There's over a thousand exercises that you can do with this one piece of equipment. So how
the hell are you supposed to know which ones to do? Well, don't worry, you don't have to,
I do. And today I put together for you the 10 best dumbbell exercises ever and I'm going to tell you
also why they're worthy of your consideration. So, with that said, let's get to the first one.
And we started off here with one of my favorite pulling exercises, and this is called the Dumbbell
Gorilla Row. And you're going to see quite a few different pulling exercises on this list, because
quite frankly, I don't think that we oftentimes pull enough. That being said, the versatility of
this specific variation is why it's on this list. See, I like the fact that if you want to target
your lats, you can do it by simply tucking your elbow a little bit tighter to your side and almost
trying to wrap that elbow back towards your spine. But if you want to hit more of the upper back, all
you have to do is just allow the elbow to drift out and away from you so you can hit more of the
upper back or mid scalp muscles. Or if you want to make it even more athletic based, because not
everyone is trying to be a bodybuilder, you can perform the plyometric version of this that gives
you an explosive option to not just take that mass but move it with some speed to develop more power.
The bottom line is you can never go wrong with a row, especially one as versatile as this that
gives you the opportunity to apply it no matter what your goals are in training right now.
Next up we have one of my favorite dumbbell bench press variations. Notable not for the
angle at which you perform it, because quite frankly, you could do this from a decline,
flat or inclined position, depending upon where you re weakest, but notable for how you do it.
Because this is a Static Dumbbell Press, and right off the bat you can perform this from
one of two different positions, either with the non-working dumbbell held up at the top or held
at the bottom, and that 90-degree position. Now obviously if I hold it up at the top,
there's not as much work being done by the chest. But what is happening is there's an additional
core challenge. Now, listen, we're not talking about having this thing pull me off of the bench
or diminishing the effect of the exercise for your chest. Anybody with a moderately strong core is
going to be able to do this, but it gives you a little added extra benefit without compromising
the intent of building a bigger chest. However, if I opt for the alternative position with the
dumbbell held down at the bottom of the press, I'm going to increase the time under tension.
So, while the one arm that's working is pressing up, the other one is still technically working.
The increased time under tension will elicit a greater overall effect on your chest,
giving you more growth. With both variations, your feet are going to have to become much more active,
giving you that sense of all important leg drive that's oftentimes missing from
a properly performed Dumbbell Bench Press. With better overall tightness created once again from
feet to fingertips, the standard Dumbbell Bench Press becomes more versatile, cementing the Static
Press as one of my choices for my 10 best. Next up, we shift our focus to the lower body,
and one of my absolute all-time favorite exercises is the Dumbbell Reverse Lunge. And again,
we're talking about a high degree of versatility here because this exercise can shift its focus
from anterior chain to posterior chain simply by changing the angle of your upper body. If I were
to remain upright during this exercise, it becomes very knee dominant, focusing most of the effort
on building up my quads. If I wanted to shift the focus to the posterior chain. Like I said,
all it requires is a simple shift of my torso forward because once I do this, I've now made
it much more hip dominant and shifted the focus a lot more to the glutes and hamstrings.
What's more, though, this exercise is sagittal plane dominant. I can make it a frontal plane
exercise by simply dropping one of the dumbbells. If I weight up just one side, even though I'm
moving front to back, I do have this challenge to hip stability in the frontal plane. Again,
making a standard exercise much more dimensional and cementing its spot again in my list of 10.
And though the next exercise here may not find itself into a strict bodybuilding program,
it doesn't diminish the fact that it belongs very much so in this list of 10 for its overall
total body strength and power benefits. And we're talking about the Clean Up and
Over. And the focus once again is on total body involvement of that kinetic chain with
three areas that you need to focus on, the floor and then each of your shoulders.
