If you're tight on time and can't make it to the gym, all's not lost. With only a single dumbbell and this short routine, you can still work your whole body, raise your heart rate and boost your fitness — and it only takes 20 minutes.
All you need is one of the best adjustable dumbbells to give it a go and target muscles in your lower body, upper body and core, making it ideal for the gym or home. Plus, adjustable weights are perfect for gradually increasing the weight as you get stronger in line with progressive overload training.
The 20-minute routine comes from trainer Britany Williams and is perfect for targeting a wide range of muscle groups, including the shoulders, biceps, triceps, chest, back, core, glutes, quads and hamstrings.
Out of a total of 10 exercises you can pick up to five or six to form your routine, you may wish to tailor your picks to which areas of the body you are more keen to work today.
What is the 20-minute full-body dumbbell workout?
Williams' demonstrations of each exercise can be viewed in the Instagram post below and will help you decide which moves you'd like to include in your workout and also show you what the correct form looks like for each move.
You can lift as heavy as you want and pump out big reps, but if you don't have proper form, your results will suffer and you are more likely to experience an injury. So, keep things slow and controlled while you master the correct form for each exercise.
The aim is to perform 10 reps, or eight per side, for each move and complete four rounds in total.
What could be so good about a dumbbell workout? Well, this one from Williams incorporates both compound and isolation exercises to target specific muscles all over your body. The dumbbells provide a form of resistance to encourage growth and strength.
If you're looking to build muscle with your dumbbell workouts, look to gradually challenge your muscles with a technique called progressive overload which involves increasing the reps or weight size to promote hypertrophy and enhance overall muscle development.
Resistance training is also a great way to improve your metabolism. Research in the Journal of Sport Sciences shows that building muscle boosts your metabolic rate. This is because muscle burns more calories at rest than fat, which helps you increase your overall calorie burn throughout the day.
Additionally, strength training can lead to something called Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC), where your body continues to burn extra calories even after your workout as it recovers and rebuilds muscle.
All this sounds pretty ideal, right? But do note that one 20-minute workout isn't going to be the sole solution to building a Thor physique overnight. If strength and muscle gains are a goal of yours, you'll need to commit to a consistent training plan.
You'll want to look to complete regular resistance training that challenges your muscles and vary your sessions with both compound lifts and isolation exercises. It's also worth including different types of workouts into your routine such as high-intensity interval training (HIIT) or circuit training to improve your endurance.
Finally, focus on maintaining a nutritious diet to fuel your body, and combine this with adequate rest to support muscle repair and growth.
More from Tom's Guide
- You only need a kettlebell and this 30-minute workout to build full-body muscle and boost your metabolism
- You only need 2 dumbbells and these 5 moves to build upper body strength and core muscle
- 3 reasons you're not building strength in the gym — according to a strength and conditioning coach
