If you want to tone up and burn calories, weightlifting can help. Although weight machines have become popular tools at many gyms, free weights such as dumbbells also can offer a comprehensive, full-body workout. Dumbbells come in a variety of shapes and sizes and can be used to strengthen all of your major muscle groups. Knowing what kinds of exercises you can do will help you revive the lost art of dumbbell training, and reap the fitness rewards.
Dumbbell Guidelines
Consult your doctor before beginning a weight training program. The American College of Sports Medicine recommends lifting weights twice a week by doing eight to 12 repetitions of eight to 10 exercises. For each weightlifting exercise, you can adjust the amount of weight you lift as needed. Your exercises should feel challenging but not impossible to complete. Some dumbbells come with adjustable weight amounts, or you can use a set of dumbbells with different sizes and weights. Start with low weight amounts and gradually add weight as you become stronger.
Upper-Body Exercises
The bench press, shoulder press, triceps extensions, bent-over rows and biceps curls are all common weightlifting exercises using dumbbells. The bench press works your pectoral muscles, the shoulder press works your deltoids, triceps extensions and bent-over rows strengthen the triceps muscles and biceps curls work the biceps. Continue to breathe throughout the exercises, exhaling as you exert yourself and inhaling as you relax your muscles.
Lower-Body Exercises
You can use dumbbells for several lower-body strengthening exercises, including squats, lunges, dead lifts and heel raises. Squats strengthen your gluteal -- or butt -- muscles, lunges target the quad muscles in the legs, dead lifts work your glutes and lower back and heel raises strengthen the calves. When performing lower body exercises, keep you back straight and use your ab muscles as needed to maintain good posture.
Torso Exercises
To target your torso, do abdominal curls and back extensions. For abdominal curls, hold a dumbbell across your chest to add intensity to regular curls. Back extensions involve lying on your stomach on a weight bench with your upper body hanging off the side, and bending at the waist to lift your upper body up into the air, holding dumbbells across your chest. Slowly lower your body to return to the starting position.
Dumbbell Training Tips
When lifting heavy dumbbells, many people resort to swinging the weights around to begin and finish an exercise. Swinging the weights causes you to have bad form and increases your chance of injury. When dealing with heavy dumbbells, use your legs to help you get them into starting position. If you are doing the shoulder press, for instance, bend each leg up toward your body, with the weight resting on top of each leg, to help push the dumbbells up into starting position. When you finish the exercise, instead of dropping the weights and risking hitting yourself or others, bring your legs back up under the dumbbells to help lower them slowly.
Member Comments