A dumbbell with two

 Introduction

Let’s get this out of the way first: I hate working out, and have avoided going to the gym all my life. I’ve never tried lifting weights until a couple of months ago, and my exercise, until recently, was limited to walking, or a bit of running on the treadmill. I’m utterly unqualified to prescribe a workout regime, so naturally, that’s what I’ll do in this document. Secondly, this workout focuses on strength training, and does not cover cardio exercises. Third, it uses just a pair of dumbbells for pretty much everything, which may feel a bit limiting. 

Caveat emptor, as they say. Off we go!

Glossary

Before we begin though, here’s a small glossary of terms. Videos and workout instructions use these terms a lot, and I’d struggled to understand what they mean. Makes this whole damn thing feel like a close-knit clique, honestly.

• Rep: short for repetition. In the workout world, this is the number of times you need to repeat an exercise. For instance, if raising your arms upward is the exercise you need to perform, doing it ten times is ‘10 reps’. Took me a while to understand, but now you know.
• Set: from the above example, doing 10 reps is one set. So when they say do 3 sets, they want you to raise your arms ten times, wait for about 90 seconds, then raise it again ten times, wait for another 90s, and do it again ten times. That’s 3 sets of 10 reps. You’ll hear that phrase a lot when you look up workouts: “x sets of y reps”. Don’t let that scare you anymore.
• Workout: I use this term to mean a series of exercises. The lift-your-arm thing from the above example is one exercise. Doing a push-up is another exercise. Doing both of these is one workout.
• RDL: Romanian Dead Lift, but let’s not go there right now.

The Workouts

My goal was to find a simple strength workout that I could do at home, using the dumbbells that I had available thanks to my kids. After lots of searching, I settled on this video which talks about a four day full-body training plan using only dumbbells. I then proceeded to find short clips that covered every exercise in this workout, and made two playlists, poetically called Workout A and Workout B. All exercises are 3 sets of 8-12 reps each, unless marked otherwise. I’d advise taking a look at the videos linked to get a sense of what I’m talking about.

Workout A	Workout B
Floor press	Overhead or shoulder press
Pullover	Dumbell rowing
Overhead or shoulder press	Incline press
Bicep curls - 3 sets of 12-15 reps	Hammer curls
Skull crushers	Triceps kickbacks 3 sets of 15-20 reps
Rear delt flys	Rear delt flys
Lateral raises - 3 sets of 15-20 reps	Lateral raises - 3 sets of 15-20 reps
Goblet squats	Lunges 3 sets of 12-15 reps for each leg
Romanian deadlift (the RDL from earlier)	Front squats
Calf raise on steps- 3 sets of 15-25 reps	Calf raise on steps- 3 sets of 15-25 reps

Workout regime

Trainer Vinny, the creator of the original video, suggests two options for the regime. For a week: 


 

Now I find each workout quite strenuous, and am currently in no shape to do one of these in a single day. After a few hiccups, I’ve settled on doing half of workout A on day 1, the second half on day 2, take a break on day 3, half of workout B on day 4, second half of B on day 5, break on day 6, and back to half of workout A on day 7, etc. I hope to complete all of workout A or B on a single day, but I think I’m a couple of months away from getting there. When I started, I could barely do three of each in one day. Your mileage may vary, of course.

FAQ

What weights to use?
You can pick the weights you feel most comfortable with lifting - please don’t feel pressurized to start with heavier ones. I use two ten pound dumbbells (4.5kgs each) for most exercises, but have slowly started moving to 15lb (6.8kg) for a few.

How about breaks?
Breaks are really important to help you catch your breath and recover. I take a 90 second break between sets (remember, a set is a series of n repetitions), and two or more minutes between each exercise. In this context, an exercise is a series of x sets. Breaks between workouts are key too, so feel free to skip days if your body complains a lot and you need the rest.

And warming up?
Getting warmed up is important. Vinny suggests doing a few pushups or planks to get your muscles ready. I do a 30-min run/brisk walk on the treadmill, followed by a brief muscle warm up. Pick the warm up you feel most comfortable with, but doing something does help.

Can I really do these exercises?
I really don’t know. Some of these are simple, others can be quite strenuous. Feel free to replace those with simpler ones that might work for you to start with. For instance,  I found the lunges from Workout B quite difficult to do, so I switched to the instructions in this video as a replacement. Again, this worked for me, but you might find it too easy.

How do I repay you?
I take Venmo. I also take biryani, beer, and bourbon.

Credits

Thanks to all the content creators of the videos I referenced, especially to Trainer Vinny who provided the inspiration. Check out his channel if you haven’t already.