10 Simple Dumbbell Exercises To Build Strength All Over
A strong physique plays a pivotal role in our overall health in many ways by increasing physical performance, helping prevent injury, improving bone health, and more. If your goal this year is to gain more strength, I'm here to help. While it takes time, you will get stronger and see results with the correct exercises. I'm Josh York, founder and CEO of GYMGUYZ, the world's largest in-home and on-site personal training company and I will walk you through effective dumbbell exercises that will maximize strength results throughout your entire body.
Why Dumbbell Exercises are Good for Building Strength
Dumbbell exercises offer the ultimate versatility to your workout with a wide range of benefits to build strength:
- Muscle isolation: The key to an effective workout is focus, not just mentally but physically, too. Dumbbells allow you to focus on a specific muscle group at one time to allow for correction in muscle imbalance.
- Increased range of motion: While barbell workouts can be restrictive, dumbbell exercises assist in creating a more natural, fuller range of motion due to the movements not being fixed.
- Versatility: Whether targeting your shoulders, legs, or anything in between, dumbbells can be manipulated in a workout that targets muscles throughout the body in a plethora of exercises.
- Progressive overload: The large range of dumbbell weights provides you with a constant challenge to your muscles as you increase weight to increase strength gains.
- Improved stabilization: While everyone loves showing off their muscles, don't overlook the stabilizers! Using dumbbells requires more control, which activates those stabilizer muscles and enhances both muscle engagement and coordination.
10 Simple Dumbbell Exercises To Build Strength All Over
Dumbbell Lunges
Dumbbell lunges push your legs to the max by working your glutes, hamstring, and quadriceps – even your core is engaged during the workout. This requires both stability and balance, forcing your upper body stabilizers to work, too. With this exercise requiring one leg at a time, your body is identifying and correcting muscle imbalances as it promotes overall strength development. If the workout is too easy, simply increase the weight to increase the difficulty to see more growth.
-Stand with your feet together.
-Hold the dumbbells with a neutral grip.
-Reach one leg forward, then drop your back knee straight to the ground.
-Raise back up and bring the front leg back to the starting position.
-Repeat with the opposite side.
Overhead Press
Compliment your upper body with this workout. While this focuses on the front shoulders, overhead press also works the triceps, upper chest, traps, and core muscles – which also assist in stabilizing your spine. This generates a high hormonal response to create greater muscle growth and strength development. The simple motion of lifting overhead is simulated with this workout, producing functional strength and posture improvement.
-Sit on a vertical bench with your back pressed against the seat.
-Hold the dumbbells with palms facing forward at shoulder height.
-Raise the dumbbells together overhead then lower back to shoulder height.
Bent-Over Row
Are you looking to feel the burn from the top down in one comprehensive workout? If so, this is for you, as it activates your back, shoulders, biceps, core, glutes, and hamstrings. Your posture is critical for this exercise as you want to keep your spine neutral to improve posture and core strength. Similar to an overhead press, this allows for functional strength by mimicking lifting objects and opening doors.
-Stand with feet and dumbbells shoulder-width apart in a neutral grip.
-Bend over to a 45-degree angle.
-Pull the dumbbells back by squeezing your shoulder blades together.
-Lower back to the starting position.
Dumbbell Clean
Like the bent-over row, dumbbell clean will challenge your entire body as a compound exercise. It promotes coordinated muscle activation and full-body strength development with the correct form. Additionally, this exercise will work your entire posterior and anterior chain as your overall athletic ability is improved through the explosive motion of the workout.
-Start with feet shoulder-width apart.
-Position the dumbbells with palms towards you, arms straight and in front of your legs.
-Hinge from your waist to lower the dumbbells towards the ground.
-Raise back up to the start.
Tricep Kickback
This workout will force you to focus and isolate during your workout. While the primary targeted muscle group is the triceps, you will also be working your core and shoulder stabilizers to control the weight up and down.
-Begin with the dumbbells facing each other while standing straight up.
-Bend at the hips to bring your chest towards the ground.
-Lift your elbows until your arms are parallel to the ground.
-Kick back your arms to full extension.
-Control them back down to the start.
Dumbbell Bench Press
A barbell bench press limits your range of motion, while a dumbbell bench press forces your body to engage more muscle groups as you work each arm independently. This allows for more complete muscle activation, correction of muscle imbalances, and strength gains throughout your upper body.
-Lay flat on a bench.
-Hold the dumbbells with palms facing away from you at chest level.
-Raise your arms straight up and back down.
Lateral Raise
Strong shoulders are a key piece to everyday activity, and lateral raises put an emphasis on stability and mobility in your shoulders by targeting the lateral deltoid muscle. Lateral raises can also be beneficial by reducing the risk of shoulder injuries as this strengthens the supporting muscles around the joint.
-Stand straight with your arms at your side and palms facing in.
-Raise your arms to shoulder height out to the side with your palms facing down.
-Slowly lower your arms back to your side.
Hammer Curl
Most people view hammer curl as an exercise that targets the bicep; while this is true, it also promotes activation of the arm down through the forearm. Compared to a palm-up curl, the neutral grip position assists with joint stability in the wrists and elbows to improve wrist strength.
-Begin with your arms at your side and palms facing you.
-Keeping your elbows tucked in, bend at your elbow to raise the dumbbells towards your shoulder then back down.
-This can also be done by doing each arm individually.
Arnold Press
This multifaceted workout improves strength and motion by targeting all three heads of your deltoid – anterior, lateral, and posterior. Arnold press promotes well-rounded shoulder development compared to other shoulder exercises that only work one deltoid head. As your wrists twist on the way up, muscle fibers are stimulated to aid in muscle growth.
-Raise the dumbbells to shoulder height with your palms facing you.
-Lift the dumbbells over your head while rotating your wrists so your palms face out.
-Lower your arms back down and twist your wrists back to the start position.
-This can be done seated or standing.
Goblet Squat
A goblet squat makes you stabilize your core as you engage your glutes, quads, and upper body with the positioning of the weight. Proper posture is important to fix muscle imbalances in addition to improving functional strength and mobility during this exercise.
-Start with your feet shoulder-width apart.
-Turn the dumbbell vertically and grip it from underneath the top side.
-Hold the dumbbell close to your chest.
-Squat down while keeping the weight on your heels and core engaged.
-Stand back up and repeat.
