StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5: Strength Training Using Dumbbells
Dec 17th, 2007 by Mehdi Posted in StrongLifts 5x5
Image credit: Sidereal
You want to build muscle & lose fat? Get on StrongLifts 5×5. But what if you don’t have access to barbells or you haven’t finished building your home gym yet? Here’s StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5: same approach but using dumbbells.
Benefits of StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5. This routine takes 3 x 40mins/week. Here’s what you can expect of this strength training program:
- More Strength. You’ll start light, adding weight every workout. You’ll get stronger as the weight gets heavier.
- More Muscle. The stronger you become, the more muscles you’ll have. Your muscle mass will increase as you lift heavier weights.
- Less Fat. Muscle burn calories. The more muscles you build, the more calories you’ll burn. Your body fat will decrease.
- Better Health. Increased testosterone levels, increased cardiovascular fitness, increased flexibility, stronger joints, etc.
Required Equipment. Shouldn’t be a problem to find the necessary equipment for StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5.
- Dumbbells. If you train in a commercial gym, you have access to dumbbells. I have adjustable dumbbells at home.
- Pull-up bar. Power Rack with a Pull-up bar or Doorway Pull-up bar. Any surface where you can hang from at arm’s length works.
- Dip Bars. Parallel bars that are 55cm/22″ apart. Or 2 chairs back to back, stable enough so you don’t fall.
Exercises. Front Squats & Deadlifts work legs. Bench Press & Dips work triceps & chest. Overhead Press work shoulders, triceps & abs. Pull-ups/Chin-ups work back & biceps. And the Dumbbell Snatch works everything.
Exercise technique is same as for the Barbell versions unless otherwise specified.
- Dumbbell Front Squat. Hands facing each others. Dumbbells resting on your shoulder muscles. Elbows high & pointing in.
- Dumbbell Bench Press. One dumbbell in each hand. Do them lying back on the floor if you don’t have a Bench.
- Dumbbell Overhead Press. Using the hammer grip: palm facing each others. Clean or cheat curl the dumbbells on your shoulders.
- Dumbbell Snatch. Much easier than you might think. This article on T-nation will help you with the technique.
- Pull-ups, Chin-ups & Dips. Read the articles on Pull-up & Chin-up technique & on Dips technique.
- 1 Leg Dumbbell Deadlift. Right leg on the floor, dumbbell in left hand. Chest up, look forward. Unlock knee, lower dumbbell until mid-shin level. Switch side after 5 reps: left leg on the floor, dumbbell in right hand.
One Leg Dumbell Deadlifts. Image credit: Mike Boyle
Program Template. Most train Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Tu/Th/Sa or Su/Tu/Th works too. Keep at least 1 day rest between 2 workouts. Alternate A & B every workout. Week1: A/B/A, week2: B/A/B, week3: A/B/A, etc.
| Workout A | Workout B |
|---|---|
| Db Front Squat 5x5 | Db Front Squat 5x5 |
| Db Bench Press 5x5 | Db Overhead Press 5x5 |
| Dumbbell Snatch 5x5 | 1 Leg Db Deadlift 5x5 |
| Pull-ups/Chin-ups 3xF | Dips 3xF |
- 5×5. 5 sets of 5 reps with the same weight after you have warmed up properly. 5×5 20kg means 5 reps with 20kg on all 5 sets.
- 3 x F. 3 sets until failure. Do as many reps as you can do with proper technique. Try to do more reps the next workout. Once you can do 10 reps on the first set, switch to weighted Pull-ups/Chin-ups/Dips doing 5×5 & adding 1.25kg every workout.
- Pull-ups/Chin-ups. Alternate Pull-ups (palms away) with Chin-ups (palms facing) every workout A. If you can’t do 1 rep: increase your Pull-up strength first.
- Rest Between Sets. Take 1min rest between sets. When the weight get heavier & you struggle to get 5 reps, try 2-3mins rest between sets.
- Lift Tempo. Once your technique is ok, lift fast. Apply maximal force to the dumbbell while controlling it. Control the dumbbell on the way down, but don’t make it slow.
Starting Weight & Progressing. Start with light dumbbells. Mine are 6kg/13lbs. Add weight every workout.
- Dumbbell Exercises. Add 2.5kg/5lbs every workout. If you have smaller increments of 2kg or 1kg available, use them.
- Pull-ups, Chin-ups & Dips. Switch to weighted Pull-ups/Chin-ups/Dips when you can do +10 reps on the first set with your own body-weight.
Stalling. You’ll stall on the Overhead Press first. Grip will be a limiting factor on Deadlifts & Front Squats. If you stall for 3 consecutive workouts, deload by lowering the weight by 10-20% & restart from there.
You will stall because you can’t apply strength, rather than lacking strength. You might have the leg strength to Front Squat more, but holding a heavy dumbbell in that position will get impossible. Solution is simple: switch to StrongLifts 5×5.
