No-Nonsense Dumbbell Workout for Total Beginners - and only 10 Minutes!!

Hey, everybody, I'm Amy from Bodyfit by Amy. And this is a 10 minute beginner standing dumbbell strength workout. So this is only 10 minutes. So we're not going to do a formal warm up or cool down, but you can go ahead and just start moving your body. Pump your arms, let's get the blood flowing. So we have 10 exercises that we are going to do for 40 seconds of work, followed by 20 seconds of rest using our dumbbells. We're going to keep it all standing, no squats or lunges, unless you want to. I will give you options. Let's roll those shoulders a little bit bigger right through here. And working with dumbbells, but of course, if you are a beginner or something feels like too much, you can always drop it down to just body weight. Get familiar with the motion. The very first thing we're going to do, we're going to grab a medium set of weights, is you're going to come in a hinge position. We're going to do a bent over row. This is what we want to strengthen those big muscles along our back. We're going to bring the weights towards your hips. So go ahead and grab some weights, whatever is comfortable for you. Hinged position. And here we go. We're bringing the elbow up. Now, really important on this is to try to make sure you have a nice flat back. You almost want to feel like you're pushing your butt to the back and you're arching your back, but from this position you're not. What we want to avoid is this. So if you see the top of your legs, I want you to bring your eyes up, but drop your chest. All right? You can also stagger your feet. And if this feels like too much, you can also just do one at a time bringing the weights towards your hips and really using those big muscles along your spine. These posture muscles that we all need to strengthen to get this move. 3, 2, 1. And relax. All right, now we're going to take it to some lower body. Watch me here. We're going to do a little tap back. So I'm going to keep my right foot forward and my left foot is going to tap back. I'm going to hinge forward just a bit and keep the weight in this front leg. If you want to take it to a lunge, you can. Otherwise, here we go. Tap back and up. Now the key here is I want you to step back hip distance apart. If you need some balance, set one or both weights down and grab onto the wall. You can go here to here. The key is to have that front leg doing the work. Again, if you are comfortable with lunges, if lungeons work for your knees, you can drop it down. The goal would be to train this and work our way up to lunges. But if that is not right for your knees or your body, especially at this time, just tap it back. Keep the front leg doing the work. And again, if you need some balance, grab onto the wall. You'll notice if you keep this foot planted, you're gonna feel that nice, good burn. Relax. Now we're gonna get the same thing on the other. The other side again. Balance if you need it, we're stepping back hip distance apart. We say stepping back on train tracks, not a tightrope. And this front leg is going to do the pushing to get the work. We've got 40 seconds in three, two, one. Right here. Balance. If you need it, one or two dumbbells or just keep it body weight. And if you're feeling like you want to try the lunge, you can drop it a little lower. This is working all of those muscles of the lower body, right? So we're getting quads, hamstrings, glutes, hips, and we really need those muscles. You're going to be going up and down stairs, you're going to be sitting down on a chair, on the toilet, getting in and out of cars your whole life. So we need these muscles to be strong, and we need weight bearing exercises to do it. We've got five seconds right here. Three, two, one. Now we're gonna grab our weights and we're gonna take it to a bicep curl. So we're here. You can alternate if you want to. Just do one at a time or we'll take it two. Coming up and dropping them down. We want to make sure the core is engaged, shoulders are back. Let's do it. Here we go. And of course, if you need more of a break in between these exercises, just hit pause. Or you can jump in when you are ready. I don't want anybody pushing themselves beyond their comfort level, but I do want you to challenge yourself. All right. But if this is your first time, I'm just so glad that you're here. All right. You don't have to push yourself. If you need more of a break or something starting to feel like too much. You can always alternate like this or put them together. We've got about 10 seconds, slow and controlled, making sure we're not arching our back. We can always put one foot back if we need to 3, 2, 1. And relax. All right, so now, similar to our little tap back, we're going to take it to a tap out. So I'm going to have one weight. I'm going to put it here, but it's up to you. You can have two weights too. You can if you want, sit low in a little squat, but otherwise just tap it out. Here we go. So we're moving laterally instead of to the back. Again, this weight, this leg is taking the weight. You can also have the weight right here. You decide how low you want to get. Maybe you just want to tap it out. Maybe you need that balance at the wall. Maybe you feel good getting a little lower in a squat. You do you. I like to say it's your workout, be where you are today. So again, weight can be low or weight can be high or no weight, but this is a great option. Let's say you're doing another workout and squats or lunges come up and that's not right for your body right now. Just tap it out. Don't get as low. Last one. And breathe. You feel how when we isolate that one side, we can simulate what we do in a squat and a lunge without getting