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10 Healthiest Full Body Dumbbell Workouts for Beginners and Pros

Harness the power and boost up energy by practicing the best dumbbell workouts. Before starting your fitness regime, try to follow some expert instructions!

Many people have a concept that hitting the gyms for long hours and running for elongated time may help them build perfect muscles and strengthen their body. Do you think in the same way?

Let us tell you, that’s partially correct because if you want a full-body workout for gaining strength, reducing weight and building solid muscles by cutting fat then practicing a set of full body dumbbell workouts are necessary to accomplish your fitness targets. Just keep yourself dedicated towards your fitness goals, diet regime and daily routine without skipping any step.

According to BMJ Global Health, the dumbbell exercise is a therapy which not only maintains your weight and muscles but also reduces life-threatening breast cancer. You don’t need much equipment to practice the best dumbbell workouts, just a pair of dumbbells it enough as per the weight recommendation of health experts.

How to Do Full Body Dumbbell Workout?

You may practice crunches, pullups, jogging, and squats, but dumbbell workouts will help you fulfill all the fitness targets you want to accomplish. However, you need a proficient fitness trainer of the best gym in Kolkata who can teach you the exact ways to lift up dumbbells and do full-body exercises.

Remember, practicing wrong dumbbell workouts may lead to injury or stretch marks in your arms and other parts of your body. So, health Experts suggest practicing some best dumbbell workouts for all-level gym-goers so that you don’t feel any confusion in practicing those steps.

Full Body Dumbbell Workouts for Beginners

Usually, novice fitness enthusiasts hold dumbbells in an unstable way because they have less experience in holding dumbbells and practicing workouts like a pro. So, their muscles need to work hard for getting stabilized. So, don’t start from intense workouts if you are just beginning a fitness regime. Have a look at some dumbbell workouts for beginners:

1. Lateral Raise

Lateral Raise targets the outer head-point of the deltoid muscles that are located on the uppermost part of the arm on the shoulders. Moreover, this dumbbell exercise will work on your entire hands and shoulders by toning up the extra flab. It brings flexibility by breaking the arduousness in your body and also works as a warm-up exercise for novice fitness lovers. Along with the hand, it is an upper-body dumbbell workout because it shapes up your arms and broadens your shoulders.

Steps:

Choose dumbbell weight as per the direction of your fitness expert.
Stand straight by keeping shoulder-width distance apart.
Grab the dumbbells with your palms.
Start raising each arm out to both the sides with the shoulder level.
Keep the chest up by bending your elbows slightly.
Hold the dumbbells for 2-3 seconds.
Repeat it 5-10 times when you are a beginner.
Now, pause the lower weights back and relax.
Breathe normally while doing the exercise.

2. Lunge

Do you want to build strength on the muscles of your legs? If yes, then definitely Lunges are great steps to tone down your legs and build solid muscles. Moreover, it will provide strength to your bones and help you win any kind of race.

Steps:

Hold two dumbbells in your hands by both the sides.
Stand with your torso straight.
Now step forward with one leg around two feet and lower your upper part of the body down.
Maintain the balance of the body while keeping the torso upwards.
Don’t let your knees go beyond your toes because it will put stress on the knee joint.
Push up and go back to the beginning position with the help of the heel of your foot.
Inhale and exhale normally.
Repeat the steps as per the direction of your fitness trainer.

3. Dumbbell Bench Press

If you want to get a good shape of your chest and arms then Dumbbell Bench Press is one of the effect workouts. While practicing dumbbell bench press, always ask from proficient fitness coach about them that how much weight is needed to be lifted as per your height and weight.

Generally, this exercise is done to shape up the muscles of the arms and chest with solid muscles. Moreover, it also provides strength to the muscles of the entire body.

Steps:

At first, lie on a bench and grab a dumbbell in each hand.
Keep your feet flat on the floor.
Now start pushing the dumbbells up and keep the arms over your shoulders.
Tilt your chin towards the chest portion.
Touch your tummy in while doing this workout.
Keep the dumbbells down and side your elbows slightly below your shoulders.
Now, roll up your shoulder blades up and down for 5-7 times.
Push up the weight and don’t lock your elbows.
Make a natural arch from your back and the bench.
Lift as much weight as possible, otherwise, you may feel tired.
After one set, you can repeat this dumbbell workout again.

Full Body Dumbbell Workouts for Intermediates

After the beginner stage, let’s learn about the best dumbbell workouts for intermediate fitness enthusiasts who have a basic knowledge about dumbbell exercises. Have a look at a few of them:

1. Chest Flye

Not only on chest, but this workout also works on the shoulders, biceps, and triceps to create a perfect shape. It also strengthens up the upper-most portion of your body. So, it is one of the best strength training programs. This exercise is good for releasing stress, spondylosis and back pain. However, practice it after taking proper guidance from health experts.

Steps:

Lie on your back straight.
Bent your knees and feet on the floor and hold dumbbells straight just over your chest.
Open your arms wide to both the side with a slight bend in the elbows.
When you bring out the weight, just squeeze your chest.
Repeat the steps 5-10 times as per your capacity and relax.

