8 Benefits of Dumbbell Workouts for Women
LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY | STITCHER
Why do I choose to work out with dumbbells instead of body weight, barbells, or simply just cardio?
Essentially, a well-rounded fitness routine includes strength training, and dumbbell workouts are a great way to achieve that.
Plus, if you’re looking for a practical workout routine to help you achieve the body you've always wanted, then dumbbell workouts may be the perfect solution for you! They can seriously transform your body and this episode most likely will encourage you to start gathering up some dumbbells.
Alright, now if you are sold on working out with dumbbells after listening to this episode, I have two things to say…
First, IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE! The results you will see from dumbbell workouts will be unparalleled to any cardio workout you have ever done.
Second of all, you can get dumbbell-only workouts from my MWJ app! I bring five brand-new workouts weekly that require dumbbells only.
You can access these workouts instantly by heading over to sale.movementwithjulie.com.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hey there, beautiful human. You're listening to Embrace Your Real, with me, Julie Ledbetter, a podcast where I empower you to just be you. With each episode, I dish you a dose of real talk and actionable advice for building your confidence, honoring your body, and unconditionally loving your authentic self. Stay tuned if you're ready to embrace your real. Let's get in, let's go.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of the Embrace Your Real podcast. So why do I choose to work out with dumbbells instead of body weight barbells, or simply just cardio? In fact, I have a lot of reasons why, and that's what I'm going to dive into in today's episode of Embrace Your Real. I know so many of you have been trying to build the body that you want, maybe even for years. If this is you, this episode will most likely encourage you to start picking up some dumbbells. But before I share all about why I personally love training with dumbbells and the benefits of dumbbell training in particular, I wanted to share this review. It comes from Anna Lee Dickey. She says:
"Just what I needed. Julie, I cannot thank you enough for creating this podcast. It truly uplifts me. I discovered this podcast at the beginning of a new season of my life. As a mom of three, under three, loving myself and my body has taken on a whole new meaning. This podcast reinforces the idea that caring for the body that you have is the healthiest way to truly feel your best. After years of struggling with a body image disorder, I finally love and appreciate my body and everything that it has given me. I feel more confident and beautiful at 31 than I did in my 20s. Thank you, Julie, for everything you do. I look forward to tuning in each week and that daily dose of real talk.
XO, Anna."
Anna, thank you so much. First of all, you are an absolute queen, a mom of three under three. Wow. That is incredible. I am so incredibly grateful that you have found this podcast and that this podcast is helping you. That is truly my mission. That is truly my heart behind this podcast. And so I just ask that if you haven't already rated and reviewed this podcast, you just scooch over to Apple Podcast. First, make sure you subscribe so that you never miss an episode. And second, you can rate and review. It takes less than 30 seconds, but it really does help us out. So all you've got to do is type in, Embrace Your Real to the Apple Podcast app on any Apple device, whether that's a computer, an iPad, your iPhone, and then you can click that rating and review. Again, thank you in advance for doing it. It really does help us out. Let's dive into the eight benefits of dumbbell workouts for women.
Essentially a well-rounded fitness routine includes strain training and dumbbell workouts are great way to achieve that. So if you're looking for a practical workout routine to help you achieve the body that you always wanted, then dumbbell workouts may be the perfect solution for you. They can seriously transform your body, and here are eight benefits why.
Number one, your strength increases. So one of the most significant benefits of dumbbells is that they can help you increase your strength. In short, when performing a weightlifting routine with dumbbells, you are working against resistance, which can help you build muscle. And over time, this can lead to increased muscle mass and improve strength. So to get more technical, dumbbells actually provide two types of overload that lead to muscle growth, one being mechanic, and the second being metabolic.
Mechanic overload happens when muscle fibers are broken down by muscle contractions and your body works to repair them by building more muscle fibers, hence leading to an increase in muscle size. Whereas metabolic overload happens when a muscle is worked to fatigue, which leads to the adaptation of muscle cells being able to store more glycogen, which also causes muscles to increase in size. So heavy dumbbells can generate mechanical overload, while moderate weight dumbbells combined with higher reps to fatigue can produce metabolic overload. So in summary, whichever you choose, you will still be stimulating muscle growth benefit.
