In the latest video on the Athlean-X channel, strength coach Jeff Cavaliere breaks down the “greatest dumbbell exercises of all time” which can be used to boost your gains across every muscle group.
Biceps
The best way to grow your biceps is to make sure you’re programming exercises into your workouts that hit every part of the muscle, and Cavaliere lists a series of curl variations which do just that: waiter’s curls for the peak of the bicep, alternating dumbbell curls for the short head, drag curls for the long head, and cross body hammer curls for the brachialis. He also suggests using dumbbells in a weighted chinup, which will enable you to load up your biceps more than that move would usually allow.
Triceps
For Cavaliere, the lying tricep extension is the exercise for building your triceps, as it places more of a stretch on the long head of the muscle than a lot of other tricep moves (the incline powerbomb is also good for this). You can complement this with the dumbbell kickback, which helps the long head reach maximum contraction.
And then the JM press provides an opportunity to add load. “When we’re talking about building bigger triceps without machines and barbells, this is going to give you the chance to actually use heavier dumbbells and get the overload that’s going to create the size you’re looking for,” says Cavaliere.
Back
Rows are a typical back builder, but Cavaliere isn’t a fan of the standard one-armed leaning dumbbell row due to the elevated hernia risk, and substitutes it with the tripod row. This keeps both feet on the ground while maintaining the mechanics of the exercise. The high pull then targets the upper back muscles, and the pullover stretches the lats, while the weighted pullup is great for building size on top of that back strength.
Legs
One of Cavaliere’s all-time favorite leg exercises is the Bulgarian split squat. “It’s a multidimensional exercise that can be overloaded very successfully with just dumbbells,” he says. He also recommends reverse lunges (which are a good option if you struggle with knee pain), Romanian deadlifts, and offset lunges.
Chest
“It doesn’t get any more basic than the dumbbell bench press,” says Cavaliere. “Of course you can increase the intensity via a bunch of intensifying techniques, but at its root level, doing this exercise has got to be one of the staples in your arsenal when you’re trying to build a bigger chest.”
While Cavaliere usually avoids recommending fly exercises as he doesn’t endorse doing them without support, he makes an exception for the floor fly, which is performed from a lying position.
Shoulders
Finally, Cavaliere’s greatest shoulder-building exercises include the scoop press, which activates the front delts, cheat lateral raises which target the middle delt, hip huggers for the side and rear delts, and the rear delt row. Other options are the dumbbell front raise, which hits the front lats without letting the rest of the shoulder muscles do too much of the work, and the over-and-back, which is an all-rounder press variation you can load up to pack on more size.
This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io
Comments are closed.