The nice thing about this exercise is it alleviates a lot of the requirements that
are needed to perform a barbell variation of a Clean. Technically, they're more demanding. This
is going to be a lot easier for even someone without Olympic lifting experience to perform
correctly. There's a reason why the world's most elite and well-developed athletes rely
on some variation of a Clean, and now you can join them without the technical experience or
anything more than just a dumbbell. In the realm of athletic training any
well-developed programs is going to rely on some cornerstone movements. Like pushing or
pulling or hinging or lunging or this, a Carry. And the Farmer's Carry is one of the most basic
ways to achieve this functional requirement. And once again, we're talking about a multifaceted
exercise that does a lot of different things. They say the eyes are the windows to the soul, well,
for me, the Carry is a window to your training toughness. because this is not just training the
muscle endurance of your hands and your upper traps, it trains your willpower to take another
step when your upper traps or grip is burning. And that's the thing here, guys, a lot of us lack
the toughness that we can then apply to the other areas of our training, giving us better overall
results with everything that we do. But those that commit to regular inclusion of Carries in
their training programs never seem to have that problem. Now, one thing I want to point out,
beyond the obvious focus of keeping your upper body tall with your shoulders back,
head up is to focus on the lower body as well. And I think a lot of times we rely on too many short,
choppy steps here, ignoring a big benefit we could get to the strength and stability of our hips.
I encourage people to step slowly with an exaggerated heel toe step on this because
the longer, slower strides I take, the longer I will remain in single leg stance during the walk,
which requires us to have more hip stability in that frontal plane, again giving us a secondary
benefit. The bottom line is that the Carry is an indispensable part of any well-designed athletic
training program, and when it comes to a list of just 10 exercises, it's equally irreplaceable.
Speaking of irreplaceable, this next exercise has been considered as important to complete upper
body development as the squat is to lower body development. That's why they call it
the Upper Body Squat and we're talking about the Pullover. And the cool thing about this
exercise is that it introduces, once again, that versatility that we had on, let's say,
the Gorilla Row or the Lunge. And that is a slight tweak in how you perform it can
make this exercise an option on many different training days. You can do this on a back day,
a chest day, a pull day, a push day, or even a tricep day. And that is because you can change
how you angle your elbows during the exercise. If I want to focus on the lats, all I have to
do is perform this with flared elbows pointing my elbows out to the side as much as possible,
trying to create that width in the back on every single repetition, and stopping the
dumbbell at a point just about at your eyeline. If I want to shift the focus to my upper chest,
all I have to do once again is focus on the elbows, this time trying to turn them
into each other or rotate the biceps in towards each other. A little bit of relative adduction,
combined with the flexion at the shoulder, is going to do a really good job, as you can see
here of hitting those upper chest fibers. But we have that third option, that tricep option,
and all you have to do is realize that the triceps and the lats actually share some common functions.
And that is, I can stretch the long head with my arm placed in shoulder flexion up overhead
like I can at the bottom of a Pullover. But from there, I don't have to drive the rest of
the exercise through the lats. I can stop midway and just focus on extending the elbows the rest of
the way. The fact is, whether or not you consider this the upper body squat, I think we all can
agree that its versatility here gives good reason for why I include it on my list of 10 best.
This next exercise is one I feel has slipped a little bit into obscurity, and that's a shame. And
hopefully this video helps to bring it back. When we're talking about the Dumbbell Step Up. Because
once again, we have a very versatile, athletic, multi-dimensional exercise. And it's one that can
be performed very easily at home or at a gym with two dumbbells or even just a single dumbbell. And
talk about functional, it s mimicking a pattern that we use, oh, I don't know almost every
single day when we climb a set of stairs. But we can apply this again with a focus on
either the quads, the posterior chain, glutes and hamstrings, or even something more explosive. If
you want the exercise to focus on the quads. Then once again, like the Lunge, you want to make sure
you maintain an upright torso when you do it. If you want the focus to be a little bit more
on the posterior chain, you're simply going to angle your torso a little bit more forward
and make sure you maintain that as you complete every repetition. And of course, as I mentioned,
you can decrease the weight a little bit, but opt for the more explosive variation of the exercise,
as I'm showing you here. And though not particularly popular for the average gym goer,
this was a staple lower body exercise for all my MLB athletes and really any strength and
conditioning coach knows that. And so, you including it in your programs will
give you a leg up and better results. And now for the next exercise, and for the
fourth time on this list, we're going back to pulling. This time the High Pull. We're doing a
vertical pull rather than a horizontal pull. And what's great about this exercise is it's not the
Upright Row. Did you get that straight? It's the opposite of the Upright Row, but it does
do an amazing job of hitting your middle delts and your rear delts and also your traps. What
I love about this exercise is it gives you the abduction that you would get if you wanted to do,
let's say, a dumbbell side lateral raise, which would have been in my top 10. But because I know
I can get additional benefits for the rear delts and traps, I choose this instead.
