Compared to gyms, home fitness presents a significant challenge: the lack of sufficient weight-bearing capacity. Many households may only accommodate a pair of dumbbells at most. Why is ‘insufficient weight’ a problem? Muscle growth requires a gradual increase in training weight (progressive overload). This is necessary because muscles need to continually experience higher intensity stimuli to grow.
If you consistently train with the same weight, muscle growth will cease. Particularly for large muscles such as the quadriceps and gluteal muscles, you must provide adequate weight to stimulate their growth. It is clear that with only a pair of small dumbbells, it is unrealistic to fully exploit their muscle-building potential. Thus, you must temper your expectations regarding the effectiveness of home fitness. Home fitness certainly cannot give you large muscles; it can only provide a lean physique.How can we overcome the weight problem? Is it impossible to build muscle without sufficient weight? No! Although progressive overload through ‘increasing weight’ is not possible with only a pair of dumbbells, we can achieve progressive overload by ‘increasing repetitions’. For instance, if you train with 20 kilograms for 10 repetitions today, next time train with 21 kilograms for 10 repetitions, and then 22 kilograms for 10 repetitions. .. This form of overload is ‘increasing volume’. If you train with 20 kilograms for 10 repetitions today, next time 11 repetitions, then 12 repetitions the following time, and so on… This method of overload is ‘increasing repetitions’, striving to do a few more in each set during each workout.
Some may ask: Is there a difference between adding weight and increasing repetitions? No. Research indicates that as long as both approaches are performed to near exhaustion, repetitions between 3 and 30 can yield similar muscle-building effects. For example, doing 30 repetitions with 20 kilograms will produce a similar muscle-building effect to doing 3 repetitions with 64 kilograms. To overcome the issue of insufficient weight, in addition to changing the form of overload, it is also important to select the appropriate equipment. The current research on repetitions is limited to a range of 3 to 30; we do not yet know whether repetitions outside this range can produce similar muscle-building effects. In other words, if repetitions are increased beyond 30, the muscle-building effect may diminish. To avoid a decline in effectiveness, once you can perform 30 repetitions with a certain weight, it is best to increase the weight and reduce the repetitions. For example, after you can do 30 repetitions with 20 kilograms, it is advisable to increase the weight to 25 kilograms and reduce the repetitions to 15. Continue this pattern until you can perform 30 repetitions with 25 kilograms, then increase the weight and reduce the repetitions again, and so on.
If you only have a pair of 5-pound dumbbells, once you complete 30 repetitions, you may choose to increase the number of repetitions (for example, pushing to 50), but the effectiveness may decrease. Therefore, when selecting dumbbells, it is best to opt for adjustable dumbbells. This way, after completing 30 repetitions with one weight, you can add more weight to keep the number of repetitions within the range of 3 to 30. I recommend the Ativafit adjustable dumbbells that I have been using recently. They can be purchased at discounts during the November 11th sales, so I suggest adding them to your cart and wishlist. After understanding how to overcome problems, let’s move on to the section on exercise selection: ‘Chest, Triceps, and Anterior Deltoid’ training exercises. This section discusses the pectoralis major, triceps, and anterior deltoid because these three muscles work together to complete the ‘push’ movement pattern. When we train with pushing exercises, all three muscles can be stimulated to some extent, which is why we train them together. Push: Refers to the movement pattern of pushing a weight away from the body, such as bench press, seated press, and so on. Exercise 1: Dumbbell Bench Press Dumbbell bench press is the first exercise of ‘push day’ and can stimulate all three muscles simultaneously. In fact, if none of these three muscles are particularly weak, you can focus solely on this exercise. If you are particularly dissatisfied with one of the three muscles, you can choose one of the following exercises as a supplement. Exercise 2: Dumbbell Front Raise Dumbbell front raise is an isolation exercise for the anterior deltoid. If you feel that the anterior deltoid is lagging, you can add this exercise as a supplement after bench press. Exercise 3: Dumbbell Tricep Extension Behind the Neck Dumbbell tricep extension behind the neck is an isolation exercise for the triceps. If you feel that the triceps are lagging, you can add this exercise as a supplement after bench press. Additionally, due to its unique posture, this exercise can provide strong stimulation to the long head of the triceps compared to other triceps training exercises. Exercise 4: Dumbbell Fly Dumbbell fly is an isolation exercise for the pectoralis major. If you feel that the pectoralis major is lagging, you can add this exercise as a supplement after bench press. ‘Biceps, Back, and Posterior Deltoid’ training exercises. This section discusses biceps, upper back muscles, and posterior deltoid. The reason for discussing them together is that they work together to complete the ‘pull’ movement pattern. When we train with pulling exercises, all three muscles can be fully stimulated, which is why we discuss them together. Pull: Refers to the movement pattern of pulling a weight towards the body, such as rowing, high pulley pull-downs, and so on.
