don't let yourself fall back down -- lower yourself slowly with your muscles. For added resistance, perform these exercises with dumbbells. Resisting the muscle on the way up and down will create more muscle building, according to fitness radio talk show host and author Dr. Gabe Mirkin.
Resistance Band Exercises
You can use resistance bands to perform many of the aforementioned dumbbell exercises. For triceps extensions, step into your bands, then place your hands behind your head in between your shoulder blades. Raise your hands, turning your palms outward at the finish. Do one arm at a time or both at once. Resistance bands also let you perform several leg exercises you can't do with dumbbells.
While sitting or lying down, use the bands to push your legs straight against the resistance. While standing, place one band around your right foot, then pull your left leg out to your side, hold and return. Repeat with the opposite leg. Next, attach a band to an object, such as a chair, placed outside of your leg. Pull your leg across your opposite leg, away from the chair. These two movements create abduction and adduction exercises, which work the inner and outer leg.
Curl bands tightly to get more resistance. Resist the added assistance from the bands on downlifts. For example, when you do a biceps curl, don't let the cord pull your arm down.
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