Beginner Dumbbell-Only Full Body Workout

This post is dedicated to my beautiful and sweet Sister-in-Law who requested I create a full-body workout using dumbbells. She is a runner but can only get into the gym for weights once a week. So, she needed something that will hit every muscle in one awesome workout.

Here is a BEGINNER DUMBBELL-ONLY FULL BODY WORKOUT.

Every move should be done for 3 sets and 10 reps each. Rest 60 seconds in between sets. You will be doing 2 exercises for each body part (legs, chest, back, biceps, triceps, and shoulders) This workout might take you awhile to finish but you are hitting your full body.

Okay, here we go….

Let’s start with LEGS!


GOGLET SQUAT

DUMBBELL LUNGE (just hold dumbbells in your hands)

Next up is CHEST….


DUMBBELL BENCH PRESS (flat bench)

DUMBBELL FLYE

Time for BACK!


ONE ARM DUMBBELL ROW

DUMBBELL DEADLIFT (look at the first part of the video for the deadlift)

Moving on to BICEPS!


STANDING BICEP CURLS

CONCENTRATION CURLS

Now going to the other side of the arm….the TRICEPS.


TRICEP EXTENSIONS

TRICEP KICK BACKS

Finally, SHOULDERS!


STANDING DUMBBELL OVERHEAD PRESS

DUMBBELL SHRUG

Okay, that was a lot of information and videos. Here is the breakdown of the workout in one spot.

Remember, 3 sets per exercise with 10 reps per set

LEGS
Goblet Squat
Dumbbell Lunge
CHEST
Dumbbell Bench Press
Dumbbell Flye
BACK
One Arm Dumbbell Row
Dumbbell Deadlift
BICEPS
Dumbbell Curl
Concentration Curl
TRICEPS
Triceps Extension
Triceps Kickback
SHOULDERS
Overhead Press
Shrug


This is a good introduction to weight lifting and dumbbells. Do it once a week or so as a supplement to your running routine. But, remember that your body is amazing in its ability to adapt. You will need to change up the moves after awhile. 🙂


Questions? Comment or shoot me a message!


LIFT ON!!

Bodybuilding.com Transformation Challenge

Picture courtesy of BodyBuilding.com

HERE I GO!!!

Just last week this Transformation Challenge wasn’t even on my radar. I saw it but then quickly scrolled passed it. That’s cool. I don’t have time for that. I’ve got other training plans for the next few months. Nope, not going to do it.

Then I did an orientation at the gym where I work to a friend of mine (SHOUT OUT to her!) and she mentioned she was doing it. Hmmmmm….

Then I mentioned it to a friend of mine in passing and the next thing I know she writes me on Facebook, “I’m entered!” OH GEE WHIZ!!

I tell my husband about this and he says, “Well, Honey, if you sign up I’ll do it with you!”

Soooooooo, I entered the Bodybuilding.com Transformation Challenge.

SQUEEEEEEEE!!!!

The Grand Prize is $50,000 to one male and $50,000 to one female and then smaller prizes scattered around from there.   WOW!

Who knows what will happen.  I want to see what I am capable of doing.

Feel free to come visit me at my BodySpace Profile HERE!

The challenge officially kicks off January 13th!!

Wish me luck! Send me Good Vibes!  Pray for me!  Whatever positivity you want to send my way it will all be much appreciated.


 

Another Week of Online Workouts

I am thoroughly enjoying the break from traditional weightlifting workouts.  It has been a breath of fresh air and I am seeing it make a big difference.  My muscle endurance is improving big time.  I still sweat like a fiend during these workouts but I am feeling less like I will die by the end. 😉

Without further ado, here is what I did this week….

MONDAY

TUESDAY

I added a yoga/pilates/stretching routine to two of my workouts because I knew I needed something to really help my full body of stiff muscles.

WEDNESDAY

REST DAY

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

By Friday, I was so tired from a crazy week. Then I had a crazy Friday. All I wanted to do was do some stretching and relaxing. I think I might be getting addicted to these yoga workouts. I’ll have to hunt down some more.

Can you tell I am really enjoying Fitness Blender workouts?????  I highly recommend them for well-rounded workouts that require minimal equipment. 🙂

This Week’s Online Workouts

MONDAY

TUESDAY

Tuesday’s workout was taken from The Swetty Bettties page over here.

WEDNESDAY

Wednesday was a very busy, rest day. 🙂

THURSDAY

FRIDAY

I borrowed this workout from Peanut Butter Fingers here.

It was a good week at the gym. All these workouts could have been done at home. I chose to go to the gym because my son loves seeing his friend in the children’s room. I would just find a corner in the adult gym and had fun. Two weeks into these bodyweight workouts and I know that I’m enjoying the difference. I already see improvements in my muscle endurance.

Have you done any of these workouts??