And the key is getting your elbows down and your wrist high, because this will also bring in some
external rotation at the shoulder. You know, activate that rotator cuff. So, it really is
an all encompassing exercise that does everything it can to strengthen your shoulder girdle rather
than break it down. And what's even better here is because the moment the arm is decreased from
a Side Lateral Raise, I can actually increase the weight, creating an opportunity for more
overload. Now, how many times do you try to train your rear delts with very, very light
weights doing Reverse Flys. This exercise with a combination of abduction and extension is going
to give you a very unique high-tension load on the rear delts and just watch as it blows them
up in the process. The fact is, no matter how many pulls I pick, this pull is what I prefer to be in
my top 10. Now go say that 10 times fast. Now, as we know, dumbbells don't have to be
limited to just the big muscle exercises in order to be effective. They can also be used for your
abs. That's right, your abs are muscles too, and they respond to external resistance, especially if
you can do an exercise like the Russian Row. Wait, Jeff, isn't it called the Russian Twist? Yeah,
if you actually twist. But instead, what people oftentimes do is take the weight in their hand and
just place it side to side, turning it into something I call a Russian Tap. But what's
better is if you actually think about rowing the dumbbell back and driving your elbow side to side
behind your body as far as you can go, carrying that weight with you. You're getting not only
rotational differential between your upper body and your pelvis, but the weight in your hand is
actually causing you to have to prevent lateral flexion as you turn that way. In other words, if
you just let the weight pull your body over, your shoulders are going to tip towards the ground.
The key to an effective Russian Twist, and therefore training your obliques,
is to prevent that over lateral flexion or that even that over rotation. And when we throw a
little additional weight into your hands, you're oftentimes stimulated in a way that you just don't
get from doing repetition after repetition of the bodyweight version. But the bottom-line is don't
overlook the abs anymore when it comes to dumbbell exercises, you've got a great opportunity here to,
if nothing else, introduce a new twist into your ab training arsenal. Just make sure you twist.
Now, of course, you should know me well enough by now to know that no list of mine will be complete
without some version of a Bicep Curl. And for me, I love this variation of a Dumbbell Curl.
It's called the Strict Curl, but not quite. It's a Strict Curl into a Cheat Curl because we've got
some more left after we reach failure on the first part. But it starts with me, with my back to the
wall, literally, and my head and my butt, because all three points of contact should not come off
the wall at any point during this exercise. And what I'm focusing on is a no momentum curl. In
other words, making the biceps do all of the work, at least for the first half. Because as soon as I
reach failure here, I really am not done. Because I've talked about the benefits of a little extra
momentum in Cheat at the appropriate moment, and this would be the moment.
So, what I do now is step away from the wall and allow myself to get a little
bit of extension through my back to get the weights up. I don't want a cheat pass vertical,
but at least get a little bit of momentum and heft into my lift in order to get those
dumbbells up and take me to and through failure. Any exercise that allows me to go beyond failure,
particularly for the biceps, where I can apply a slow eccentric to it, is going to be a great
one for building those biceps to their maximum potential. And as far as reaching my potential,
I think I've gotten pretty close. And you can too, if you throw this one in your 10 best.
Now, what would this look like if you decided to take a bunch of these exercises and put them into
one workout? Well, I've actually done that for you too, and you can check it out right here in this
video with a Home Total Body Dumbbell Workout. If you're looking for a complete 90-day program,
we have one called Jacked that trains you with nothing but dumbbells at all available
at Athleanx.com. If you haven't done so, make sure you click Subscribe and turn on your Notifications
so you never miss a video from me when I put one out. All right guys, see you soon.