Nutrition on StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5. Eat your body-weight in lbs x 18kcal daily. Add/remove 500kcals from there if you want to gain weight or lose fat.
- Protein. 1g/lbs daily. Meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, whey, etc.
- Whole Carbs. Oats, rice, pasta, breads, yams, potatoes, etc
- Fruits & Veggies. All kinds. Eat veggies and/or fruits with every meal.
- Fat. Fish oil, flax seeds, olive oil, etc.
- Water. 1 liter per 1000 calories you expend. 1US gallon a day will do.
Cardio. StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5 builds cardiovascular fitness. If you need to lose fat, do cardio 3x/week post strength training. This gives you 4 days to rest & do other things. For fat loss:
- 3 x 30 Mins. Work yourself up to 4 x 45 mins a week. Do the cardio post strength training. You won’t lose muscle if you eat post workout.
- Moderate Intensity. Your goal is to lose fat, not exhaust yourself. You should breathe heavier than when at rest, but not gasping.
- Elliptical Trainer. I prefer the elliptical trainer for cardio. Feel free to try other cardio machines.
Limitations of StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5. Understand this strength training routine builds muscle and decreases your body fat. But it’s not as effective as StrongLifts 5×5.
- Squats. Leg strength is the limiting factor on Barbell Squats. With Dumbbell Squats holding the weight on your shoulders is. You won’t be able to go all out on the Db Front Squats.
- Progressive Loading. Adding 2.5kg every workout leads to stalling sooner on upper-body exercises. Use smaller increments of 1.25kg or less if you have access to these.
Try StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5 if you don’t have access to barbells. Switch to StrongLifts 5×5 after 6-10 weeks.
Question? Click here to post them in the comment section. With enough questions I’ll make a list of frequently asked questions.
Hi man,
You got good stuff (yet again)
I have to try this routine tonigh at gym.
One legged deadlift?
Seriously?
great alternative for that person with the home gym!
i think applying the 5×5 strength training to dumbells might be the wrong approach though. i think you would need to develop new routines that take advantage of the dumbells greater range of motion. Squats for example, you could hold the weight at your side (use straps if grips an issue) and squat down until the weight hits the floor.
I mainly train with barbells, but if i start hitting plateaus then i switch to dumbells for a workout or two. thats all that i usually need to give myself a little strength boost.
which workout would give best results over all, barbell or dumbells?
@Vesa
Thanks. Good luck with the routine, start a log in the forum so we can check your progress.
@Leo
One legged deadlifts are a great exercise, really. The balance is challenging, but they are great really. You’ll see.
@Michael Brito
Great comment really. There are indeed different kinds of squat variations you can do using dumbbells. Lunges, stepups, squats holding the dumbbells aside, etc. I’ve chosen dumbbell front squats because it mimics the position of the Squat the best. A dumbbell squat holding the dumbbells at arms length is not a squat but more like a deadlift, position is different. Unless you use straps, grip is quickly a problem indeed. I feel for those reasons dumbbell front squats are better.
I also think that other rep ranges (3×8) are better for dumbbell exercises. But this routine isn’t meant to burst plateaus, it’s meant as introductory routine for beginners. 5×5 will work for these.
@Ro
Barbells definitely. Check the “Limitations of StrongLifts Dumbbell 5×5″ at the bottom of the post.
yeah was just about to say, didnt notice that at the bottom :P.
But I’ve got a question i do weights at home and i dont have a bench. I’ve been doing stronglifts 5×5 for around 3 months now and have seen difference in my body. but i havent been doin bench presses which was the only exercise designed to hit the pecs in 5×5. how would i get around this, do the bench press with dumbells on the floor?
No problem. The Overhead Press works the chest too, not to the same degree as the Bench Press, but it still does. Dips also work the chest. You can dumbbell floor bench press, but also barbell floor bench press. Take a barbell, lye back on the floor, lower bar until elbows hit floor, press back up. Range of motion is smaller, so you don’t get the same chest workout as with normal bench presses.
I used to train in a f***ed up gym –> only dumbells. My basic exercices were also bulgarian squats and db rows, i did them for 6-9 months and they helped me out in field of strengh and mass.
Mehdi could you please email me some good forearm work outs. I have some dumbbells, and curling and bench press bar. I can build pretty much anything please email me or leave a commment giving me some instructions thanks.
Ps: great source
Deadlifts, turkish getups, pull-ups & chin-ups will build a strong grip, and thus muscular forearms.
could you mix the 5×5 barbell and dumbell?
Hey Mehdi, you said:
“The Overhead Press works the chest too, not to the same degree as the Bench Press, but it still does. Dips also work the chest.”
