Welcome to the Intense 45min Full Body Dumbbell Workout.
This training session will target your whole body and consists of some challenging exercises like single-leg squats (pistol) and Bulgarian split squats.
It’s a good mix of bodyweight and dumbbell exercises and the following guide will help you set up a good strategy for the training session and help you adjust some of the exercises in case you are having trouble with them.
In case you are curious to find out why I’m such a big fan of bodyweight, dumbbell, and kettlebell exercises, click on the links and learn about the benefits of the different exercises and what type of exercises you can actually do.
Let’s get to the workout.
Warmup
Before we start, I want to remind you to never skip your warm-up!
It’s just as important as your actual workout.
Just to give you a few important facts on why you should warm up:
- Increases blood flow
- Reduces the chance of injury
- Increases range of motion
- Improves performance
I could go on and keep rambling about the importance of warming up but I already did that in a different article. (click below to learn more)
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If you feel a little more stiffness in your body after a long day of work, use this warm-up routine:
Intense 45min Full Body Dumbbell Workout
For time
3 Rounds of:
20 x Dumbbell Front Squat
20 x Pike Push-Up
40 x Dumbell/Kettlebell Clean and Jerk
20 x Pistols
20 x Push-Ups
20 x Inverted Row
20 x Dumbbell Bulgarian Split Squat
20 x Dips
40 x Dumbbell Biceps Curl
(click on the links for a movement demonstration)
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How to approach it?
It says only three rounds but don’t be fooled by that.
You will perform 220 reps per round if you go through with the workouts as written.
If you are a beginner, I would advise you not to attempt to do the full 660 reps workout but scale down the reps according to your fitness level.
Be honest with yourself. You want to have a productive training session and not destroy yourself for the rest of the week.
The two approaches I would suggest to you for this workout:
- Go unbroken on each set of exercises and take a little longer breaks in between the different exercises. If you have high muscle endurance and good conditioning this might be the right strategy for you.
- If you are unsure that you can sustain the number of reps unbroken, go ahead and split each set of 20 up into either two or three sets. I usually go for two sets of 12/8 or 11/9. This gives me a little bit of a mental edge after completing the first set because, in my mind, I have already completed the majority of the work.
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Scaling options
In case you are having trouble/pain with some of the exercises, here are some suggestions on how to work around it:
- Dumbbell Front Squat: an alternative would be a squat with the dumbbells on your side
- Pike Push-Up: an alternative for this movement would be the Arnold press or dumbbell push-press with the appropriate weight
- Dumbbell Clean & Jerk: an option is to break the movement apart into a clean and press after doing a little break in between
- Pistols: you can switch to either the regular split squat or the reverse lunge
- Push-Ups: knee push-ups would be an option here
- Inverted Row: an option would be the dumbell bend over row
- Dumbbell Bulgarian Squat: you can either do the Dumbbell Split Squat or drop the weights and do a bodyweight Bulgarian Squat
- Dips: an option to scale the dips or make them a little easier is to bend your legs while performing the exercise which will give you less resistance
- Dumbbell Bicep Curl: in case weights are too much, pick a band and do banded biceps curls
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Cooldown
After you finished the training session, make sure to have a proper cool-down to avoid injuries & give your body time to recover.
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Happy Sweating!