Dumbbell exercises
The simple versions of these are all pretty much what you can find in any
standard weightlifting text. Again, it is how we use the parts rather than
some clever way of doing them. The advantages of using dumbbells are that
you automatically work both sides evenly and many of those little muscles that
stabilize just get worked for free. You can also do pyramiding schemes
if you get really carried away, such as increasing weights throughout
the sets. I do not train just for the sake of training, so I'm not
too concerned with upping poundages. When I find a weight has become too
easy, I simply hop up to the next weight and do as many as I can with good form.
Remember I do this to help my martial arts and don't want to get roped into
conditioning for its own sake. I should also point out that even a 5 lb.
increase with many of these the way I use the weights is a pretty steep
increment. Maybe a real powerlifter could do this with 45 or 50 pounds,
but I suspect that is getting to the limit, unless you are going to
just train for poundages this way.
These are organized not by body part but by amount of weight, since I have
found this more convenient.
Trivia. The name dumbbell actually does have something
to do with bells. In the good old days, the ends were spheres so that this looked
like a type of bell ringer. Since it never was intended for making sound, it
was dumb in the sense of being mute. Hence it was a dumb bell-ringer.
Needless to say this got shortened to dumbbell and now most folks just call
them bells.
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