Many people make the mistake of thinking that they need to spend thousands and thousands of dollars on the latest and greatest weights equipment to put on muscle. Nothing could be further from the truth. Men have been building impressive muscles for hundreds of years, way before the introduction of fancy weight lifting equipment. Sure, the equipment has its place, and it does have its own benefits. But if you are looking to save some cash, then all you need to do is spend a couple of hundred dollars on a good quality dumbbell set.
There are dozens of different dumbbell exercises you can do. You can work out every muscle in your body with a pair of dumbbells. If you are not sure which exercises to do, then keep reading, as I will give you a breakdown of the best ones.
Before I get into that, though, ask yourself, “Do I want to build muscle or do I want to get fit?” It is OK if you say you want to do both. The reason it is important to ask yourself this question is that, if you want to build muscle, then it is more important that you lift heavy weights when you do your dumbbell exercisers. If you want to get fit, then you should use a lighter weight set and about two dozens of repetitions at a very fast pace. For our purposes, take “heavy weights” to mean that you can only do about half a dozen repetitions.
With that out the way, let us go through some of the best dumbbell workout exercises. These apply to both muscle building and to getting fit. Without a doubt, the best exercises are squats and deadlifts. To do squats with dumbbells, you can hold the dumbbells by your side or on top of your shoulders. If you hold them up, you will get tight shoulder muscles, but this will improve as you get stronger. To to deadlifts, allow the dumbbells to rest on the ground by your side, then pick them up, stand up, put them down, and repeat.
Other great exercises are ones that engage a large number of powerful muscles at the same time. These include chest presses (you do not need a bench for these, but it will be useful), rows (again, a bench is useful but not necessary), and shoulder presses.
If you are somewhat experienced when it comes to weight training, then you may want to consider dumbbell variations of the traditional weight lifting exercises: the snatch and the clean and jerk. You can easily substitute the dumbbells for the bar with these exercises, and they are great for packing on the muscle or, if you do lots of repetitions, getting fitter.
If you want even more exercises, you should be able to find a good dumbbell exercise chart online. You can stick this up inside your workout area so you can refer to it easily every time you pick up your dumbbell set.
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