Number two, toned arms, booty, legs, abs, back. Dumbbell workouts are a great way to tone every part of your body. And when I say tone, I basically just mean build muscle. For example, many women struggle with what they call arm flab. And so they try to run more miles on the treadmill to lose more weight thinking that the arm flab will go away if they lose more weight, but cardio itself does not build your muscles. Cardio can only help you lose fat and obviously improve your cardiovascular endurance. A toned body comes from building muscle. Let me repeat that again. A toned body comes from building muscle, which means you can do all the cardio that you want, but you won't get the toned muscles that you want. If you want toned arms, dumbbell exercises can help you build and tighten the muscles in your arms, making them more "defined" for a lack of a better term.
The same goes with your booty, legs, abs, back, whatever part you're looking to tone, but I do want to note that your nutrition plays a critical role in this. So be sure to pair your training with a nutrition program that's customized to you, your body, and your goals.
Benefit number three, reduced risk of injury. So unlike high-impact exercises, such as running, jumping or plyometrics, or even and hit workouts, dumbbell workouts are generally low impact. This means that they put less stress on your joints, which can help reduce the risk of injury. So while some of you may be listening who are in your 20s and injury doesn't really seem like something you need to worry about. Once you get into your 30s, you start noticing how these workouts are affecting your joints and ligaments. Plus even these types of workouts may not be affecting you now, but they could lead to damage in your later 20s or even 30s or so on and so forth. In my opinion, doing only plyometric, high-impact workouts multiple times a week, or if that's the only type of workout that you're doing, it could be problematic in the long run.
So why not just machines instead of dumbbells? Aren't they a lot safer?
Well, exercise machines are actually calibrated to target one muscle exclusively to maximize growth, which is fine if your daily activity is flexing, but on a practical level, it's important to strengthen the small muscles, ligaments and tendons that actually act to stabilize your joints. Machines do not require you to use any stability muscles, which means that you are missing these secondary muscles that support your tissues. This too can set you up for an injury in the future. Dumbbells on the other hand can strengthen you everywhere and protect your body from harm and future injuries. Whereas dumbbells on the other hand can strengthen you everywhere and protect your body from harm benefit.
Number four, increased endurance. Dumbbell exercises also help to improve endurance. For example, when you perform a weightlifting routine with dumbbells, you work your muscles for an extended period. This helps improve your overall endurance and makes you better able to perform other activities for a longer period of time.
There are two different ways to utilize resistance training with dumbbells: muscular strength and muscular endurance. Muscular strength is the amount of force that you can put out or the amount of weight that you can lift, whereas muscular endurance is how many times you move that weight without getting exhausted. This basically means you can build muscle endurance with dumbbells, just as well as building endurance with cardio-based activity. The difference being is that you will get all the benefits of dumbbell training on top of the cardiovascular benefits.
Benefit five, improved balance. Dumbbell workouts also help you to improve balance. So when using freeway, you have to constantly adjust your balance to control the weight. And like I said earlier, this triggers you to recruit your stabilizer muscles. The more that you actually recruit them, the stronger your stabilizer muscles will become and the more stable you will actually become. This actually can help to improve your balance and coordination, which can keep you safe when performing other activities outside of your workouts.
To get even more technical with you, dumbbell workouts can create both inner muscular and intramuscular coordination. To get more technical with you, dumbbell exercises can create both intermuscular and intramuscular coordination. Intermuscular coordination is your ability to recruit a number of different muscles to work together at one time to stabilize your joint motion, whereas intramuscular coordination is the amount of muscle motor units and their attached muscle fibers your body activates within a specific muscle. Again, dumbbell exercises trigger both types of coordination, which can overall improve your balance.