This Week’s Online Workouts

Since I am focusing my workouts on body-weight type workouts, or calisthenics,  I thought I might share with you what I am doing so you can follow along too if you want to.  I am mostly doing YouTube videos.  Did you know that YouTube is a treasure trove of FREE and FULL workouts??  It is true.  Just do a search and tons will come up. It is absolutely perfect for days you can’t make it to the gym or you just need to mix things up.

Okay, onward with the week.  I will go ahead and say that it was kind of anti-climatic.  I got sick with a nasty cold that I think I caught from my wonderful sharing son and that really messed up my mojo and my plans.

 

MONDAY

 

 

Monday was my first day back after taking a whole week off from workouts.  So, I figured I would do my “benchmark” workout which is the MURPH WOD.  It is a Crossfit workout.  I like to do it every couple of months or so to get a feel for how my training is going.
 

Here is the breakdown:

1 mile run

100 pullups

200 pushups

300 squats

1 mile run

 

I did the pullups on the assisted pullup machine.  I did as many pushups as I could on my toes and then proceeded to my knees.  The squats were not regressed in anyway because they were air squats anyway.  The runs were performed on the treadmill.

It was a TOUGH workout.  I can see now how poorly I am doing in muscle endurance.  And that is why I am focusing on that for a few weeks.

 

TUESDAY

 

 
I do LOVE Zuzana. She was the leading personality of BodyRockTV for a long time and the parted ways to form her own company. She has tons of FREE workouts on YouTube and has recently started the ZGYM, a subscription-based fitness site.

Her workouts are short but very intense. I have never done a workout of hers without literally sweating on the floor. It is awesome and I highly recommend her. Most of her workouts require no equipment, just your body.

 

WEDNESDAY

 
My nasty cold was starting to hit me pretty hard on Wednesday. I also was called into work. I worked my shift but ultimately left a little early. And then we came home for school and resting. Then my son had Awana in the evening. So, no workout this today. It was a good thing because I was rapidly getting worse and I was very sore from Monday and Tuesday.
 

THURSDAY

 

 
I do believe Thursday was the height of feeling horrible for me. I never even left the house….not even to check the mailbox. But, I wanted to do something to help stretch and move my muscles. This is all I was able to do. I sniffled and sneezed my way through it. 😉
 

FRIDAY

 
Friday is a bit better in the health department. I plan to go to the gym in the afternoon and either walk on the treadmill or the elliptical. I had grand plans for another awesome body-weight workout but I really don’t want to push it and make myself worse. I figure even a leisurely walk is better than nothing and gets me heading in the right direction.
 
 

Do you have any workouts you have done and loved? PLEASE SHARE!!!!

Body-Weight Exercise: Changing Things Up

There is a lot of new stuff going on right now in my little fitness world.

First, I am on day 3 of  The Virgin Diet.

If you want to learn more about this way of eating you can go here and get the book or you can read my previous blog post  about why I am doing it. So far so good. I will give a more thorough update later.

This is a completely different way of eating for a few weeks and could potentially change the way I eat for the foreseeable future.  It is a lot of change.

Up till now I have been following a fairly traditional weight-lifting program that involved a lot of heavy lifting.  I did all the major lifts (squats, deadlift, bench press, and military press) and progressed in all of them.  I have been very happy with my progress.

But, I need a change.

I hate to admit this but I have been getting a bit bored with the weight room.  I do love the workouts. And I LOVE the results but as in everything else a change can breathe new life into even the best things.

I have noticed an area where I really lack in my training.

Body-weight exercises.

Oh man.  I am so weak in that area.  I can go into a weight room and lift with the best of them but I will be a gasping for air after only one circuit of body-weight type exercises. I am good at muscular strength but terrible at muscular endurance.

I need to fix this.

So, for the next few weeks while I go through The Virgin Diet. I will focus on Body-weight exercises.

I will get workouts from YouTube and create my own workouts.  I will use minimal equipment.  The idea is how would I workout if I were not at the gym with all the equipment at my disposal.  This will be good for my overall fitness and for me as a trainer (to be 😉 ).

I am very excited to change things up and focus on a different way of exercising. And I am excited to see how this changes my body.

For inspiration, here is an awesome video of 44 different body-weight exercises:

Comment if you have ideas for an awesome workout I could do!!!!

 

 

Why YES I Can Carry My Husband Out of a Burning Building

A week ago I challenged myself to see if I could carry my husband out of a burning building. I was inspired by the people over at FiveX3 Training and their post on the same topic.

I train 4-6 days a week in the gym for strength gains and overall fitness. But, I often ask myself how would that translate to real-world strength and ability. If put into a situation could I tap into all that training and actually do something with it? That is why this challenge was so perfect for me. Heaven Forbid, my husband is injured and can’t get himself out of a precarious situation. Could I actually CARRY him out? I had to know. The good thing about a desperate situation is that adrenaline would probably be pumping like crazy and that would help a lot.

