Since I work out in my house and only have dumbells, I am looking for you favorite one arm lifts and/or lifts that really work with dumbells.
Clean & press with dumbells. Do a clean & a press on each rep or one clean & then a bunch of presses. You can also do swings. Set up with the bell between you feet, catch it in one hand & swing it out in front of you with your arm straight.
Bill Hinbern has The Henry Higgins Strength & Muscle Course, where you use nothing but dumbells. Henry Higgins ended up putting 254lbs overhead using the methods in that book. He also trained a 145lb Harvard student to put up 211. I’ve got a copy & it’s definitely worth checking out.
Virtually all movements can be done with Dumbells. “Drax” already noted some great work and you can also expand that to include Snatch’s (as well as some unique hybrids). If you want to go real old-school (I know you will love this Drax), try Bent Presses, Windmills or Side Presses. In faith, Coach Davies
One arm dumbell snatches and turkish get-ups. These are great lifts that can be done heavy or light. Read throw Coach Davies’ articles here at the site to see a description of these lifts.
I can’t believe I forgot snatches! Cleans are really good though with the hammer curl effect & all.
Try some one-arm, one-leg exercises for variation and to increase the demands on your body…two of my personal favorites -
- one arm, one leg dumbbell row. Hold the dumbbell in one hand and stand on the opposite leg. Lean over at the waist about 45 degrees, keeping the support leg slightly bent and back in a strong position. From there, do a dumbbell row (either to shoulder for higher up the back, or to the hip for lats).
- one arm, one leg dumbbell shoulder press. Again, hold the db in one hand and stand on the opposite foot. From there, simply press the db overhead. I usually get a bit of a lean involved, so it’s more like a side press, but it’s a great movement any way you do it.
Have fun!
Yeah, one-arm, one leg presses and snatches are fun, although they are guaranteed to earn some gawking and “what are you doing that for?” questions from others as they get done with their 26th set of tricep kickbacks.
Boy do I feel like I’m in the dark. I don’t do or know what cleans, jerks, snatches are. Time to get a book and study up. Now, I’m no slouche either, or at least I believe I am in reasonable shape. I can do a max of 22 pull-ups and do sets of 10-12.
Anyone book recommendations.
I like dumbbell swings, one arm snatches, cleans, and push presses. You can never go wrong with a turkish get-up.
I don’t have a good book recommendation, but as I recommended before, check out the articles written by Coach Davies on this site, especially this one: Strength Training, Bodybuilding & Online Supplement Store - T NATION. All of the lifts in that article can be done with dumbells aside from olympic snatches, but it is a good start.
I don’t have any book recommendations because you can get all the info you need for free on this site. Go to the previous issues section and try the search engine.
1-arm snatches and clean & jerks. Best bet is go to brookskubik.com and superstrengthbooks.com as there are tons of great materials at these sites.