Can you build muscle using only dumbbells? find out assuredly in this 4-step, eye-opening guide.

Yes, you can build muscle using only dumbbells. However, you need to train hard with enough overall volume to elicit muscle growth. Your muscles do not care whether you are using dumbbells, barbells, resistant bands, cables, etc.

Your muscles only know stress, and how

You can experiment with different weights, reps, sets, rest time between sets, and different training frequencies to find what works for you, and keep using that strategy for as long as it works.

Pros of the dumbbells

1. Compact and easy to carry.
2. Provides a natural and full range of motion.
3. Provides the benefit of unilateral training.
4. Can strengthen and build up lagging body parts.
5. Versatile to train with, can train most of the body parts with dumbbells.

Cons of the dumbbells

1. Safety issues when performing the lift-off (lifting of the ground or thighs).
2. Harder to use with progressive overload (increasing the difficulty level via an increasing number of sets, reps, or total weight lifted).
3. Requires greater skill levels and stability to safely perform lifts
4. Beginner generally struggles more as the neurological pattern (desired pattern to let the dumbbells travel, either in a straight path like bench press, rows, etc, or as in a curved path, like a dumbbell chest fly or biceps curl, etc) has not been set up yet.

Below is a step-by-step guide that you should follow to build muscle using only dumbbells.

1. Plan your workout routine
2. Find your primary movements
3. Provide additional support with supplementary exercises
4. Create your daily target of selected exercises, sets, reps, and rest between sets

Plan your workout routine

Planning is always the best thing that you can do for your health and fitness goals, as planning gives you a structured plan wherein you can tackle things as needed, and modify or remove stuff that isn’t working, unlike an unplanned individual who runs around like a headless chicken.

Second, let’s take our goal of building muscles: in order to achieve that we need to think about what helps in building muscle – the short answer is weight training, a high protein diet, enough daily sleep, etc.

Select your primary movements

Choose your important movements – it may be important to choose compound movements as your important movements because compound exercises target more muscles than isolation exercises, compound exercises help improve overall strength, it also helps burn more fat, has more carry-over effect to real life, etc.

Important Compound Exercises – Use exercises like Chest presses, Shoulder presses, Deadlifts, Rows, Hip thrusts, Prone high rows, Squats, Push-ups, etc.

Provide additional support with supplementary exercises

Use supplementary or Isolation Exercises to completely train and fatigue the target muscle – Isolation exercises like chest and rear dealt flys, biceps, and hamstrings curls, shoulder lateral raises, toes, and hill raise, leg and triceps extensions, crunches, etc, provide enough stimulus and cause micro trauma to the remaining muscle fibers that get left out from the compound exercise training. Isolation exercises are best for bodybuilding training.

Use movement patterns like push and pull

Use exercises with pushing movements like – chest presses, push-ups, overhead presses, triceps extensions, hip thrusts, squats, deadlifts, heel, and toe raises, shoulder lateral raises, chest and rear delt flys, etc.

Use exercises with pulling movements like – rows, high pulls, chest-supported prone high rows, biceps curls, hamstring curls, ab crunches, forearms curls, shrugs, etc.

Coupling both pushing and pulling movements can give you the benefits of both worlds – strength gain, as well as functional gains from compound exercises. Also, compound exercises can shed more overall body fat, and can save you time spent in the gym. And the isolation exercises give you maximum muscle gain, thus helping you in bodybuilding.

Thus giving you a much more complete workout, rather than training with just isolation exercises or just compound exercises. Therefore you should train with both of these movement patterns.

If you are still unsure as to what exercises to choose and how to perform an exercise using only dumbbells, then click here or click on the picture below to go to a playlist of dumbbells-only exercises with demonstrations.

Set a daily objective of exercises, reps and sets, Rest, and Speed

First, you must be to understand the meaning of these concepts, and then they can be applied to your exercise routine. In simple terms, it’s a repetition and refers to an entire move. For example, one bicep curl equals one rep. 5 bicep curls equal five reps. Reps are the basis of sets, which is typically the total amount of reps you’ll perform before stopping for breaks. More information on sets reps, rest and speed further down.