Exercise One: Dumbbell Bent-Over Row. The dumbbell bent-over row is the first exercise in the pulling workout day, providing effective stimulation to the biceps, posterior deltoids, and upper back (trapezius). Like the dumbbell bench press, if none of these three muscles are significantly lagging, you can use this single exercise to stimulate all three. However, if there is, you can choose the following exercises for supplementary training.
Exercise Two: Dumbbell Curl. The dumbbell curl is an isolation exercise for the biceps. If you feel that your biceps are not large enough, you can add this exercise as a supplement. Exercise Three: Dumbbell Bent-Over Lateral Raise. This exercise primarily stimulates the posterior deltoids. If you feel that your posterior deltoids are not strong enough, you can add this exercise as a supplement. Exercise Four: Overhand Wide Grip Pull-Up. Although pull-ups with dumbbell rows can stimulate the latissimus dorsi, they are not as intense, so you also need pull-ups as a supplement for the latissimus dorsi. Lower body, erector spinae training exercises. Lower body muscles refer to the quadriceps, hamstrings, and gluteus maximus. Since the erector spinae often works in concert with lower body muscles to complete the squat and pull movement patterns, we discuss the erector spinae and lower body muscles together. Lower body muscles are large muscles, so the load required is often much greater than that for the upper body. The load you can use to stimulate the upper body is often insufficient for the lower body. Given this, I recommend using unilateral training exercises to stimulate the lower body. Through unilateral exercises, I can concentrate the load of two dumbbells on one side of the muscle, compensating for the insufficient load. For example, if you hold a 20kg dumbbell in one hand, when you do a double-leg squat, each leg gets a weight of 20kg. However, if you do a single-leg squat, the training leg gets a weight of 40kg. Exercise One: Single-Leg Deadlift. The single-leg deadlift can stimulate your entire posterior chain, including the erector spinae, gluteus maximus, and hamstrings. The only regret is that this exercise does not stimulate the quadriceps well, so additional exercises are needed to stimulate the quadriceps. Exercise Two: Dumbbell Lunges. Dumbbell lunges are a supplement to the single-leg deadlift and can effectively stimulate the quadriceps. Exercise Three: Dumbbell Hip Thrust. This exercise can isolate and stimulate the gluteus maximus, with a secondary effect on the hamstrings. If you are a fan of glute training, you can add this exercise to your training plan. How many sets for each muscle? This section discusses the number of sets for each exercise, i.e., the issue of training volume. It is necessary to point out to beginners that more training volume is not always better! Excessive training volume not only wastes time but also makes recovery difficult, leading to worse results.Generally speaking, as long as the intensity of each set is sufficient or close to exhaustion, even if a muscle group is trained only 3 times a week, beginners can still make significant progress. Of course, training only 3 times a week will not maximize results, so we do not limit ourselves to just 3 sets per week. From experience, about 10 sets per week is enough for a beginner’s muscle training.
How many times a week should one train? In fact, the number of training sessions per week is not very important. The most important thing for beginners is to complete the prescribed training volume (10 sets per week). For instance, if you can only train twice a week, then complete 5 sets each time. If you can train 5 times a week, then you only need to complete 2 sets per session. Let’s consider an extreme case: if you can only train once a week, then you would need to complete all 10 sets in that single session. It should be noted that while it is possible to train once a week and complete 10 sets, it is not recommended due to the extreme fatigue that can result from such a high volume of training in one day. It is advised to spread the 10 sets across 2 to 3 sessions. Additionally, if your training time per session is limited, you may need to split your training. For example, if you can only train for 30 minutes during your lunch break, you might focus on pushing exercises for the day, and save pulling exercises and lower body workouts for the next day or the day after. Conversely, if you have ample training time, you can complete a full-body workout in one session, reducing the need to train more than 2 to 3 times a week. In summary, the more fragmented your time, the higher your training frequency may need to be, possibly requiring 4 to 6 sessions, such as the following example: Monday: Push exercises Tuesday: Pull exercises Wednesday: Lower body exercises Thursday: Push exercises Friday: Pull exercises Saturday: Lower body exercises Sunday: Rest Or: Monday: Push + Pull Tuesday: Lower body exercises Wednesday: Rest Thursday: Push + Pull Friday: Lower body exercises Saturday: Rest Sunday: Rest The purpose of rest between sets is to allow recovery from the fatigue of the previous set, ensuring optimal performance in the next set. Therefore, it is essential to take an adequate rest. How long to rest is a difficult question to answer, as it is greatly related to how close you are to exhaustion. The general rule is: the closer the training is to exhaustion, the longer the rest between sets needed. Conversely, the shorter the rest required. For example, if you feel that you can only perform 1 to 3 more reps after completing a set, you may need to rest for 5 to 8 minutes.On the contrary, if you think you can still do 4 to 5 more reps, then perhaps 3 to 4 minutes is enough. If you are not sure, it is better to rest more. Completing the training must be the top priority. Remember exhaustion. No matter how many reps you do in a set, only the last few reps can always produce muscle-building effects. If your training is not close to exhaustion, then the muscle-building effect will be poor.
