It’s amazing how much fat a 10 pound dumbbell routine can obliterate.
You can base an entire workout on just two 10 pound dumbbells and burn a lot of fat.
The following workouts with just 10 pound dumbbells are not geared towards endurance.
This isn’t about walking while holding these little weights or curling them while pedaling a stationary bike.
This is about getting sweaty and huffing and puffing, getting hot and drippy with heart-pumping fatigue.
The objective is to fatigue rapidly for optimal fat-burning, but even if you’re already lean, these workouts will promote musculoskeletal and cardiorespiratory fitness.
Legs
Half-ball squat. Standing on the flat side of a half-ball, holding the 10 pounders at shoulder height or crossed at the chest, squat deeply for 20-30 repetitions.
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If you’re a beginner, squat on the floor for several weeks before moving on to the BOSU ball. Either way, rest one minute and repeat two more times with a minute rest.
Stool jump. Use a 12 inch stool and hold the dumbbells on either side of the body, and jump up with both feet at the same time, then jump back down. The jump back down can also be forward. Jump as high as possible off the stool.
This is to be done as fast and as high as possible for one minute. Less fit trainees can jump onto a step class stepper elevated at one riser level.
Treadmill incline. Set treadmill to 15 percent and 2 mph and walk while holding the 10 pound dumbbells at the sides or at chest, for three minutes.
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Depending on your fitness level, use a speed of 2.5 or even 3 mph, or if you’re not very fit, set the speed at 1.5 mph.
Squat jump. For 30 seconds, do your best squat jumps while holding the 10 pound dumbbells.
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Don’t avoid the squat; get down as deep as you can before springing back up. Jump off the floor; don’t just go up on the balls of your feet.
Realize that the deeper the squat and higher the jump, the fewer repetitions will be completed in 30 seconds. The point is to become exhausted in 30 seconds.
Upper Body
Pushup-row-mountain climber. Get into a pushup position, hands on the 10 pound dumbbells.
Perform one pushup, row a dumbbell to your side with the right arm; do a pushup; repeat the row with the left arm; do a pushup; bring right knee to left abdomen, then left knee to right abdomen, then begin the sequence all over. Keep doing this for one minute.
If you’re not fit enough to do this, modify the routine. This can be done several ways.
For example, the rowing can be done by each arm before each pushup; or, the mountain climbers can be done in an alternating fashion instead of both legs successively; or, the pushups can be done off the knees.
Dumbbell swing. This is the same as the kettlebell swing except in each hand is the 10 pound dumbbell.
Swing them between the legs, breaking the plane of the legs, before swinging them back up, and swing them up above shoulder height. Do 15 to 30 reps, rest one minute, then do 15 to 30 reps.
Dumbbell jog. If the gym has a track, jog nonstop while holding the weights for five minutes as a semi-warm-down.
The final warm-down is a five minute walk holding the weights (or, to put it another way, a five-minute very light farmer’s walk).
If the gym doesn’t have a track, use the basketball court perimeter if it’s clear enough. If there isn’t a basketball court, use a treadmill.
How much rest in between each exercise?
That can vary, depending on one’s fitness level. It can be two minutes or one minute, or even 30 seconds for very fit trainees.
However, for the fittest people, have each station set up in close proximity, and move from one station to the next as each station is completed.
This can be thought of as a gigantic superset. In order to do this, though, intensity level of each component exercise must be reduced.
This workout is a total fat-burning enterprise, even though you’re using only 10 pound dumbbells.
Follow these instructions so that you get dripping, hot and out of breath for optimal burning of stubborn body fat.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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