Reviewed by Christa Sgobba, C.P.T.
If you find yourself defaulting to lower-body exercises whenever you get to the gym—because who doesn’t love a good legs routine?—having an arms workout with dumbbells on your list can be an awesome way to make sure you’re fitting some upper-body strengthening into your plan too. Standard Kettlebell Weights
And that’s important, since those muscles really do a lot to get you through life. Your biceps, which are located on the front of your upper arms, help you with any pulling motion you may be doing, certified personal trainer Francine Delgado-Lugo, CPT, movement and strength coach and cofounder of Form Fitness Brooklyn, tells SELF. This means every time you open a door, pick something off the floor, or carry an object, your biceps are working to help you get it done, she explains. When you flex or bend your elbow, your biceps are firing.
Your triceps, which make up the back of your upper arm, are the opposing or antagonist muscle to your biceps—they help you with pushing movements, Delgado-Lugo says. Every time you close a door, lower your body to the floor, or press something overhead, you’re using your triceps. They also help stabilize your arms when you’re carrying a heavy load, she adds. When you extend your elbow and straighten your arm, your triceps are working.
And while you may not think of them as “arms muscles,” your rear deltoids—which run along the backside of your shoulder—play a key role in your upper-body functioning. This small muscle is “very important for posture and for moving the arm backward,” explains Delgado-Lugo, so it’s super important to work on strengthening along with your biceps and triceps.
While your arm muscles are relatively small, they’re actually pretty important for bigger lifts, like rows or bench presses (and for bodyweight exercises too, including push-ups and pull-ups). “They play a critical role in supporting those movements,” Delgado-Lugo says. Take the row, for instance. Even though your bigger back muscles are the primary drivers, your biceps work to help keep your weight—whether we’re talking about a barbell, dumbbell, or kettlebell—steady and complete the movement. Similarly, with a chest press, your pectoral muscles may be doing most of the work, but your triceps are helping it along too.
To give these mighty muscles the attention they deserve, Delgado-Lugo created the following four-move routine for SELF that you can add to your arsenal of arms workouts with dumbbells when you’re craving something new. With exercises including the Arnold press, three-way biceps curl, bent-over row to triceps kickback, and bent-over reverse fly, you’ll target your arms as well as your shoulders and parts of your mid and upper back.
Together these muscles “are all integral to effective pushing and pulling and carrying in horizontal and vertical directions,” explains Delgado-Lugo.
The exercises you’ll be doing are a mix of isolation moves (those that target one area of the body) and more compound moves (those that hit multiple muscle groups). The three-way biceps curl, for instance, is an isolation move that hones in on your biceps, while the bent-over row to triceps kickback is more of a compound exercise that fires up your bigger back muscles along with your triceps.
In general, it’s helpful to focus on compound movements, as they provide “more big bang for your buck,” says Delgado-Lugo, and are often more functional with direct carryover to our day-to-day motions. But there’s still a place for isolation moves. For one, they can help build strength around a joint, as well as really focus on a certain area, says Delgado-Lugo. For example, if your goal is to do a chin-up, adding in isolated bicep exercises can help you get there, since your arms muscles play such a critical role in the pulling-up motion.
You can do this dumbbell arm workout as a standalone routine, or tack it onto a more comprehensive, compound workout, says Delgado-Lugo—for instance, if you were doing a full-body strength session or a lower-body focused one. If you add this workout onto something else, do the compound routine first, she says. If you perform it by itself, just make sure to do a warm-up before jumping in to help boost blood flow and ensure your joints and muscles are primed to move. Delgado-Lugo recommends shoulder mobilization drills (here are some awesome options from SELF), arm swings, and arm circles.
Ready to discover a strength training routine packed with some of the best dumbbell arm exercises out there? Keep scrolling for all you need to get started with a stellar four-move routine that will help you build some seriously strong arms.
What you need: A set of dumbbells—think medium to light. The weight will vary depending on your fitness level and experience, but a range of 8 to 17 pounds can be a solid starting point. You’ll want dumbbells that are light enough that you’re able to complete the prescribed reps with proper form, but heavy enough that you feel like by the end of your repetitions, you could only do one or two more with proper form.
Demoing the moves below are Francine Delgado-Lugo (GIF 1), cofounder of Form Fitness Brooklyn; Nathalie Huerta (GIF 2), coach at the Queer Gym in Oakland, California; Sarah Taylor (GIF 3), personal trainer and founder of plus-size virtual fitness program Fitness by Sarah Taylor; and Tray Drew, MPH, owner/operator of Body By Tray.
While your shoulders or deltoids are the primary moves in this variation of the overhead press, there’s also “big target on those triceps because they’ve got to keep pushing up,” Delgado-Lugo explains. Compared to a traditional shoulder press, the Arnold variation is slightly more complex since it takes your delts through a larger range of motion, which requires greater stability and greater engagement of all three parts of the deltoids, Delgado-Lugo explains.
Dumbbell curls are a must in any arm workout, and this exercise combines three variations into one move: It includes a regular curl, a hammer curl, and a wide-grip curl so you can target your muscles from different angles. This helps your biceps become strong in multiple directions, explains Delgado-Lugo, which is important for functional, well-rounded strength.
By Amy Marturana Winderl, C.P.T.
A combination of two different exercises (the bent-over row and the triceps kickback), this move works the mid-back muscles and biceps in the rowing portion, and the triceps in the kickback part. The fact that you’re in a bent-over position makes it especially challenging since your whole body has to fight gravity, which “just puts more onus on those triceps to work hard,” Delgado-Lugo explains. Note: Because of the addition of the isolation triceps exercise at the end, you’ll probably need a lighter weight than you normally use for regular bent-over rows.
This exercise really targets your rear delts, which play a key role in helping you stand straight. It also fires up your mid-back muscles, since that area helps support your shoulder girdle as you perform the reps, says Delgado-Lugo. Plus, the opening motion also make your arms work to keep the weight steady too.
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