Limited to a set of dumbbells, will this be a problem?

menly

Hey,

Quick piece of advise if any of you have a couple of secs. Firstly, I'm a poor filthy student and the local gym is quite terribly expensive (£50/month) which sadly, puts it out of my price range. I recieved a pretty nifty set of dumbbells for my birthday and I'm looking to form a routine involving them. I've spent a few days googling but most of the routines involve gym machinary and benches and the like. What I'd like to know is, is there a workout routine that can be catered for somebody who only has access to a decent pair of dumbbells (go up to 30kg which for now is enough).

Thanks

London1976

Google these up mate

dumbell bench press
dumbell flys
dumbell shoulder press
dumbell shrugs
dumbell bicep curls
dumbell skullcrushers
dumbell suitcase lift
dumbell bentover rows.

There are plenty more but these should do for now.

menly

Cheers mate, didn't actually realize so many of the exercises could be adapted for the dumbells. Alot of good exercises there so ta for that. Would you recomend just doing 3 sets of each, along with some dumbbell squats per workout? They look like a fairly varied set of upper body movements, so with the squats should provide a fairly comprehensive work out? I was thinking of working out 3-4 times weekly.

I'm also toying with the idea of incorporating a 5-10min jog in the morning when I get up, might be a bit extreme for now though!

London1976

Doing what i said is a fullbody workout with dumbells.
You could do this 3 x per week doing 3 sets of 10 reps each exercise

About the morning jog, 5-10 mins i cant see no point in that. Can't you manage 20 mins

menly

Right thanks mate, does the order of the exercises matter?

A couple of questions about the reps, I actually feel pretty stupid asking this hehe! You say do 3 sets of the reps, my first question is do I do the sets in succession? Eg first exercise: 10 reps, 2minute rest, 10 more, 2minute rest, final 10. Next exercise... etc etc. Or, do I do 10 reps of exercise 1, then 10 of exercise 2, then 10 of exercise 3, then once I've finished 1 set of all the exercise, I start again with the second set. I hope you understand what I mean by that.

Also, should I be changing the weight between reps? If so, should I be increasing or decreasing?

I must apologise if these questions come up regularly, but there just seem to be so many different methods, options, so many people touting their idea as the best, etc etc.

Thanks

dj2000uk

You can use these to do squats, bench press and deadlifts however if you total amount of weight you have is 30kg your going to be maxing this out rather quick.

If you can afford it, for £50 you can get a basic bar and a few more weights from argos which would give you a lot more use.

I have a load of 1" weights I want to get rid of but the postage is not really worth the value of the weights!

mightymariner

Work the larger muscle groups first, Legs, back etc. and leave the smaller groups until the end. Do all the sets for each exercise in turn

e.g Squats 3 sets x 10 reps

menly

Thanks for the advise guys. Tried out that routine yesterday as best I could (there was some improvisation as I had no access to a bench, but I did me best ). Judging by how sore I felt this morning its a good robust routine (I practically couldn't move to brush my teeth haha!) that I'll persue further perhaps modifying it a little as I go. Only thing I need to learn now is how to appropriately warm up, can't be feeling like I did this morning every other day!

jonnymc

Remember to stretch, prior to lifting ANY weights mate.