Dumbbells seem to have been left behind in the dust of modern physical training implements.
Barbells are hard core.
Kettlebells are hip.
Sandbags are rugged.
Mace Bells and clubs are the implements of ancient warriors...or so we're told by the club swinging influencers.
Machines are the way of modern bodybuilders because they are most stable.
But dumbbells?...
The steadfast dumbbell has been left behind and eliminated from the limelight.
Maybe it's because dumbbells are like Volvos – always reliable, safe, efficient, yet not flashy.
But Volvos remain fantastic automobiles year after year. Just as dumbbells remain fantastic training equipment.
I've said it before and I'll say it again and again: dumbbells are the most versatile equipment in any gym. A pair of adjustable dumbbells will provide the best return on your investment of any home gym equipment out there. They're always available at the gym, and on a crowded gym day, you can string together an entire muscle building workout with just the dumbbell section.
Dumbbells are not super stable. But that's always been one of the pros for them. Yes, stability can help encourage great hypertrophy because you're able to provide stress on the targeted muscles without any coordination, balance, or skill. But, strengthening your stabilizing muscles while training with unstable objects, like dumbbells, will allow you to build more muscle and burn more calories because you're using more muscles (the little ones count) while having to work harder to move the load. I'll discuss this point a bit more later, but even if the goal is maximizing body composition, training other qualities are still liable for health and performance, which can further improve hypertrophy down the road.
Machines are excellent – don't get me wrong. But dumbbells allow you to adjust the movement, range of motion, and hand position to best fit YOUR body.
Many of my clients have shoulder issues. Odds are, you know someone with cranky shoulders, too. Machine bench pressing and overhead pressing apparatuses (apparati?) force the hands into specific positions – often positions that are painful for people with shoulder issues.
Vince Gironda used to say (and I'm paraphrasing), 'machines will never be as good as dumbbells because it retards the bodybuilder's ability to be creative and connect with his/her body.'
I believe what Vince was insinuating is that lifting weights for cosmetic purposes – which is the reason 80% of us are ACTUALLY lifting weights...to look better – is an art form and you need to lift in a way that best stimulates your muscles.
Each body is different. So the way I curl may be different than the way you curl because it's the way I get the most stimulus. There's a bit of a mind muscle connection idea that goes along with this and Gironda (along with the other golden era bodybuilders) was certainly an advocate for the positive effect your ability to connect your mind to the muscle had on the ability to develop that muscle. Of course, there is still very little evidence supporting the effect of mind-muscle connection as fact, just like there's little evidence that supports getting a pump is correlated to muscle growth. But that doesn't mean they're most definitely not related. Just take that as you will – the jury is still out, but many people believe that these factors play a role. I'm not here to argue one way or another, but I do seem to have more fun training muscles that I have a better mind-muscle connection to, and this allows me to get a better pump. Walking around with a pump is fun.
Dumbbells are accessible. You can find them in any gym or sporting goods store.
Dumbbells can be loaded heavy. Heavy dumbbells are easier to find and cheaper to buy than heavy, unorthodox training equipment such as kettlebells and mace bells.
Dumbbells load the body unilaterally, making sure we don't exacerbate imbalances by favoring one side more than the other – often done subconsciously.
Dumbbells are easy to bail out on if you miss a rep, and, therefore, allow you to train to failure more safely and more effectively than many other free weight options.
Dumbbells train our stabilizing muscles. While stable training can be great for hypertrophy, so can slightly unstable training. Heck, unstable training used to refer to squatting on a bosu ball. All of a sudden dumbbells are considered unstable?! Surely we aren't throwing them in the bosu ball camp! And training our stabilizers is beneficial for health and performance qualities. When I was at the surgeon's office being told I would need double hip surgery, the physical therapists noted that my primary muscles were much stronger relative to my stabilizing muscles, which was causing imbalances that caused pain. I was very strong in all the stable drills, while less impressive in the unstable, unilateral drills. If I could strengthen my stabilizers, my irregular hip shape and labral tears may not even cause pain anymore.
So for 2 months I focused on unilateral work, offset loaded carries, and a bunch of dumbbell and kettlebell exercising. When I came back I aced the performance tests so impressively that other physical therapists stopped working with their athletes to come observe. They asked how often I went to physical therapy during those 2 months (I was living 9 hours away from this particular surgery center), and I told them zero. I did it all myself.
Maybe I'm humbly bragging but I want to make my point that I am living proof that training unilaterally, with allegedly poor stability exercises and unstable equipment (dumbbells and kettlebells instead of barbells and machines) paid massive dividends in my life.
Dumbbells offer a ton of exercise options. Each exercise can be done in multiple fashions – bilaterally, unilaterally, alternatingly, isometrically on one side while actively on the other side. The list goes on.
You can do more exercise variations more effectively with dumbbells than any other implement.
Squats, deadlifts, lunges, split squats, single leg deadlifts, Romanian deadlifts, rows, shrugs, bicep curl variations, tricep extension variations, bench pressing variations, overhead pressing variations, calf raises, wrist curl variations.....and nearly infinite variations within each of those exercise variations.
Oh, what about Olympic lifts and ballistic lifts that the barbell and kettlebell are so effective for training?
Yeah, you can do several variations of dumbbell swings (people were swinging dumbbells in American gyms way more frequently than kettlebells up until fairly recently), dumbbell snatches, jerks, clean & jerks, cleans, thrusters....everything you can do with a kettlebell or barbell, you can also do with a dumbbell or two. The opposite cannot be said. Trust me. I've tried.
I often state that kettlebells and dumbbells are similar and should be trained similarly. I point out that the problem with kettlebell training for hypertrophy is that kettlebell programs lack isolation exercises for the arms and lack horizontal pressing options.
Yes, you can do curls, chest presses, shoulder isolations, bicep curls, and tricep isolation exercises with kettlebells. But not in a way that is very effective or comfortable – making it ineffective – for maximal muscle gains.
I think kettlebell programs should be paired with dumbbells to fill in these gaps.
But the fact of the matter is, you'd likely be better off just using dumbbells because dumbbells are just as good for all the exercises you might do with kettlebells.
Of course, if hypertrophy isn't your jam and you just love playing with kettlebells, ignore this statement. I, too, love kettlebells, while acknowledging their shortcomings.
But many kettlebellers complain about the lack of hypertrophy, and the solution is to pair your kettlebell training with dumbbell training while taking each set relatively close to failure.
I'm beginning to lose interest about now and need to do the dishes....which are distracting me in the sink.
So I'll wrap this up with a simple statement: Make Dumbbells Cool Again.
You'll be rewarded with bigger, better looking muscles while still having the fun that comes from hoisting iron through space, free of any cables, cambers, levers, and chrome.
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