But also remember that complete exhaustion, especially frequent complete exhaustion, is not a good thing. Experience tells us that frequent complete exhaustion will not only make it difficult for the body to recover, but also because it is very difficult to maintain a good posture when exhausted, so it is very easy to get injured. Therefore, our training must be close to exhaustion but not complete exhaustion. In most cases, after you finish the last set of each exercise, you should still have about 2 to 3 reps left. Complete exhaustion can occur, but remember it can only be occasional, such as when you didn’t sleep well and are in a poor state one day. Training that is far from exhaustion can also occur, but it can only happen when you are learning an exercise. For normal warm-up, if the weight you use for training is very heavy, such as bench pressing 100 kilograms for 5 sets of 5 reps, then you need to do special warm-up. The specific process is as follows: Warm-up set 1: Push 20 kilograms for 5 reps. Warm-up set 2: Push 40 kilograms for 5 reps. Warm-up set 3: Push 60 kilograms for 3 reps. Warm-up set 4: Push 80 kilograms for 2 reps. Warm-up set 5: Push 90 kilograms for 1 rep. Formal set. Special warm-up requires you to start from light weight and slowly increase to the formal set. However, since we do small weights and high repetitions, we don’t need special warm-up very much and can directly use the weight of the formal set. The only thing we need to pay attention to is general warm-up, which is used to increase body temperature and joint mobility. The method of general warm-up is very simple. You only need to jog or jump rope for 5 to 10 minutes. Note that jogging and jumping rope are just two options I recommend. You can completely choose other forms, such as burpees or jumping jacks. In short, the form is not the most crucial. As long as the purpose of increasing body temperature can be achieved. It should be noted that the warm-up intensity must not be too high. If the intensity is too high and you enter formal training with fatigue, it is not good. For example, if you don’t jog but warm up at a sprint speed of 100, it will definitely affect your subsequent training. Progressive overload refers to the behavior of gradually increasing training intensity and is also the most important criterion for distinguishing between ‘sweating’ and’muscle-building training’. If the weight/sets/reps of your training are the same every time, then you are just sweating and consuming a little calories. In essence, it is no different from doing square dancing.Only a training plan that includes progressive overload can be called a muscle-building plan. You must appropriately increase your training intensity in a timely manner to keep your muscles in a growing state. In the field of strength training, progressive overload is generally achieved by increasing the weight. But as mentioned earlier, home training cannot achieve this kind of progressive overload. Therefore, we can only achieve progressive overload by increasing the number of repetitions. So how to operate specifically? It’s very simple. Suppose you train twice a week, and train one muscle group for five sets at a time. During the first training session, you successfully completed five sets of five repetitions with 20 kilograms. Then, for the second training session this week, you can try to complete five sets of six repetitions. If five sets of six repetitions are successfully completed, then for the first training session next week, you can try to complete five sets of seven repetitions. .. (and so on). I suggest that in the initial stage, the extent of your overload is to increase by one repetition per set. This way of overload should be able to last for a long time until the speed of your progress begins to slow down. If the speed of progress slows down, for example, if you clearly feel that the training is close to exhaustion after increasing the number of repetitions, then you can slow down the speed of overload. At this time, you don’t have to add one repetition to each set. You can choose to add one repetition only to 1-3 sets. For example, if you completed five sets of five repetitions today, then next time you can do six repetitions in the first two sets and still do five repetitions in the last three sets. In short, the speed of overload can be fast in the early stage of training, but the later it is, the slower the speed of overload will be. You can flexibly adjust according to the degree of exhaustion to ensure that the training plan after overload still maintains a reasonable degree of exhaustion. Never have an absurd overload. For example, if you did five repetitions per set today, don’t directly do fifteen repetitions next time. In addition, note that when you can do thirty repetitions with a certain weight, you can choose to add some weight. Because after the number of repetitions exceeds thirty, the effect may not be guaranteed. When training with a new weight, you need to reduce the number of repetitions. For example, after you complete five sets of thirty repetitions with 20 kilograms, then when you use 25 kilograms for training for the first time, it is best to do only ten repetitions per set. Until you can also complete five sets of thirty repetitions with the new weight, you can use the same routine to adapt to the new weight. In view of the above, you must remember to buy adjustable dumbbells. Never buy fixed-weight dumbbells, because if you want to exercise the whole body, multiple sets of weight dumbbells take up a lot of space.