Full Body Dumbbell Workout Complex - Back Pain Friendly
Not every workout needs to include counting reps and sets or even lasting longer then 20 minutes.
In fact, I’ve been known to pick one full body exercise or a “dumbbell complex” and do either 6 sets of the exercise and be done or just doing a couple rounds of the complex.
What is a “dumbbell complex” you ask?
It’s when you take a couple of your favorite exercises using only ONE tool (in this case one set up dumbbells) and you do the exercises back to back.
These full body dumbbell complex workouts can hit just the upper body, lower body or include the entire body as a whole. These types of workouts really give you the freedom to be creative and just have fun with it!
What Is a Dumbbell Complex?
A dumbbell complex is a circuit of exercises you are doing back to back only using dumbbells.
These exercises can target certain agonist and antagonist muscle groups or different segments of the body such as upper body, lower body or full body.
Setting up the workout as a dumbbell complex not only builds strength but improves endurance and burns fat!
Since you’re not taking breaks between sets and exercises you are really building a strong muscular endurance foundation.
An example of a upper body dumbbell complex would be:
==> Dumbbell Shoulder Press
==> Dumbbell Bent Over Row
==> Dumbbell Bicep Curl
==> Dumbbell Tricep Kickbacks
==> Dumbbell Chest Press
You could do these back to back with the same weight. The challenge is picking a weight that work for all of these exercises.
It can be fun so make sure you try it a few times to really dial in what the perfect weight is for you!
Can you get a Full Body Workout With Just Dumbbells.
Yes, you can defintely get a full body workout with just dumbbells. I think the idea of limiting yourself to just dumbbells will be easy for some but hard for others.
If you have always been used to working out in a commercial gym you may find comfort in getting your ful body workout in using the sea of machines you have at your finger tips.
While others “grew up” using what they had at there house.
Me personally even as a young trainer I ALWAYS defaulted to free weights. I hated machines, never used them in my own training and felt bad for putting clients on machines and just watching them as we counted reps and sets.
That’s boring and ot be honest you can a way better full body workout using dumbbells anyways.
So yes, with a little creativity and learning you can build not only an amazing program using just dumbbells but build a more well rounded athletic body.
How Often Should I Do This Full Body Dumbbell Complex Workout?
If you are a Smart Strength Member these workouts are a great supplement for what you are currently doing. You can swap out one of the weeks workouts with this just to change things up or add a 4th day to your training schedule and use one of these quick one off workouts.
If you are following your own programming I would recommend using this as an alternative to one of your days or as a bonus day. Hopefully you are following something a bit more structured during the week so this would become a secondary workout rather then a primary choice.
You could also do this workout a couple times a week before rotating something else in after a week or so.
Thanks so much for checking it out and be sure to let me know in the comment section how you did and what weight you used for your own personal full body dumbbell complex workout this week!
-William 🙂
