The easiest, most inexpensive way to build muscle strength, size, and power turns out to be the best, with this supremely effective guide from the world's largest men's magazine
Workout fads and fitness equipment come and go, but as trainers and bodybuilders know: nothing tops a simple set of dumbbells for convenience, reliability, and versatility when you are trying to build muscles and get in shape. In Men's Health Ultimate Dumbbell Guide , Myatt Murphy, a fitness expert and longtime contributor to Men's Health, shows readers how to use dumbbells to develop just about every part of their bodies.
For anyone who believes that dumbbells can be used only for arms and shoulders, Myatt Murphy proves them wrong. Featuring 200 photographs, Men's Health Ultimate Dumbbell Exercises demonstrates how to perform a total body workout and get maximum results. There are exercises here—lunges, squats, dead lifts, curls, shrugs, kickbacks, presses, and more—that develop abs, arms, chest, legs, and shoulders, along with innovative new ways to get the most of this versatile piece of strength-training equipment.
With instructions for creating literally thousands of dumbbell exercises for the novice to advanced lifter, Men's Health Ultimate Dumbbell Exercises will be an indispensable addition to any home gym.
A good collection of dumbbell exercises for all muscle groups. I like the message, you only need dumbbells to have a superb workout. Throw in a good bench (and maybe a set of resistance bands) and you basically have all your needs covered.
What didn't sit well with me is the gimmicky title. Every exercise can have a ton of variations, but they're just that: variations, not new exercises. In fact I'd argue that making it seem that dumbbells offer thousands and thousands of exercises does not make them more appealing. This "more is better" mentality doesn't really work here.
Still, a good guide if you're on the fence whether dumbbells are enough for a home gym (they absolutely are!!)
The actual content in this 280p can be put in blog post ... max 40 pages) for example for one exercise author created tens of variation that all same, and sometime they are incorrect and unsafe:
biceps curls standing biceps curls sitting on a flat bench biceps curls sitting on a incline bench bicep curls sitting on a stability ball biceps curls with your back against the wall biceps curls your arm at 90 degree .... all of above variation repeated only with reverse wrist
this way author market tens of exercise, to thousands of exercise that a lot of them less useful and sometimes incorrect/unsafe version of original exercise.
This book is perfect for people who have never weight trained, it details all the posible excercises you can do with a pair of dumbells and some other basic equipment and it describes what are the main muscles each excercise helps to develop (The photos are helpful).
I would have liked the workouts section to be more detailed and explain how best to focus the training on different parts of the body throughout the week or on a time based training, but other than that I think it is a very well structured guide.
The technique described in some of those exercises is obsolete and can lead to an injury. Overall it's a good guide through dumbbell exercises and an addition to your training journey. I've been doing most of exercises mentioned there prior to reading this book.
If this book had even half the variation ‘s in it I would have been dancing in the streets. But Mr. Murphy gives you even more ( much more) . He reminds me of Charles Poliquin in his writing. And of Bill Pearl in that he gives you many variants to the same exercise. As a home trainer at the moment it really helps .Chapter six is particularly interesting. Schedule’s for your skill level is provided and is well put together. In my particular case this book has helped me find the right angle using dumbbells to still work for strength.
Most of the moves in this book are that of which I already knew and the reason for the high number of positions or moves you can perform with dumbbells is due to different hand or body positioning. However, I did learn a couple of new moves from this book as well as certain tweaks. This book would be excellent for someone who is just starting out using dumbbells, or even who has been using dumbbells for 6 - 12 months. The book also includes a workout plan section in the back for people who have trouble coming up with workouts on their own. Book was very informative and had great instruction on how to perform each workout (photographs included).
I've been flirting with the idea of starting a weight training program again and this was the perfect book. Imagine, doing a whole workout at home with just dumbbells. I'll probably buy this book.
Lots and lots and LOTS of dumbbell exercises in here. Not just for men, it uses photos to demonstrate correct form and execution of each move, and explains how to expand your repetoire with simple variations.