2. Front Squat

According to ‘Strength and Conditioning Journal’, Front Squat plays a great role in athletic development by strengthening the muscles and joints of athletes or sportsperson.

Front Squat is a full body dumbbell workout that works on your shoulders, elbows, hands, chest, tummy, legs and knees. This exercise also cuts down the extra fat from each portion of your body, reduce body pain, helps in forming a good posture, brings balance in your body and strengthen the muscles of your body.

Steps:

Firstly, load bars with weight.
Stand straight inside the squat rack after setting the bar.
Now position yourself just under the bar.
Rest the bar on the top of the shoulders but lift that much weight which is possible.
Stabilize the bar by using your hands.
Take one step backward and place your feet on both sides.
Now, sit down between the knees and lookup.
Sit as low as you can and make sure that your elbows are pointing upwards.

Note: This is an intense exercise, so take the help of fitness experts while practicing this.

3. Bent-Over Row

This dumbbell workout will work on your waist, tummy, legs, neckline, shoulders, and spine. It brings balance in your body and also brings flexibility.

Steps:

Grab dumbbells or barbells on your palm with a shoulder-width grip.
Bent your waist down towards your knees.
Hang down the arms
Pull the bar to the chest and lower your back down.
Again, pull up the dumbbells or barbells.
Do this set for 5-8 times by inhaling and exhaling well.

Full Body Dumbbell Workouts for Advanced Fitness Lovers

After becoming a dedicated fitness enthusiast, you can easily step up with any kind of dumbbell workout. Even fitness pros also practice these kinds of workouts to build their body.

1. Renegade Row

If you want to strengthen the bottom part of your body then Renegade row is one of the best dumbbell workouts. Moreover, it helps you in shaping up the upper portion of your body and arms.

Steps:

Position the dumbbells or kettlebells on the floor and keep shoulder-width apart.
Keep your body straight and extended.
Support your upper body by handling the handles of the kettlebells.
Push one kettlebell or dumbbell into the floor when you are rowing it.
Now, lower the dumbbell to the floor and repeat the steps in the same way with other hands.
Breathe in and out and then relax.

2. Thruster

This workout helps you burn lots of fats and unwanted muscles of your body. This full-body dumbbell workout will help you balance your body and strengthening the core muscles.

Steps:

Stand straight by holding dumbbells with your palms facing the shoulder height.
Keep shoulder-width apart your toes pointing slightly outwards.
Now start squatting down slowly and explode up thrusting the dumbbells above your head.
Repeat these steps ten times or less than that.
You can adjust weight as per your capacity.

3. Split Squat

This is a multi-squat dumbbell workout that helps in conditioning your lower body, strengthen your bottom part and bringing balance in your legs.

Steps:

Stand with the open space with your feet and shoulder-width apart.
Tuck your elbows and place both of your hands on your hips if you are just practicing bodyweight split squats.
You can also use dumbbells and hang them by your sides facing palms inwards.
Now raise the heel of your back foot and see that your toes should touch the floor.
Keep your back heels and hips straight.
You can repeat the steps once more as per your limit.

Bottom Line

Hope these full-body dumbbell workouts will help you shape up your body, build muscles and strengthen both your muscles and joints. However, try to follow the steps and levels of exercises as per aforesaid guidelines to get a better result.

How to Do Deadlift – An All-Inclusive Deadlift Guide

Deadlift is one of the most intense forms of exercises out there. So, let our deadlift guide come to your aid so that you can master the workout.

Considered to be one of the most wholesome, rewarding, and intense exercises out there, deadlifts are quickly becoming one of the most practiced forms of exercise among gym enthusiasts. Whether it is your gluteal muscle or your hamstring, your quads or your lower back, a deadlift makes sure it’s positive effects are seen all across your body. However, you can subject yourself to serious health hazards if you don’t know how to do a deadlift.

So, to help you out with the same, we have brought forward a deadlift guide that will help ensure you reap the most benefits out of this exercise while following necessary precautions.

How to Do Deadlift – A Detailed Deadlift Guide

Deadlift essentially refers to the lifting of the dead weight (weight without momentum) from the ground. In this exercise, all repetitions start with dead weight, which is a rarity when it comes to standard weight training exercises. If you are looking for the answer as to how to master deadlifts, you need to adopt the following five-step approach.

Step 1 – Take your starting position, which is keeping your mid-foot below the bar. Please make sure that your shins do not touch them yet. Keep your toes out at a 15° angle. Your heels should be hip-width apart; however, they must be narrower than how they are when you squat.

Step 2 – The second step in our deadlift guide involves you bowing down by bending your feet. Get a good grip on the bar and maintain a distance of shoulder-width in between your two hands. In addition, you have to ensure that your arms are vertical when viewed from the front.

Step 3 – Bend your knees until you are able to touch the bar with your shins in order to drop into your next position. Beware; not to let the bar go away from your mid-foot. In case it moves, you have to resume again with the first step. This would help to avoid injuries.

