5 exercises, 1 dumbbell and 20 minutes are all you need to strengthen your whole body

You don’t need to plan out a complicated workout every time you train, just grab a dumbbell and do five compound moves to work the whole body and get your heart pumping.

Following this workout from fitness trainer Kat Boley is a great way to get in shape and stay in shape. It only takes 20 minutes, and you only need one dumbbell for it.

Boley is using a 20lb weight, and suggests picking a dumbbell that makes the last few reps of each move feel difficult without your form suffering — you’ll be doing 10 reps of each, for reference.

If you have one of the best adjustable dumbbells then you can select a weight to start with then adjust it quickly if required, or if you have a few dumbbells to hand maybe keep a couple of different weights close by.

Watch Kat Boley’s 5-move dumbbell workout

The workout involves doing circuits of five exercises, doing 10 reps of each move. If an exercise involves alternating sides then do 10 reps in total, five on each side.

Boley says to just take short breaks between moves, then rest for a minute at the end of the circuit. The workout is 20 minutes long, so complete as many circuits as you can in that time, or get to 20 minutes and then complete the circuit you’re on.

All five of the exercises in the workout are compound exercises that target muscles in both your upper and lower body, like thrusters and the dumbbell snatch.

Here are the five moves you’ll be doing:

• Dumbbell snatch
• Side lunge to curl
• Goblet squat to overhead press
• Curtsey lunge to upright row
• Dumbbell thruster

This approach of using compound moves means you get a lot of bang for your buck not only in terms of strengthening the whole body, but also with regards to improving your cardio fitness, because using a lot of major muscle groups at once will get your heart pumping and fire up your metabolism.

As a result this style of workout is one of the most time-effective ways to train. If you have lots of opportunities and ideas for workouts then you can break them up to focus on different parts of the body, but if you just need a quick session to do two or three times a week to boost your overall fitness then this is a strong option.

It’s the type of workout I love doing myself to support my main sport, which is running. Not only is there a lot of useful leg-focused work in the session, it also trains my oft-neglected upper body.

If you enjoyed this workout and want to add another similar session to your routine then try this 20-minute supersets workout that also just uses one dumbbell to strengthen the whole body. If you prefer to use a kettlebell for your workouts, try this five-move full-body session.

More from Tom's Guide

• I hate up-down planks — so I did 20 reps a day for 2 weeks anyway and this is what happened to my core
• Skip the gym — build full body strength at home with 1 dumbbell and 5 moves
• 5 most effective kettlebell exercises personal trainers use themselves — and how they build strength and muscle