Benefit number six, increased metabolism. Dumbbell workouts can actually help you to increase your metabolism because when you work your muscles, they require more energy or calories to function. This means that you will burn more calories throughout the day, even when not working out. Remember this. A pound of fat and a pound of muscle weigh the same, but they have different energy requirements. Muscle burns more than fat, which means people who are muscular have a high basal metabolic rate, or we say it in the fitness world, BMR, which means basically that they burn a significant number of calories when resting.
Think about it like this. Let's say two people lay on a couch all day without getting up at once. One person has more muscle, whereas the other person has more fat. The person who has more muscle will burn more calories laying on the couch than the person that has more fat. Research shows that one pound of muscle burns seven to 10 calories, whereas one pound fat actually burns two to three calories. While this may not sound like a lot, every calorie does add up and it can make a drastic difference in your overall body composition.
Benefit number seven, dumbbells are accessible. If you're like me and either can't go to the gym, don't want to, or you just want to work out in the comfort of your own home, then dumbbells are for you. I personally have an entire set of dumbbells, which can be pricey. And thankfully I did get it from my dad prior to him moving to California, which was honestly like the reason why I even started working out from home. Before that, I never even had a pair of dumbbells and then my dad was like, "Hey, we're moving. We're just going to donate these. Do you want these?" And I was like, "Heck yeah, let's try it out."
I didn't use them honestly for the first seven months that we had them. They were just collecting dust in our garage. And then I just slowly started getting more and more sick of the gym. I started making excuses and I just found myself not being consistent in my workouts. And so I dusted off those dumbbells, and that kind of really started this whole season that I've been in the last almost three years, which ended up helping me to create Movement With Julie now, which is a community of women all over the world who are all working out together. And it's so incredible. But anyways, back to the point. They can be very, very accessible. You don't need a lot of dumbbells to even get started.
And you can honestly even increase the availability and the amount of weight that you are lifting by pairing that with resistance bands, which I talk about a lot on My Movement With Julie Instagram. If you're not following that specific Instagram, it's all about dumbbell workouts. Literally anything that I post is related to either a workout, a workout tip, or something with your home gym. So give Movement With Julie on Instagram and TikTok a follow, and you can learn a lot there. So whether you want to save money on a gym membership, you either have gym intimidation or you don't have time to go to the gym, or you just don't want to, working out at home with dumbbells is such a great and convenient option. You can get all the benefits that I listed above from home. Like literally every single benefit that I just touched on regarding dumbbells, you can get those benefits at home without ever needing to step foot into a gym.
If you're not familiar, I do have an app called Movement With Julie. And most of the women that use my app on a daily and weekly basis, actually work out from home. They open up the workout of the day, they pick whether the full workout or the 30-minute variation, depending on their time constraints that day. They pick up some dumbbells and they get a killer workout in without ever having to step foot into a gym. If you want to learn more about that, I will link it in the show notes, or you can go to sale.movementwithjulie.com and you can learn more. You can read the testimonials and just learn more about what the program entails, but I'm telling you don't need to step foot into a gym to get a killer workout.
And lastly, benefit number eight, improved posture. Finally, dumbbell workouts can actually help you to improve your posture. When you perform weightlifting exercises with proper form, you are forced to maintain good posture throughout the movement. This can actually help you to correct any bad posture habits that you may have and improve your overall posture in your day-to-day movement. So not only does good posture give off major confidence vibes, honestly, but it helps to keep your bones and joints in alignment, allowing your muscles to engage and strengthen and to be used more efficiently throughout your day. This is super important for longterm wear and tear in your body as you get older. Plus, as we get older, we are also more prone to becoming more hunched over, increasing our back and neck pain. With good posture though, it allows our muscles to be in alignment, which requires less energy than being strained when we're slouched over. Let's chat through some examples as to how dumbbell exercises can help this.
Squats in particular, squats can strengthen your legs in core, but they also help stretch your hip flexors and your lumbar spine. Tightness in those areas can cause bad postures. So stretching and strengthening is a good way to correct the problem before it even starts. Or another example, reverse flies. Tight or weak chest muscles can cause rounded slump, shoulders, but reverse flies can actually strengthen your shoulder and upper back muscles to counteract the slouching.
