Top 10 Dumbbell Exercises And Their Benefits
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Today’s sedentary lifestyle has made it extremely important for people to exercise regularly. Dumbbell exercises form an essential part of any strength training program. The most important benefit of dumbbell exercises is that along with strengthening the main muscle, it gets you input from other vital stabilising muscles as well.
The Best Dumbbell Exercises
Read on to know about top 10 dumbbells exercise and their benefits.
1. Chest presses on stability ball:
Benefits: Balance is the main ingredient of this exercise which a good variation of the classic dumbbell presses.
Execution: You start by lying on the ball by distributing your head, upper shoulders and upper back’s weight evenly with the rest of the body which is away from the ball. Your feet must fall flat on floor and then you stretch your arms with dumbbells till they are straight and repeat.
2. Russian twists:
Benefits: Extremely helpful for people who want to build their upper torso for sports like
baseball, swimming, golf, hockey etc.
Execution: Sit on the floor with bent knees and heels pressed to floor. Then lean back, try feeling the engage and lift the feet off the floor. Try to touch the dumbbell to the floor by twisting a little to right and keep repeating with both sides. This is one of the best dumbbell exercises for abs that shows some amazing results.
3. Side crunches:
Benefits: Better grip and strengthening other areas of arms.
Execution: Stand with your feet together and hands down. Hold dumbbell in one hand. Now touch the temple by the fingers tips of left hand. Bend to your right with the left elbow pointing up.
4. Seated shoulder press:
Benefits: Helps in day to day functioning and improves strength.
Execution: Hold the dumbbells in each hand to the sides of the shoulders and the elbows below the wrist. Now you press your arms upwards until they are extended right over the head and bring them back in starting position again.
[ Read: Aerobic Exercise to Reduce Belly Fat ]
5. Reverse flies:
Benefits: Strengthens your shoulders and upper back. Helps improve posture of the upper body.
Execution: You sit on the stability ball and hold dumbbells in each hand. Bend down from your waist so as to keeping your hands behind ankle. Now start raising the dumbbell from your sides with thumbs pointing downwards. Bring back to the first position and repeat.
6. Front raises:
Benefits: Helps in upper body weight training.
Execution: Stand on your feet and hold a dumbbell in each of your hands. Now lift the right arm up keeping your elbow until it becomes parallel to the floor. Now go back to starting position and repeat with left arm.
[ Read: Exercises to Reduce Belly ]
7. Upright rows:
Benefits: Great supplementary exercises for shoulders and traps as well.
Execution: Stand upright for this with feet shoulders-width apart. Keep dumbbells close to the body raise them to the chin. Hold it till count of two and go back to start position. Repeat at least 10 sets.
8. Shrugs:
Benefits: Strengthens and releases the tension in the trapezius muscles.
Execution: Just stand straight with dumbbells in your hands. Now just raise your shoulders straight up, as if you are shrugging. Hold it for 2 counts and release.
9. Triceps kickbacks:
Targets: Triceps.
Benefits: Strengthens triceps.
Execution: Stand upright next to a bench with one arm and leg on the bench and the upper body parallel to the ground. Hold the dumbbell and raise the arm so it is parallel to ground. Return to start position and repeat.
10. Wide arm row:
Benefits: Strengthens back and upper body.
Execution: Stand in a squatting position. Now grab a dumbbell in each hand and lift up both dumbbells without changing the knee position. The video given here explains a step to step procedure for the exercise.
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