When thinking about gaining muscles, most people think you need a gym full of equipment and hours of training.
Most people don’t have these resources, so what options do they have for gaining muscle? And can you have a change in muscle mass by using dumbbells?
Building muscles need a lot of work, and you need to have the right resources to attain your goals.
Can You Build Muscle With Only Dumbbells?
Yes, you can use dumbbells to build muscles, depending on how you use them. You could use dumbbells of different weights in different positions to affect different muscle groups. You can also squat or do core exercises with dumbbells to affect the body.
You can visit BulkExtreme.com to get some supplements to make the journey easier for you, but here are the basics you have to keep in mind for bodybuilding using dumbbells as well;
How To Build Strength With Only Dumbbells
Strength is a skill, and you need to practice your squats, deadlifts, bench-press, and so on. If you don’t have access to all these, it is inevitable to lose strength, and this is okay because you can prepare your body to regain all of it very fast.
You can focus entirely on mobility while you don’t have access to a gym; you will lose some strength when you get back, but it will come back very fast.
Since you will be more stable and mobile, you can surpass your previous best lift in a short time frame.
You can add some bodyweight exercises to keep the muscles active and increase the intensity of the works outs by using products from BulkExtreme.com.
This is the equivalent of pulling an arrow back before shooting it; it will be great for you in the long run.
Muscles rely on more than an activity to grow. You need to get the right diet and enough rest to get your hormones to work correctly and build muscles. Proteins in your diet will provide amino acids, building blocks for new muscles.
Taking in enough proteins will allow your natural hormones to shift the body into a state where the tissues repair and grow.
This process occurs mostly when we are asleep, which means that sleep is crucial for gaining muscle mass.
Gender and age affect the hormones; thus, they affect how you build muscles, so younger men have an easier time building muscle. Muscle mass gain is an everyday process, and you can work on it even if you don’t have access to a gym.
The Best Dumbbell Exercises
The dumbbell is one of the most versatile tools you could have, and using a dumbbell correctly will help you build muscle.
Dumbbells allow you to train like an athlete; you will have the freedom you wouldn’t get from a bar.
You will also use small spaces like your living room or basement to work out; thus, it is a good choice for everyone. Let us break down all of these exercises and see what benefits they have;
1. The dumbbell curl and press
This is a compound workout, and with any dumbbell exercise, you need to get as much out of each set as possible.
With a curl and press, you will have a bicep movement as you lift the dumbbell to your shoulders, then a shoulder movement as you move them above your head.
The best part is that you get these movements to blend because of how the biceps function. For the biceps to fully contract, you have to include some elevation of the shoulder, and you get this through the curl and press.
This exercise puts antagonistic muscles that would normally work separately together to allow you to build muscles more rapidly.
2. The crush grip goblet squat
The goblet is a great way to train your lower body since it strains everything, hamstrings, glutes, and quads.
The goblet squat also drops you down to your natural center of gravity, making it a good choice for those who don’t know how deep they should squat.
With the crush grip, you get a chance to add some upper body activity to your session, and this session would normally be passive for the upper body.
As you squeeze the dumbbell between your arms, you will activate your chest, traps, and core ensuring you use all your muscles top to bottom.
3. The dumbbell pullovers
You can do a dumbbell pullover as a back or upper chest exercise, and the difference comes in your form and technique.
Either way, this is one of the most effective exercises you can do, especially if you have only one dumbbell.
If you take the dumbbell and squeeze your hands together and pull them against each other as you pull over your chest, it will work the upper chest.
You will get more activation around the shoulders if you lead with the elbows rather than your hands.
It doesn’t matter which one you choose, but the best thing to do is switch between them and work on both your shoulders and chest.
4. Farmer’s carry
If you have two dumbbells and a lot of weights, you can try a traditional farmer’s carry. With a farmer’s carry, load up the weight as much as you can lift on both sides and then carry the dumbbells and walk with a straight back and hands.
If you don’t have a place to walk, you can walk back and forth in the available space. Walking will make the exercise more challenging since you will work your waist and lower body in the process, resulting in better results.
This is also a demanding exercise for your back since you will have to learn to hold with the bigger muscles in your upper back.
5. Dumbbell Thrusters
This is one of the ugly ones; this one will kill you because you will be working every muscle in your body.
You will start in a squat position, and as you come up, you will let that momentum continue as you lift the weights above your head.
The momentum will only get you so far; you only get the dumbbells above the head if you use all your upper body muscles to generate the strength to do so. You need to add as much weight as you can press over your head.
This can become an effective metabolic exercise depending on what you are working on. You can go lighter, but for more reps to make it a metabolic booster but more weight will be a classic builder for your muscles.
What Makes Muscles Grow?
Most people love going to the gym, and their goals are to burn fat or develop muscles; for most people, it is to develop muscles. The average human has over 600 muscles which make up about half of our body weight.
They work alongside connective tissue to keep our bodies together, help us move, and hold us up.
Your muscles need constant attention and care whether or not you are a bodybuilder. How you treat the muscles each day determines whether they will grow strong or tire out.
When you need to lift something, your brain and muscles will work together to help you lift it. The brain will signal motor neurons in your arms to fire which will cause muscles to contract and relax.
These muscle movements will pull on your bones and pressure the task. If the test is hard, the brain’s signal will grow bigger, so it will signal more motor groups to help you complete your task.
If the object is too heavy, the brain will call on other muscles to get help, making you plant your feet, tense your back, and tighten your belly. Combining these muscles will help you generate enough force to yank the door open.
While you work so hard, your muscle fibers get another type of cellular change; as they take the pressure of the job, they undergo microscopic damage. The damage is a good thing in this situation.
The injured locations will secrete cytokines, inflammatory particles that will activate the body to repair the fibers.
The more severe the damage, the more the body will require repairing itself, and this pattern of destruction and repair make your muscles stronger.
This happens since the muscles need to adapt to the increasing intensity of the challenges they face.
Your muscles already adapt to most daily activities, so they won’t do enough damage to cause muscle growth.
To build new muscle, you need to expose your cells to bigger workloads than they are accustomed to. If you don’t repeatedly work your muscles, they will shrink, so it is crucial to keep working out.
Conclusion
You can build muscles with dumbbells if you use them correctly since they are versatile, and you can use them for all kinds of muscle groups. Workouts will be demanding, and you might need to get some help using products from BulkExtreme.com to help you finish your sessions.
Muscles are crucial for a comfortable life, and you need to take care of them even if you aren’t a professional bodybuilder. Get on the correct diet and have a decent workout routine to make sure everything works as it should.