So there you have it. Those are the eight benefits of dumbbell workouts for women. I personally am such a big believer in dumbbell workouts. And I hope that if maybe you were a skeptic or you were just curious and you really wanted to learn more about why I am so obsessed with dumbbell workouts, because that's literally all I talk about on a daily basis over on Movement With Julie. I hope that this gave you some insight. I'm going to recap those eight benefits for those list takers. Number one, your strength increases. Number two, toned arms, booty, legs, abs, back, aka just building more muscle. Benefit number three, reduced risk of injury. Number four, increased endurance. Number five, improved balance. Number six, increased metabolism. Number seven, dumbbells are very accessible and very convenient. And number eight, they can improve your overall posture.
Two last final thoughts on dumbbell workouts if you're sold on using them. Number one, I'm here to tell you that dumbbell workouts will change your life. Literally the results that you will see from dumbbell workouts is unparalleled to any cardio workout or cardio plan that you are doing or you have ever done.
And number two, you can get dumbbell workouts from my Movement With Julie app. So you are never bored. I bring you five brand new workouts that literally require your body weight, a small space and a pair or two of dumbbells. And again, you can access these workouts instantly by heading over to sale.movementwithjulie.com. You can learn all about the program, what it entails, the benefits of it and whatnot. But I'm telling you, it is so incredible to see so many women all over the world reaping the benefits of dumbbell workouts on a weekly basis. I first hunger to witness it and it is just so inspiring to see the results, the mental, the physical results that women are getting on a weekly basis just from dumbbell workouts. Again, if you want to learn more about my program, it is Movement With Julie, and it's the weekly workouts group. You can head over to sale.movementwithjulie.com. I will link that in the show notes so that you can easily go click there now and join us. I would love to do these workouts alongside of you. These are the workouts that I do. There are video demonstrations for every single movement so that you are never left in the dust. You are never feeling confused. You are confident knowing exactly how to do the movements.
And then I also give you modifications for about 95% of the movements. I do understand that there are all fitness levels in the app. And so if there is a specific movement that maybe you're not ready for a dumbbell, I typically give you a body weight option, or I give you an easier option. Or for example, if it's like a high-impact movement, I will typically always do a low-impact movement because I do understand that not everybody can or chooses to do high impact. There are video demonstrations for every single movement so that you are 100% confident knowing exactly how to do the movement. There are modifications if you need a modification.
And then there's an amazing Facebook community group with women all over the world who are all doing these workouts alongside of you. It is phenomenal for motivation, accountability, support, and just getting to know one another, connecting with other like-minded individuals. I have found that being super helpful with consistency and showing up day in and day out, just knowing that you have a community that you can come to on your strong days and come to you on the days that you are not feeling your best. Just to gain some of their strength and some of their motivation and discipline as well. Again, you can head to sale.movementwithjulie.com. I will also link it in the show notes below.
I hope that this gave you some insight. I hope that it also maybe sold you on dumbbell workouts and maybe you yourself can rethink your workouts this year in 2022. Thank you again for tuning in. If you have a coworker, a sister or friend or someone who you feel like would really from this specific episode, I just ask that you shared it out with them. You can copy the link and send it to them in a text message. You can also post this up on your Instagram story or TikTok story or at whatever social media you are on and be sure to tag me, juliealedbetter. Also, be sure to check out Movement With Julie on both TikTok and Instagram. We show up there daily to give you some workout tips, tricks, and accountability. I love you so much and I'll talk to you in the next episode.
All right, sister, that's all I got for you today, but I have two things that I need you to do. First thing, if you are not already following me on the gram, be sure to do so, juliealedbetter, yes, it's with an A in the middle, for that daily post-workout real talk, healthy tips and tricks, and honest accountability to keep your mind and heart in check. The second thing, be sure to subscribe to Apple Podcast to never miss an episode. Thank you so much for joining me, it means the absolute world, and I'm going to leave you with one last thought. The most beautiful women that I have met in my life are the ones who are completely confident and secure in being authentically themselves. Remember that beauty goes so much deeper than the surface. So go out there and embrace your real because you're worth it.