Building Back Muscles: Dumbbell Exercises You Can Do At Home

The overhead dumbbell shoulder press is an excellent shoulder exercise for beginners to advanced trainees. Not only is this a great shoulder exercise, but it does a great job of working the triceps and upper back muscles in the process. If you train in your garage at home you can also buy free standing stations which are very useful as they allow room to perform wide grip pull ups, a very effective back exercise for targeting the lats.

Exercising with dumbbells gives you opportunity to precisely choose weight which is most suitable for your training. Your muscles will also react far better to dumbbell exercises as you can change the angle of exercising. Thus busy folks who are looking to gain a respectable amount of muscle mass should consider training at home in order to hit their individual goals. A pair of adjustable dumbbells, some weight plates, and a decent adjustable weight bench are all the only tools needed for a terrific home workout and beginners can get noticeable results relatively quickly provided they keep their diet in check. And, assuming that you're doing the movements properly, when you train with dumbbells you mimic the body's natural movements, considerably reducing the risk of injuring yourself.

Dumbbell exercises force each arm to work on their own. When you use barbells, it is easy for the stronger arm to dominate and help the weaker arm complete the lift.

Here's a quick overview of how to use dumbbells for your back workout:

With your arms hanging straight down, hold the dumbbells with your thumbs up, palms facing each other (hammer curl position). Curl the weights up until they nearly touch your shoulders. Stop the descent of the dumbbell when the upper arm (not the dumbbell) forms a straight line through the shoulder to the armpit. In the lowest position, your triceps should be in the same plane as your nose.

Try increasing from 3 to 4 to 5 sets on subsequent workouts with a given weight before increasing your sequence of reps. If you're not totally drenched in sweat with your heart beating out of your chest after that routine, you either went too light, or you are some kind of a mutant freak! Bring the dumbbells out, back and up behind you in an arc, swinging your elbows back like you would when chopping wood, but maintain the control of the weight and remember, keep your back straight. Focus on trying to contract your back muscles, return to start. Begin by standing straight with moderate-sized weights. Move from here to a forward kneeling position, kneeling one leg forward while bringing the other back and down, just short of the ground.