By “same degree,” you mean not as effectively or like, that it works a different area in the chest? I like to change up my chest exercises so I’d be doing Bench press one week, Overhead press the other, and back and forth like that. Do Dips work the chest enough so that I can actually throw in Dips in that cycle so it takes place of the other two?
Thanks. I love your articles by the way, keep up the good work!
I have always had trouble with squats. Not the actual press but the descend. Whats the best way to work on the outside muscles of my legs. Especially the ones closer to my knees?
Thanks and really enjoy your website!
@MikeB
You can do it at the intermediate stage: adding dumbbells as assistance the way Michael Brito described. I don’t recommend it for beginners: simplicity is better.
@Greg
The angle is different on the oh press than the bench press. I don’t Bench Press, but my chest is developped from dips & oh presses. Not as much as if I would bench press, but it still is developped. My point: it’s not that you will end up with a flat chest if you don’t bench press, other exercises work your chest too.
I don’t know what your routine looks like, but if chest is the goal you should bench press & dips. But you need the oh press for a healthy shoulder girdle.
@Shane Brawley
This is strength training, not bodybuilding. You want muscular legs: squat a lot & squat heavy. The stronger you become, the more muscular your legs will be. If you’re looking for developped quads, try front squats for a while.
Sorry, but whatever it is, and despite what its benefits might be, that one-legged stork routine ain’t a “deadlift”; and if you tried to make it into one, you’d hurt yourself.
Stiff-legged or romanian deadlift is probably a correcter name. They are safer than barbell deadlifts, especially for people like you with histories of back injuries. Back isn’t loaded as much as with barbell deadlifts & you still get a decent leg workout. You should try them Sperwer.
Mehdi,
It doesn’t look like a stiff-legged or Romanian, or any other kind of deadlift, and I doubt it works like one, so let’s please stop calling it one. Actually looks more like a sort of one-legged good morning, but I’d still be leery of doing it on a single leg with any sort of appreciable weight. At least with my back, or history of (mostly unrelated to lifting) back problems, I’m steering clear of taking an entire leg out of the equation when I put a load on. There are plenty of other better balance exercises out there.
BTW, by way of belated reply to your message of several weeks ago, my back is doing fine now. After a lengthy protocol of acupuncture, bee venom injections and some sort of herbal concoction specially formulated for the rejuvenation of spinal disk tissue by an oriental medical clinic here in Seoul with a specialty in back problems, and slowly easing back into it and doing some accessory exercises for the lower back, I’m back up to 295 lbs on the conventional deadlift for 5×5 working sets - not too shabby after only 15 months on the grunt, with timeout for a serious disk displcement. I didn’t answer sooner because, like you, I’m in the middle of shifting gears, and I had a few distractions to attend to, besides keeping my training schedule.
There is actually a one leg goodmorning too, done with a barbell on the back & one leg leaving the floor. Anyway, you’re old enough to decide for yourself what to do.
Great to hear your back is doing beter Sperwer. Treatment sounds much beter than what is being done in western medecine (operation table). Let me know if I can help with something.
Thanks, Mehdi, Yeah, the Korean oriental medical treatment sounds a bit rad, but there really is no western option other than the non-option of surgery, and I’d rather hobble around if I had to rather than get my spine fused. Anyway, this stuff I’m been taking has been documented in several studies as resulting in/contributing to the body’s repair of damaged disk tissue, and it seems to be working in my case. Even my doc doesn’t really know much about lifting, but based on his observation of my recovery compared to hundreds of other patients he’s had, I think he’s inclined to at least hypothesize that my lifting regimen has also substantially contributed to the efficacy of the treatment and the speed of recovery.
Dumbbells are underratted. It’s good to see a workout based on them. I love the 1 Leg DL because it isolates hip extension from the hamstring. Who cares what it’s called right!?
Oh and it’s perfectly safe with proper form. Keep the spine neutral.
@Sperwer
I had someone training in my home gym yesterday, he was rehabing from a lower back injury (from work). Poor guy, his whole upper-back is round from incorrectly lifting stuff at work. He had asked me to workout for several months now, but I never wanted to because he had pre-existent lower back pain. Anyway, the solution (I told him to check his posture before) the doctor give him was plain operation. Removing the hernia in his lower back. His posture is of course still not ok, so he will get problems again in the future, I’m sure of that.
I’m unfamiliar with the methods you used, however I had accupuncture being performed on me in the past & it certainly worked, I’m a big fan of oriental medecine which tends to treat the causes rather than the symptoms.
@David
Thanks man.
Ditto on dumbbells. I’ve started supplementing barbell bench press with dumbbell inclines and declines and have noticed immediate significant pectoral response. And I don’t mean to niggle about the name - as I said, if it works for someone, great, do it - but calling it a deadlift suggests a lot of things about how it should be done properly, which actually don’t appear to be applicable (neutral spine aside). Maybe I’ve just been reading too much “Confusious”, i.e., rectification of names, and all that.