We did this experiment on a somewhat lazy Sunday afternoon. Our seven year old son was our self-appointed director and the peanut gallery (a.k.a. the dog) had to be closed up in a bathroom because she was barking too much and took all this commotion as a reason to play.

There were several practice sessions and several filming sessions. I give my husband tons of credit for allowing me to flop him all over the place for quite awhile. He was dropped a few times, poked, and bruised. That man must really love me or at least wants to survive a burning blaze. 😉 I offered to let him practice on me but he responded with, “No Honey. I would just drag you out of the building. ” Indeed.

I had planned for this workout challenge to take longer than it did. I guess I need to think of a new way to challenge myself.

In the meantime, I would LOVE to hear back from YOU!!

Could you carry your husband out of a burning building???? Or would you just drag him?

How does your training translate to real-world scenerios??

New Workout Challenge and a VIDEO….of ME!!

HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!

I’ve been thinking about the workout challenges lately after talking with my ever supportive husband. He made the point that most challenges last a month or so. One week in between challenges is just too quick and who honestly does them each week.

Can you prove him wrong?? If so, please comment. LOL!

So, I’m going to post a monthly workout challenge that will be a bit more challenging and more fun. That includes for me too.

With No Further Ado…

The new workout challenge was inspired by the people over at FiveX3 Training.

I saw the post last week entitled, “How to Carry Your Husband Out of Burning Building” and I was INTRIGUED. I shared the article on my Facebook page and messaged my husband saying, “Challenge Accepted! All you have to do is lie on the floor motionless.” His reply? “I can do that.”

So, my challenge to you for the month is to train yourself to pick up another adult from the ground (like he/she is unconscience) and carry that person out of the room.

That person can be a husband, wife, teenage child, stranger at the gym, etc. Small children don’t count because we already pick them up all the time.

Yes, I know. It is hard. Think about how practical that is!!!! Think about how empowered you will feel when you do that for the first time.

Me? I can’t wait.

Here are some stats for me:

My husband weight 145ish pounds.

I weigh 165ish pounds.

So, the feat won’t be as impressive as the lady who originally sounded this challenge. Maybe I’ll upgrade to a bigger male later. 😉

And now the video part…

I was thinking some more (Dang! Gotta watch out for that thinking stuff) and I figured I needed more flare to my blog. I am a big reader so I don’t mind reading long posts but I know a lot of people don’t want to always be reading.

Pictures are good.

Videos are good.

We are a visual society.

I am going to start taking videos of myself or whatever and posting them here. I’m not promising a certain frequency but it will be more than one every blue moon. *wink*

So, here goes nothing….This is ME!!! 🙂

Holy Moly! I can’t believe I just did that. 🙂 There is a steep learning curve when it comes to videos. So, bear with me as I learn and improve. I just figured if I want to do videos I have to start somewhere.

Looking to the future!!!

Workout Challenge

Today we are going to put all the workout challenges we’ve done so far together into one awesome workout.

Grab your timer

Set it for 20 seconds on and 10 seconds off.

You are going to do each exercise for 20 seconds and then rest for 10 seconds.

The only equipment you will need is your jump rope.

Here is the circuit you are going to do:

Remember 1 round is equal to 20 seconds of work and 10 seconds of rest. Repeat each exercise for 4 rounds before moving onto the next.

Jump Rope
Burpees
Pushups
Planks (Hold for 20 seconds)

Repeat Circuit (4 rounds each exercise again)

Finish with one set of four more rounds of jump rope.

Cool down and stretch.

This whole workout should only take you 20 minutes.  That’s it!

Good Luck!  And let me know how you do!!!!

Workout Challenge: PLANKS

Just like BURPEES I really do have a LOVE-HATE relationship with planks.

I love how effective they are for conditioning my entire core but I really hate them while performing them.

Whoever is with me when I’m doing planks is very familiar with how my entire body shakes and how I just can’t do them without vocalizing how I feel.

“Oh Shoot!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!”

“It hurts!”

“Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

You get the picture.

But, planks also rock my world with how effective they are for the core.  For that reason we are doing them for this weeks workout challenge. 🙂  You can thank me later.

Not familiar with the good ‘ole plank?  Here’s a quick video to show you how to do them.

 

This week focus on your plank and how long you can hold the plank.

Start with 15 seconds.

Do multiple sets of 15 second planks.

Once those are easy progress to 30 seconds.

Your goal is to do 1 minute planks consistently.

The cool thing about planks is that you can do them wherever you are in your house easily. You won’t be jumping around like burpees. Just take a little bit of floor space and hold the plank during the commercials or inbetween chores.

Are you a total rockstar and can already out-do me with planks? Look at these variations to give yourself more of a challenge.

GOOD LUCK!!!!!