Great Exercises With Dumbbells

Dumbbells are a simple piece of exercise equipment that is often overlooked for other equipment like a kettle bell or barbell.

However, there are ways where you can fully utilize a dumbbell's potential, and these are exercises that could certainly help you for bodybuilding. As long as you know what these exercises are, you'll never look at the dumbbells the same way ever again.

This article will walk you through some of the exercises that utilize bowflex dumbbells in building and toning your body. This will hopefully enlighten you about the usefulness of this wonderful exercise equipment and encourage you to use them more.

The concept behind dumbbells is simple: they act as weights that could strengthen and test your muscle's limits. Work around these concepts, and you'll see how useful dumbbells really are.

One good example of a dumbbell-based exercise is the single leg squat, which you can use to strengthen your muscles on your legs. Some people would usually take dumbbells as equipment for arms, but with the proper workout, it can be used to benefit your whole body.

In doing the single leg squat, you start by holding two bowflex dumbbells while standing upright, with your legs apart at shoulder width. Let your arms hang loose, as you feel the weight of the dumbbells coursing through the muscles of your arms.

Afterwards, slightly bend your knees and feel the weight transfer to your thighs. Then slowly lift your leg, so that your knee is bent at ninety degrees, while keeping your lower leg parallel to the ground behind you as much as you can. Keep still with this position for a few seconds to stabilize your stance, and then slowly lower your body so that your left thigh becomes parallel to the ground.

Pause and take shallow breaths, then slowly push your body back to the position you started with. Do this for eight to twelve repetitions, then rest for around thirty seconds. Afterwards, do this with your other leg.

Exercises with dumbbells are often done to tone you arms and upper body, but most of the time, they're not effective because you target only your biceps and triceps. There are exercises with dumbbells that target different muscle groups, and one great example is the single arm dumbbell clean.

This exercise not only targets your muscles in the arms, it could also affect your chest and abdominal muscles.

To start with the single arm dumbbell, squat and grab a pair of dumbbells using an overhand grip. Make sure that you have a firm grip of them because exercises with dumbbells like this require quick and abrupt movements. It's important to make sure that you won't drop them and hurt yourself in the process.

When you have a firm hold of the dumbbells, slowly stand and lift both dumbbells up to your chest height. In this position, your arms are holding them at an angle. Then, quickly position yourself underneath the weight of these dumbbells, and then rest them on your shoulders. In this quick change of position, you are abruptly transferring the weight from your arms to your shoulders.

Your elbows should be positioned high at the end of the swift motion, and then drop your elbows while keeping the weights at the level of your shoulders.

After achieving this position, slowly push the dumbbell in your left hand upwards, pause for a few seconds, and then slowly lower the dumbbell. Do this for ten repetitions, and then rest for 30 seconds while taking in deep breaths.

After the rest, do this again, this time though, you'll be pressing the dumbbell in your right hand. Rest and repeat all over and try to complete two sets of the exercise for the best results.

Exercises with dumbbells may be as complex as the first two, or can just be incorporated in simple workouts. A good example of such exercises with dumbbells is the pushup position row, wherein you incorporate dumbbells in an existing exercise method like push ups.

To start with a pushup position row, get into a pushup stance, keeping your arms straight while your hands are resting on dumbbells. These dumbbells should be light, since you are in an awkward position for repetitively lifting heavier weights.

Make sure to keep your feet apart to maintain balance, and tighten your abdominal muscles when you pull one of the dumbbells off the floor. Do this by drawing the weight towards your chest, until you get to a point where your elbow is already above your back.

Pause for a couple of seconds, and then return the dumbbell slowly to the floor. Afterwards, do this with the other arm. Do this six times for each arm, completing two sets with thirty seconds of rest in between.

Exercises with bowflex dumbbells could be simple or complex, but it's not one-dimensional as most people think. It depends on the exercise you perform, because with the right workout, you'll be able to utilize bowflex dumbbells to their full potential.