Maximize Your Dumbbell Workouts

Change your mindset.

Be married to the movement pattern — not the equipment, says Foster. 

Barbells aren’t the only way you can train essential functional movement patterns like the squat, hinge, push, pull, and rotate. They’re simply one modality to get the job done. “However we're training, whatever equipment is at our fingertips, that's what we're going to use,” says Foster. “Because sometimes you're traveling, sometimes you're not in the same location, sometimes you can't get to the Club, sometimes you have to work out at home.”

Say you were planning to use barbells for a lower-body day, with plenty of squats and deadlifts. Ask yourself: How can you practice the same movement patterns — and do so in a challenging way — with other equipment? 

“If we remove this idea that, ‘I have to use that equipment in order for me to get these results,’ I think it frees you up more in regards to again, more freedom and room to just explore with movement,” says Foster. “You end up not only reaching whatever goal it is you want to reach, you end up surpassing it. And you end up realizing that you have more goals than what you thought, because you allowed yourself to try something different and challenge your idea of what you think you needed to get to your results.”

Practice building strength in new conditions.

Barbells can build serious strength, but these gains may apply only in the context of the specific exercise. You might be able to barbell back squat 200 pounds, but that’s not too impressive unless you’re also strong when you’re moving through other planes of motion, you’re on unstable ground, you're accessing larger ranges of motion, or the weight isn’t perfectly distributed. 

When dumbbells are your only option, it’s time to build up those other facets of strength. If your go-to is barbell back squats, you might try front-loaded dumbbell squats. You might only be able to lower to 90 degrees with the back squat, but you could find yourself sinking deeper and testing larger, previously unexplored ranges of motion with the front squat variation, says Foster. You’re still challenging and building your strength — just in a different way.

Weight position is just one variable to tweak. Try single-leg work (e.g., single-leg deadlift, pistol squat, Bulgarian split squats), which are difficult enough without a full barbell. You could even change your direction of movement. “I think most times we tend to move in a very back-and-forth direction — we call that the sagittal plane,” says Foster. “Maybe you haven't tried lifting heavy and going laterally, so going off the side.” You might try curtsy lunges or cossack squats to challenge your lower body and chest flys and reverse flys to test your upper body. 

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Shift away from pure strength.

Pure strength — the maximum amount of force a muscle or muscle group can generate — is just one element of your fitness. Muscular endurance and power are equally important to build — and you don’t necessarily need 100-pound weight plates to train those variables. 

Normally train with low reps, moderate sets, and plenty of rest with barbells? Try upping your volume and reducing your rest to build muscular endurance. Alternatively, practice being explosive with cleans, snatches, thrusters, or weighted burpees. 

Play with tempo.

You can easily make a lighter dumbbell load feel more taxing by slowing down your reps, says Foster. 

In fact, focusing on the eccentric phase of the movement (when your muscles are lengthening while contracting, such as hinging from your hips during your deadlift or extending your arm after a biceps curl) may be more effective for muscular hypertrophy than concentric-focused or conventional strength training, research suggests. A recent seven-week study found that participants who spent four seconds in the eccentric phase during squats had significantly greater hypertrophy in the vastus lateralis (a quadriceps muscle) than the participants who only spent one second in the phase. You might even add in isometrics (think: pauses or holds) to tap into your muscular endurance, says Foster. 

Use dumbbells as a chance to experiment. Mess around with your speed and plane of motion. Test out exercises that put you out of your comfort zone. That’s where the growth will happen.