Please reconsider advsing anyone, particularly beginners, to lift any weights in any exercise while on one leg.
@Sperwer
I still fail to see what the difference is between a one leg deadlifts and a deadlift except that you’re doing them on one leg. Technique is like you point out basically the same: chest up, straight back, etc. Feel free to explain it.
@Leo
Please backup what you say with arguments so I can at least understand your point of view & come back with arguments. Thanks.
Mehdi,
Actually I was saying that technique does NOT seem to be the same, except for maintaining a neutral spine, and it looks to me that it would be potentially dangerous to try to replicate the technique of a true deadlift on one leg.
Assume a good average dead lift is 400 lb (I can’t lift that). let us have a video, since this is called STRONG lifts, of you doing a one legged one handed deadlift with say 200;lb. Or perhaps 150. You should not need evidence to recognise that weightlifting one legged is innately dangerous. It has no place in a strength programme. If you can’t furnish a self video, what about an acknowledged strength athlete doing it?
This is where we say good bye.
Mehdi:
Although I think Leo’s reaction is a bit over the top, it’s a good illustration of what comes of failing to be discriminating enough in describing and recommending exercises. This one-legged maneuver in question may be a useful supplementary exercise if done correctly (and presumably with a relatively negligible weight), but it’s just not what one thinks of when one thinks deadlift. Or to borrow a phrase from former Supreme Court Justice Byron White (who was speaking about pornography), I may not be able to define it precisely, but I know it when I see it - or in this case when I don’t.
@Sperwer
I still fail to see what could be potentially dangerous if trying to replicate the technique of a Deadlift. They are both done the same way, maybe I should make an article on the one leg deadlift technique.
@Leo
1. One leg deadlift of 200lbs is safer than a 400lbs deadlift: spine gets half the load. That’s why strength training coaches like Mike Boyle have their athletes do one leg lifts: minimizes risks of lower back injuries.
2. Context of this program: start with an empty dumbbell, add weight every workout, switch to StrongLifts 5×5 after 6-10 weeks. No beginner will get to a 150lbs one leg deadlift by that time, grip will be the first limiting factor.
I am interested in alternate exercises to teh Pullup/chinup and dip. I am thinking pushups with varied hand palcement may do the same job. I ask because I don’t have a pullup or dip bar.
JTK
Pull-up/pushups are a pull exercises (work back/biceps), push-ups/dips are push exercises (work chest/triceps).
You can substitute dips for push-ups. However dips are better than push-ups: whole body is moving, feet are unsupported, easier to add weight.
Pull-ups/chin-ups: no replacement. Drop them if you don’t have a pull-up bar.
how about using circuit training while on this routine ? could be lot more fun….another thing that can be added are complexes maybe used for intermediate level.
Also i feel this routine can be perioridize with barbell training for more benefit like 12 weeks barbell followed by 2-4 weeks of dumbbell training.
Just to add single leg RDL / squat are some exercise that everyone should do. check out mike boyle’s article for any proof you want.
http://www.michaelboyle.biz/documents/articles/New%20Thoughts%20on%20Single%20Leg%20Training.pdf
also the restricting factor in single leg RDL is grip.
Mehdi, could you describe the Dumbbell Front Squat a little further. I can’t seem to get a clear picture in my head of what this looks like. Your description, “Hands facing each others. Dumbbells resting on your shoulder muscles. Elbows high & pointing in.” I guess I don’t get how your elbows are high and pointing in. Wouldn’t they be pointing out?
The company I work for has a workout center, but it only has dumbbells and a few machines. This workout routine could help me out a lot. Thanks for the site. I’m a RSS subscriber.
@Eric
It’s impossible to point your elbows in, but you need to try doing it. Elbows will most likely end up forward, but they shouldn’t be pointing out. Thanks for subscribing.
Hey. Just started the Dumbbell 5×5. The first two workouts were great. My whole body aches, but I guess that’s good. I am having problems with the 1 legged dead lift. It feels akward. I tried looking for some examples on youtube and everyone had weight in both hands. I was never really sure what to do with my arms. Any chance you could video it?
Thanks.
Marc
Hey Mehdi, thanks for all your help. I tried addapting the barbell 5×5 into a dumbell routine before I read this and was just about to suggest it. I don’t have barbells yet so this, included with all the nutrition and healthy eating info you’ve given me, should be sufficient until I have enough money to get barbells, do you agree? I kind of need some trusted opinion here
I’m a real skinny guy who never ate much, but that’s hopefully going to change soon, and i’m really looking forward to getting stronger. Thanks again for all your help Mehdi.
um ay peeps im just wondering i got 30 pound dumbbells and if i lift them fast would i build some good muscle mass and strength just wana know