Why Dumbbell Workouts Burn Fat and Shape Your Body

You can burn fat, lose weight and shape your body using a pair of dumbbells. Be prepared to You will need to challenge yourself and go beyond using 5 and 10 pound dumbbells to make progress!



I hear this phrase often, "I don't have any equipment to workout with." My answer is always the same--"you don't need much equipment to workout." You can do bodyweight exercises, run outside, jump rope or do calisthenics for your cardio and do dumbbell strength exercises.

5 Dumbbell Workout Methods to Burn Body Fat

1. Dumbbell workouts are superior to lifting weights on machines. Dumbbells allow you to use "natural body motion" as you perform the exercise. You can also perform dumbbell exercises in any plane of motion. You will burn more fat by doing multi-planar exercises.

An example of a multi-planar exercise is clock (or 3-D) lunges.




Machines and even barbells (sometimes) restrict natural movement. Machines typically use the sagittal plane of motion. Daily human movement uses all three planes of motion (sagittal, frontal, transverse).

2. Dumbbells allow you to train one-limb-at-a-time (unilateral training). Therefore, each arm and leg will do "its share" of the work.

Also, if one arm or leg is stronger than the other, dumbbell work can correct the strength imbalance. Unilateral training challenges the core more than bilateral training. Unilateral exercises are more intense than bilateral exercises so they help you burn more fat.

Ramp up the intensity of your workout, burn more fat and shape your body. The more intense your workout, the more fat you will burn. Quality workouts, and not time spent, are the key to fat loss and weight loss success.

3. Along the same lines, dumbbell exercises improve your dynamic balance since weaker muscles "catch up" with the stronger ones.

This helps you to do more challenging exercises such as single leg dumbbell deadlifts to improve your strength. This will also challenge your nervous system more. Dumbbell workouts allow you to be more creative with your exercises such as doing a squat-to curl-to press movement.

4. You can do a dumbbell workout anywhere which can be a big time-saver. Dumbbells are good for doing short burst workouts.

Short burst workouts, such as circuit dumbbell training have these advantages over the low-to-moderate intensity workouts: a) more release of fat from cells, b) more fat used as fuel during exercise and c) increased metabolic rate after exercise. All it takes is 20-30 minutes of workout time.And, adding high speed dumbbell exercises to any circuit will improve fat burning.

5. Finally, high repetition dumbbell workouts are effective fat burners. For example, I will sometimes do a workout of 5 sets of 10 repetitions of each exercise like: squats, rows, shoulder presses and chest presses. Rest 30 seconds between exercises. Do the circuit 2-3 times. You would need to use dumbbells heavy enough to make doing 10 repetitions very difficult.

Download your FREE Dumbbell Workout Program and get started!

Mark Dilworth, BA, PES


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About Mark

Hi, I'm Mark Dilworth, Nutritionist, Dietary Strategies Specialist, Nutrition for Metabolic Health Specialist and Lifestyle Weight Management Specialist. Since 2006, I have helped thousands of clients and readers make lifestyle habit changes which includes body transformation and ideal body weight.