If you find yourself working out at home and all you’ve got is a few dumbbells lingering in the corner of your closet you may wonder how you can get some effective lower-body training with what you have available.
Enter dumbbell swings, the solution to your problem. Dumbbells are a great alternative to kettlebells for exercises like the swing. Using dumbbells instead of kettlebells for swings just requires a little change up, but the fundamental movement pattern of hinging at the hips is still there.
If you’ve got dumbbells of all sizes I already made a video about how to do kettlebell swing with a dumbbell of any size.
But if your dumbbells aren’t all that heavy you can use two dumbbells at the same time to perform skier swings. This is a great way to increase the total amount of weight you can swing when your dumbbells are limited and get a great training effect.
In the video below, I’ll show you how to do the skier swing with dumbbells as well as some other swing variations you can do to keep getting a great workout.
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Equipment Needed:
One or two dumbbells is great. You’re about to learn how to use those old neoprene dumbbells to get a great workout for your glutes, hamstrings, and abs. You’ll get a great cardiovascular conditioning effect as well. If you have kettlebells you can also use kettlebells for these swing variations.
The Exercises:
These dumbbell swing exercises start basic and get more complex as we go. Make sure you are doing the first exercises well before you jump ahead.
If something hurts stop doing it. Be careful and pay attention while you swing. The last thing you need in your workout is for a dumbbell to hit you in the side of the leg or knee. That’s no fun and it won’t help you get in shape any faster.
With all of these swing variations try to match your breath up with the movement of the swing. Inhale on the way down, and forcefully exhale as you squeeze your glutes and stand upright in each rep. If you’re making some noise with your breath while you swing that’s a good thing.
Skier Swing
One Arm Skier Swing
Split Stance Skier Swing
Step Back Swing
Side Step Swing
Sets and Repetitions:
You can start practicing these exercise with just 5-10 repetitions at a time. As you you get more comfortable with the hinge pattern of the swing you can increase the number of repetitions as high as 30 repetitions or even more.
The key is to make sure you are maintaining proper hinge patterns of the hips and bracing of the midsection. Once you are doing this well you can match the number of repetitions to your level of endurance, as well as the weights you have available.
Dumbell Swing Movements:
Wrapping it all up:
These moves can help you continue to train your glutes and hamstrings effectively even if you don’t have very weights to work with. Sometime we have to use whatever we have available to keep our exercise routine consistent as we deal with challenges.
Give these dumbbell swing exercises a try and you’ll wake up your glutes and hamstrings in a good way during your next workout.
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