Step 4 – Raise your chest and straighten your back. In this step, you should also make sure that your mid-foot stays underneath the bar. Place your shins against the bar and your hips where they were.

Step 5 – Now, to the final and most important step – the lift. Relax, take a long breath, hold it in, and then stand up with the weight. Please ensure that the bar remains in contact with your feet when you pull. Avoid leaning back or shrugging at all cost. Furthermore, lock your knees and hips.

In order to release the weight back, you just have to unlock your knees and hips first. Proceed to lower the bar by pushing your hips backward. Keep your feet straight during this process. Bend your feet further once you realize that the bar is past your knees. You will notice that the bar will land above your mid-foot.

Do not forget to rest for a second in between each rep. Stay in your setup position with your hands placed over the bar. Take a long breath, tighten up, and pull again. Remember, each rep must begin with a dead stop. Never bounce the heavy weight off the ground.

8 Areas to Focus on for Mastering a Deadlift

In order to fully understand how to master a deadlift, you need to pay attention to these following areas. Of course, everything can be overbearing initially, given the effort this exercise demands from you. But, if you follow our instruction in each of these areas, you will soon adjust well to the mechanisms of this exercise.

If you go and speak to the fitness trainers of some of the best gyms in Kolkata, you will notice that they heavily stress on taking precautionary measures while performing an exercise of this caliber. So, without further delay, please focus on these following key areas.

Hips

The position of your hips for deadlifts will be determined by your body structure. People with long thighs have to position their hips higher than those with short thighs.

The funny thing with hips is that it gets into its position on its own when you correctly align your other body parts. As long as you keep your mid-foot underneath the bar and keep bending your knees until your shins touch the bar while grabbing it, you will see that your hips have been positioned where they are supposed to get positioned. Of course, this has to be accompanied by raising your chest.

Arms

A lesser-known trick with deadlifts is that when you are gripping the bar narrow, at about shoulder-width apart, you will be able to pull more weight. During your setup, your arms must incline from the side.

Do not forget to lock your elbows and straighten your arms before pulling off the weight from the ground, and keep them straight during the entire process until the lockout. The golden rule of deadlifts is to let your back muscles and legs lift the weight rather than your arms since arms are not build to lift such weights.

Feet

When you are setting up the bar, make sure that it is placed over the middle of your foot. This is crucial because your mid-point will act as the balance point. Remember to avoid setting the bar above your toes.

In essence, you will lose your balance if any part of your foot comes up during this whole process. Therefore, you have to always keep your mid-foot, heels, and toes down.

Shoulders

Keep your shoulders in front of the bar while setting up for a deadlift. Avoid keeping your shoulders above the bar since that puts your hips too low. Furthermore, it will also make your shins and knees come too far forward, thereby causing you to hit them on your way up.

In addition, always relax your shoulders. You don’t have to roll them up or shrug them during deadlifts because it may severely affect your shoulder joints. Let your feet do the work of lifting up the weight instead of your shoulders.

Bars

The next lesson in our deadlift guide focuses on the bar. You need to make sure that the bar leaves the ground exactly from your mid-foot on every rep.

The goal is to follow the shortest distance to reach the lockout, which you can achieve if you move up in a vertical line. So, naturally, you need to avoid horizontal bar movements because they will, without a doubt, lengthen the bar path.

Also, make sure that the floor is even and the bar is still before starting each rep. It is recommended to reset if the bar moves away from your mid-foot while setting up or in between reps.

Stance

Having a proper stance is vital for getting the rewards from this compound exercise. To achieve the perfect stance, you need to set up your heels hip-width apart. This means the wider or narrower your hips are, the wider or narrow your stance will be. The basic idea here is to create a space for your arms in order to stop them from getting blocked by your feet.

Another point you need to keep in mind is to not practice deadlift with a squat stance. A correct stance or posture will also drastically reduce the chances of you getting injured.

Knees

When you are performing a deadlift, you need to push your knees out during the setup in the same direction as your toes. The toes must point out at a 15° angle.

Following this rule will help engage your groin muscles. An underlying aspect that takes place here is that it allows for more of your muscles to work together; which naturally contributes to you being able to lift more weight.

Head

Keep your neck neutral while performing deadlifts. The goal here is to have a natural inward curve in your cervical spine. You also need to keep your spine neutral so that there is equal pressure on your spinal discs.

Do not look up to the ceiling when you are performing deadlifts since it will squeeze your spinal disc and result in a bad deadlift form. At the same time, do not look down as well because it will relax your upper-back and make it more likely to round up.

Try to look at a point on the floor that is in front of you since it will create a straight line from your hips to the top of your head. It is often an overlooked aspect of this exercise, which needs to be taken care of.

Summary

Similar to other exercise forms, deadlifts can be as dangerous when performed incorrectly as they are beneficial when they are done with the right procedure. Since it deals with a huge amount of weight, the risks are greater. Thus, you have to be extremely careful when it comes to its technicalities. We hope our guide of how to do deadlifts will position you better in performing this exercise like a pro. With that being said, we highly recommend you get professional help from a gym trainer, especially if you are new to this.