The dumbbell is possibly the most over looked piece of exercise
equipment. People always want to hit the gym and use all the fancy
machines that are there. What they don't realise is that everything they
will ever need lies in those unused dumbbells.
Dumbbells are so good because they are free weights, and working out with free weights will get you ripped much faster. This is because when you use machines your range of motion is limited to the one plane. This is fine if you are isolating, but for a better workout and to get ripped all over this just wont do, you need dumbbells in order to train all over.
Depending on what you are looking to train there are hundreds of exercises you can do with the dumbbell. First off you can do full body exercises such as the dumbbell thrust, which is effectively when you combine a dumbbell squat with a shoulder press into one huge exercise which hits your upper body and your lower body.
For upper body workouts you have things like the Chest Press (incline, standard and decline), the before mentioned shoulder press, bicep curls, tricep extensions etc.
For lower body workouts you have exercises like the calf extensions, calf raises, Romanian deadlifts, squats etc.
You can even ramp up your cardio workouts by taking some light dumbbells with you when you go jogging.
Remember also that to build muscle you should use heavier weights and low numbers of reps, to tone muscle use lighter weights and higher number of reps.
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Dumbbells are so good because they are free weights, and working out with free weights will get you ripped much faster. This is because when you use machines your range of motion is limited to the one plane. This is fine if you are isolating, but for a better workout and to get ripped all over this just wont do, you need dumbbells in order to train all over.
Depending on what you are looking to train there are hundreds of exercises you can do with the dumbbell. First off you can do full body exercises such as the dumbbell thrust, which is effectively when you combine a dumbbell squat with a shoulder press into one huge exercise which hits your upper body and your lower body.
For upper body workouts you have things like the Chest Press (incline, standard and decline), the before mentioned shoulder press, bicep curls, tricep extensions etc.
For lower body workouts you have exercises like the calf extensions, calf raises, Romanian deadlifts, squats etc.
You can even ramp up your cardio workouts by taking some light dumbbells with you when you go jogging.
Remember also that to build muscle you should use heavier weights and low numbers of reps, to tone muscle use lighter weights and higher number of reps.