What Are the Benefits of Dumbbell Training?

Dumbbells are truly an essential component of any home fitness setup and an important addition to your workout regimen, whether you’re a complete beginner or an advanced trainer. The adaptability of dumbbells means they can be used to target a variety of fitness areas, and can achieve outstanding results no matter your personal fitness goals. While they’re sometimes ignored for their more popular relative, the barbell, dumbbells can actually provide a more comprehensive workout, as they usually require greater stability and core control to handle, with many dumbbell exercises incorporating muscles across the entire body. They also have the edge of greater portability, increased storage options, including a selection of stands, and saving precious workout space. The CORTEX range of dumbbells include diverse choices to suit your needs and weights ranging from 5kg dumbbells, 10kg dumbbells, up to 32kg. There are also a number of choices in terms of material, build, shape, and fixed or adjustable dumbbells for sale. We’ll be outlining the key benefits of dumbbell training, along with some useful exercises for you to try.  

Weight Loss 

If your goal is to lose body fat, you want an increased intensity in your workout to use up a greater amount of energy, leading to a higher calorie expenditure. Dumbbells are an excellent weight loss tool in this regard, as they allow the user to easily incorporate extra weight into an exercise, increasing intensity and expending more energy. Dumbbells have the added benefit of maintaining and building muscle mass while burning fat, as well as increasing post-workout metabolism for an extra calorie burn. Dumbbells are perhaps most effective when used within a high-intensity interval training (HIIT) workout, or Tabata, working to increase the intensity of a cardio exercise and deliver greater results. The aim of many HIIT workouts is to elevate your heart rate to a high level in a short amount of time, delivering a focused burn for fat while preserving muscle. Using a 5kg dumbbell or 10kg dumbbell is useful for active cardio HIIT, while the 10kg to 30kg range can be used for focused movements and compound lifts, exerting more energy in a shorter amount of time, leading to greater calorie expenditure. 

Muscle Gain and Functional Strength 

Whether you’re looking at an overall improvement in your functional strength, or wanting to build specific muscles, dumbbells can be used to great effect in delivering strength gains. Dumbbells require greater stabilisation and actually utilise more muscle fibres to secure the weight. This is one of the biggest advantages dumbbells have over barbells, as this stabilisation not only targets a greater number of muscles, but is safer for the user, reducing the risk of injury when compared to barbells. Dumbbells are generally easier on the joints, given the freedom of movement and greater variety that they provide, making it easier to accelerate strength training safely and comfortably. Dumbbells also help to identify and eliminate strength imbalances, such as when performing bench presses. As opposed to barbell bench presses, each side works independent of the other, disallowing the over-compensation that often happens when one arm is stronger than the other. With dumbbells, you can quickly identify your own areas of weakness, and adjust accordingly. Other good exercises include tricep kickbacks or dumbbell lunges. 

Improved Cardiovascular Health 

Cardiovascular health relates to the health of the heart and the blood vessels, and its ability to transport vital nutrients and oxygen throughout the body. Improving the cardiovascular system involves training the functionality of the heart under stressful and intense conditions. Workouts that involve dumbbells will increase the intensity of the exercise and require the heart to beat faster than the same exercise without dumbbells. As mentioned previously, dumbbells can easily be incorporated into cardio workouts such as HIIT for greater intensity, however weight training itself can also provide amazing benefits for heart health. A great exercise to try out is a dumbbell squat with punches, which incorporates dumbbells to increase intensity while also providing a full-body strength workout. Standard weight training with dumbbells has a number of benefits outside of just building muscle, such as increasing circulation to different parts of the body and increasing lean muscle mass, taking pressure off of your arteries. The decrease in body fat that dumbbells can assist with will also take pressure off the heart as well as improving cholesterol levels.  

Balance and Coordination 

Free weights such as dumbbells are known for their ability to challenge your balance, meaning you’ll be getting a lot of incidental coordination training in your workout whenever you incorporate a dumbbell. Improving your balance is an important, and often neglected element of personal fitness, as it reduces the risk of injury, requires greater core strength and will allow you increased accessed to a variety of movements. Exercises such as dumbbell lunges, single leg cross-body punches or single leg dumbbell dead lifts will improve full-body coordination while maintaining muscle.  

Portability and Efficient Use of Space 

Outside of the functional health benefits, dumbbells offer a practical solution to those looking to save space and workout in different places. This makes them a popular option for those building their home workout space, or need to travel around for their workout.  For those who are putting together a more comprehensive home-gym, there are options to expand on your dumbbell set to include more weight options and a variety of different dumbbell categories. Another option for saving that extra space is a set of adjustable dumbbells, a good option for those who want a complete set of weights in one handy set. CORTEX’s adjustable sets are built with a smart locking system and selection dial that allow the user to easily switch between different weights on the same bar. This makes them safer to use, and minimises the time to change weights in between sets.  

Conclusion 

Given the range of dumbbells available, their versatility, and amazing benefits for personal fitness, it’s possible there isn’t a single other piece of fitness equipment that can offer the same number benefits in relation to its size and cost. When you incorporate dumbbells into your workout regime, you will not only be increasing muscular strength, but also your endurance, cardiovascular health and weight loss. Lifespan Fitness has a wide array of dumbbells to choose from, including fixed or adjustable, different build, shape and materials, cheap dumbbells and a comprehensive choice of weight amounts to suit every type of user. Speak to our friendly team members today and we’ll be able to help you on your fitness journey.