Making your muscles bigger, stronger or more powerful is a question of exposing them to overload. If the overload is sufficient your muscles will respond by adapting to the stress they have been exposed to and improving their capacity for work. Overload can come in a wide variety of forms including strength-training machines, body-weight exercises, resistance bands and free weights. The term free weights can be used to describe a host of training implements, not just dumbbells.
Barbells
Where dumbbells are small in length and often used in pairs, barbells are used singularly and can be up to 7 feet long. An Olympic barbell weighs 45 lb. even before any weight plates are loaded onto it. Barbells and dumbbells are interchangeable for many exercises and can also be used for some movements such as back squats, the clean and jerk and two-handed curls.
Kettlebells
Kettlebells are spherical weights that resemble cannon balls with handles. They can be lifted, swung and even thrown. Originating in Russia, kettlebells were originally used as a training device for Russian soldiers but have since become a globally popular form of strength training. Kettlebells can be used in place of dumbbells for many exercises and there are also numerous specialist kettlebell exercises such as the Turkish get up, windmill press and kettlebell swings.
Sandbags
Sandbags are a popular training tool in the military and in martial arts training. Because the sand shifts as you exercise, you have to work harder than usual to stabilize the weight. Sandbags can be as simple as a hessian sack filled with building site sand or a commercially produced exercise specific sand bag complete with handles. Large sandbags can be used to replace barbells in many exercises while smaller sandbags are good alternatives for dumbbells.
Medicine Balls
Another form of free weight is the medicine ball. Made from rubber or leather, medicine balls can be lifted, thrown and bounced in any number of ways to target all of your major muscles. Like all types of free weights, medicine ball exercise can be used through multiple planes of movement and can be used to develop muscular strength, power or endurance. Medicine balls are available in a variety of weights from 5 to 50 lb. or more.
Odd Objects
Your muscles have no real idea of what type of weights you are lifting --- they only know tension and overload. Many strongmen develop prodigious strength by lifting heavy odd objects. An odd object can be a water barrel, a heavy rock, a metal girder, a small car or any other similarly challenging-to-lift item. Odd object lifting is popular with armed servicemen on deployment where there is often a lack of traditional training equipment available.
References
- "Essentials of Strength Training and Conditioning"; National Strength and Conditioning Association; 2008
- "Designing Resistance Training Programs"; Steven Fleck and William Kraemer; 2003
- "Strong Enough? Thoughts from Thirty Years of Barbell Training"; Mark Rippetoe; 2007
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