Reps

Repetition (rep) is the completion of an exercise, like a deadlift or bench press, or even a one-arm curl. A maximum number of repetitions (RM) can be your own personal highest or the maximum you can lift during a single session of an exercise. So, a 10-RM is the highest you can lift, and you will be able to successfully do 10 repetitions using the correct lifting posture.

Sets

A set is a repeated number of repetitions that are done sequentially. For instance, eight repetitions could be one bench press.

Rest

The rest interval is the period during which the muscle is resting to allow the muscle to recuperate. The time between sets can range between 30 seconds and two minutes. Certain exercises may also require brief rests between sets.

The best time for resting will depend on your objectives. Muscle hypertrophy, which is also known as growing and building, could require less time off than powerlifting for instance.

• The hypertrophy(max muscle gains) resting period is 30- 60 seconds
• The endurance of muscles is maximized using rest periods of between 30 and 60 seconds
• The power-based training needs a resting period of between 1 and 2 minutes
• Strength-focused training needs a resting period of >2-5 minutes

It is crucial to plan your breaks between sets. If you don’t take your time resting enough, and then begin another set too quickly it could cause you to overwork your muscles and be at risk of injury. If you take too long to rest between sets, your muscles will fatigue.

FAQ’s

Can I build muscle at home with just dumbbells?

Yes, you can build muscle at home with just dumbbells, as your muscles have no idea, as to what equipment is being used by you. It only knows that there is an external force being applied to it, and its job is to counteract the applied force on it.

Muscle fibers get stronger and bigger as it gets used to the amount of force being applied and it gets stronger in return to prevent them been broken down again.

How long does it take to build muscle with dumbbells?

Building muscles can take around 4 – 6 weeks. Drastic and visible results can be seen from 12 – 14 weeks. However, the muscle growth rate should depend upon your training plan, nutrition, and rest and recovery protocol.

Can I get big arms with just dumbbells?

Yes, you can get big arms with just dumbbells, or any other resistance training equipment for that matter. Muscles only care about the amount of external force applied to them, and the level of tension it is experiencing when fighting gravity to raise the weight up.

What should be the rep range I target for building muscle?

ACSM or The American College of Sports Medicine recommends 4 to 6 repetitions with heavier weights for maximizing strength. 8 to 12 repetitions for hypertrophy (build muscle size), and 15+ reps for muscular endurance.

How long should a dumbbell workout be?

The ideal length of a workout is around 60 – 90 minutes, doing more than this could mean you are either not training hard enough and just fooling around in the gym, or you are just overtraining and putting unnecessary stress on both, your mental as well as physical well-being.

Is it better to do more reps or more weight?

Depending upon your goals. If your goal is to build as much strength as possible then adding more weights into your training daily can be useful. However, If your goal is just to build maximum muscle mass, then training around the 8 – 12 rep range or more can be helpful.

Can I get in shape with just dumbbells?

Yes, you can get in shape with just dumbbells. The lockdowns have shown us countless successful body transformations be it – building muscle mass or losing extra body flab, training with dumbbells works.

Just train with moderately heavy dumbbells, eat a high-protein, calorie-controlled diet, and do cardiovascular training and within no time you will be in the best shape of your life.

Can you work out with just dumbbells?

Yes, you can work out with just dumbbells. Just train with both the compound and isolation exercises and you can be, rest assured that you will have a productive and effective workout using only dumbbells.

Conclusion

Yes, you can build muscles with only dumbbells, or any other resistance training equipment for that matter. Muscles only care about the amount of external force applied to them, and the level of tension it is experiencing when fighting gravity to raise the weight up.

So hopefully our guide on: Can you build muscle using only dumbbells has answered all your queries and you are satisfied with our answers.

Rakesh S

👋 I am Rakesh Sonawane, a personal trainer with around half a decade of working experience. I have been fortunate enough to have trained people from all walks of life.

I created this site to simplify the path of getting fit and healthy as the internet is filled with too complex and useless info.

My website content is well-planned, thought, and well-researched before being published on the site for you to read. Hopefully, you will enjoy my helpful, practical content.