Dumbbell work out questions

I understand your preference for full body workouts, but I would urge you to persevere with one of Caroline Girvan’s programmes, e.g. EPIC Heat or EPIC 3. I promise you it’ll all fall into place and you’ll have a thorough grounding on what to do.

I have done most of her YouTube programmes, but these days I mostly pick different full body workouts from her various programmes. I’m in my 70s and have been doing this since 2020 - it has been life changing.

Obviously progressively overload and up your weights. I started out with 3 kg, but quite quickly moved to 5 kg. These days I mostly use 8 and 10 kg, but I also have a 12 kg set that I use for leg work mostly.

I now use my 5 kg dumbbells for HIIT. I do at least two cardio/HIIT sessions a week - mostly Growingannanas, both with light weights and without. I also do 3-4 minutes of plank variations every day, which has helped tremendously with strengthening my core.

How big are 30kg dumbbells. I’ve got a 40lb (it’s old) kettle and that’s big enough, that’s only 18kg!

A range of weights are what you need. I use between 6kg and 30kg depending on what I'm doing.

You can also do bodyweight exercises if you only have very light weights and are waiting to get more.

How is the 3kg feeling to you, are you finding your current workouts easy, do-able or challenging? Unless you're finding the 3kg easy I think I would stick to 5kg as your next one, you definitely don't want to overdo it but you do want to be able to gradually increase over time...

I’d just go to the next weight, then the next and so on.

I started a few years ago and now have a range as I’ve slowly added heavier and heavier weights. I have 2 x 18kg as my heaviest now but I’m never going to be curling those, my arms stopped at 7kg curls but I press 9kgs, so different moves can take different weights. I use 9kg for lunges, 18kg sumo squat. It needs to be consistent and a slow build.

Remember you have the rest of your life, so take your time and don’t injure yourself.

Mine's not show off muscle! It's just everyday strength, which translates into good energy, balance and posture. The general good practice is either thinking about training to failure (that's for advanced lifters) or thinking about RiR - reps in reserve.

So you could work on your lifts using the principle of having just 2 RiRs - that is by your last rep, you only have one or two more in you to do. Stop at that point, rest for at least a minute, but preferably two minutes, and go again.

Bicep curls, farmers carry, boat , goblet squat and overhead I’m on 6kg. Weighted bridge and dead lift I use 8kg . I also use bands.

How long have you been training at those weights? They're still pretty light. I'm training Farmer's carry at 2 x 32 kg dumbbells (and I'm in my mid-60s) - carrying for a minute. It's really tough and my grip slips, but if I don't try, my grip would be even weaker. It's taken about 5 years to get to that sort of weight, but you don't get there without trying the heavy hard stuff.

At 80, I want to be able to get myself up off the ground - that's why I'm training carrying my body weight in kettle bells. I was doing frog glute bridge pumps yesterday with a 20 k kettlebell. It's good for my glutes and we can generally hold, lift, and carry FAR more than we think we're capable of. And in a deadlift on a barbell, the bar weighs 20 kilos, so that should be a minimum weight so you learn correct form.

Take it slowly, but don't limit yourself.

Have a look at MegSquats free programme for those new to weights called "Before the Bar"

F

Note that there is some very recent research that says working to complete failure isn’t needed to build useful muscle ( although it may help with body builder show off muscle )

Take it slow, you are right to start low. If 3kg feels comfortable you could try 5kg and see how it feels. How many reps are you doing?. I do 3 x10 of each exercise. If I can’t finish it I consider maybe I need to be a slightly lower weight, if I can do it easily I go up. A lat lift I’m still on 3kg. Bicep curls, farmers carry, boat , goblet squat and overhead I’m on 6kg. Weighted bridge and dead lift I use 8kg . I also use bands.
i can often lift slightly higher in the gym on the machines or cable.
The NHS website has some good exercises for beginners.

Using 3kg weights you could work out full body everyday. It isn't very heavy (except for lat raises and flies, and maybe bicep curls).

It's hard for women to build muscle. You need to be training so that the last few reps in a set are really hard to do & you're puffed afterwards. Caroline Girvan's stuff is ok, but it's almost as much aerobic as it is resistance/strength training.

You also need to have what's called a progressive programme - one that tracks what's called progressive overload.

The way to build muscle is to stress it - by overload, and working to failure (eventually, not when you're just starting) and so then the muscle adapts to that stress - the overload - which causes the muscle to grow as it repairs itself.

Not sure who Caroline G is but follow ‘Caroline Circuits’ on Instagram. She has 20mins workouts per day and a combo of leg or arm ones and full body ones. She’s also having a major PR push, I gather, as she now has a column in the Times.

Anyway I like her short burst workouts which are manageable.

I workout at the gym but use dumbbells 95% of the time. Other 5% is machines on leg days. I workout arms on one day and legs the next. This gives my upper body and lower body a day to for rest before working out and I find a day is all I need to recover. And I go to the gym 4-5 times a week.

Arm days have a total of 6 exercises and leg days have 5. Each exercise has 4 sets with 10-12 reps so it takes me 1-1.5 hours per day to workout.

Ah sorry no that was misleading - the NHS doesn't set a time guidance for how long you should spend doing strength training, just that you should do it twice a week. Whatever you can manage is brilliant and probably a lot more than many people get! I put an hour because I would personally struggle to get through a full body workout of say 3-4 sets of 5-6 different exercises with rest in between, in less time. But bear in mind the NHS does say strength work doesn't have to be gym or weights, if you lift heavy things in everyday life like carrying heavy shopping home from shops or lifting a toddler or gardening or have a job that involves lifting/manual handling that would all count too. Or you can also do bodyweight activities like push ups, sit ups, planks where you don't need any weights at all?

2 to 3 times a week - 3 if you prefer the shorter sessions

style is whatever you like best as that encourages continuity which is the only really important thing

think at some point about heavier weights, but only when you are sure of technique

rule of thumb - light and many or few and heavy - whatever you prefer but aim to work to exhaustion

if you want to build muscle that means “can’t do another rep”

if you want to be fit and healthy you can be a little less rigourous about the the work to exhaustion. Building muscle you need to really target groups, being fit and healthy then whole body movements are best

if you have one exercise you hate - triceps for example - always try and do that one

but basically anything is better than nothing and the returns on optimising any program are small compared to the returns of doing something regularly

She recommends low number of reps but as heavy as you can go

Dr Vonda Wright …. Got that one wrong!!! I follow her on Facebook for little useful vids, but here’s the super compelling podcast link as interviewed by Mel Robbins:
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-mel-robbins-podcast/id1646101002?i=1000697960651

if you’ve just started, i would take the weight increase slowly, for now i would make sure I’m doing the exercise correctly.

having said that, i would already get the 5 kg
for squats , lunges, etc

when i’m in a rush or can’t be bothered with a long workout, i’ll do a 20 minute targeted one(either legs or arms) and use quite heavy dumbbells (7kg for me).

i'm usually very sore the following day when i do this.

good luck!

I do 30mins 3 times a week. I do LiftwithCee on youtube. I am 49, she is about the same age. The ones I do are full body, she has different ones. I do the same one for a month then move to the next.

I do the CG works out. I prefer the 20/30 full body workout. I do these 4 to 5 times a week alongside a pilates class and a 5km walk once a week.
I do 5kg for some and 8kg for other exercise.

3 times a week full body is perfect. You’ll soon outgrow 3kg as you get stronger. Different parts of your body will need different weights, so for example legs will need much heavier than arms as they’re bigger muscles. But just get started, get into a routine, see what works for you and add weight when you need to. I absolutely fell in love with lifting once I got started so hope you enjoy getting strong too.