as low. Again, we want to work our mobility and our strength up to that because we'll need need to do those squats for life. But for now, tap it out. In 3, 2, 1. Right here, tap it out. If you need balance on the wall or a sturdy chair, back of the couch, countertop, all those things might help. And you can also do this with just body weight if that's a better option for where you are today. Right here. Here we go. Out and in. I one of my goals is to convince you that you do not need 45 or 60 minute workouts to get strength training into your life. I know it can feel overwhelming. We do all need it, but it shouldn't feel stressful. We want it to fit in in a way that's good for you. All right, speaking of, now we're going to keep that one weight or if you have two sides, smaller weight, we're going to do a press. Now, if you're able to do an overhead press, I want you to go up and then out, up and then out. If overhead doesn't feel good for you, just go out as far as is good for you. Here we go. Up and out, just like this. And you don't have to get super far out. If it's heavy enough for you, just to go to here Take it here. But you can probably see why this is functional, right? This is putting something in an overhead cabinet, putting something in a drawer, right? We need these motions in our life because we're doing them. If you start to feel like you're arching, put one foot back up and out. You can also, if you have two dumbbells, lighter dumbbells, D take it here. Three, two, one. And relax. All right, now we're going to take it to a deadlift. So two dumbbells. If this bothers your back, I want you to take it to one dumbbell. But we're going to push our hips to the back. We're going to keep the weights close to the front of the legs, and we're going to stand up straight. If that bothers your back, just do the motion. No weights. Here we go. Now watch. I'm keeping the weights really close to the front of my legs. I'm keeping my eyes up like we talked about with the row in the beginning. If you feel like you're looking at your shoes or your knees, bring those eyes up. That's going to help you straighten your spine. You don't have to get super low. Eventually, we're going to improve that range of motion where you can get a little lower, but for now, soft bend in the knees, but drive your hips back. I like to say, as if you were shutting the car door with your booty, right. You wouldn't fall forward, you'd push back again. You can see why this is so functional, because we gotta pick stuff up off the ground all the time. Relax. All right, one weight again. You can set this weight down. You can also do this body weight. We're gonna do a little knee cross. So now we want to get some standing core. I love standing core. We're gonna do a little twist. A little twist. If that's not right for you, you can just move in your torso. All right, here we go. If you're able to bring the knee up, bring the knee up. If not, just do a little tap or even just a little movement here. You can feel how that's going to engage your core. You don't even have to get down on the mat. You can also make this body weight. Maybe this is better for you to be close to a wall right here, right? Body weight, weight, knee off the ground, or just getting a small little turn in your torso. All of it is going to work your core. And again, you can work your way up to these exercises. Here, here. Three, two, one. Last exercise. I'm actually Going to go a little lighter for this. We're going to work the back of the arms, triceps. We're going here to here. Again, you're in that hinge. If you need to, you can grab on and do one at a time and we'll split the time. Otherwise, grab those weights and we're gonna push back. I want you to think about those elbows being high and pushing to the ceiling. If you need to stagger, stagger. We're not swinging and we're not doing biceps. We want to get the triceps. All right, here we go. Hinge it in 3, 2, 1. Up to the ceiling. Squeeze right here. Breathe. I could probably use my tens for this. Here's a tip for you that's true for everybody. We are all stronger than we think and we can always improve our strength, right? So I want you to really challenge yourself. Maybe you're starting with these three pound weights or five pounds. Let's get stronger together, right? Elbows up. Squeeze. Slow and controlled lifting to the ceiling. Back of the arms. Five seconds to go. Three, two, one. Set those weights down. You can cross your arms like this. Get a little stretch through there. That is it. So Those are our 10 exercises. We covered everything. We got upper body pull, upper body push, right? We got our lunge and squat motions that we do every day in life. We got our hinge motion that we do every day in life. We got a little bit of rotation. We want to build on those. I have tons of other beginner workouts as well as full beginner programs, but you can also start with this workout. Maybe start with 10 minutes a day. Let's reach those arms in front if you can. Quick little stretch. And if that feels good, you can repeat this later on in the week. Or you can do this workout two times through for a 20 minute workout, right? So many options to build your strength again. Don't let it add stress to your life. Click this on. Maybe listen to some of your favorite music, a podcast, learn the workout, try some of my other ones and let me know what questions you have below. And of course, don't forget to subscribe to my channel. I also have more options, more specialized programming as well as nutrition over on my app in the BodyFit Athletic Club. Thank you so much for being here today. Get some more stretching on your own. One big deep breath in and out. You did it. That was your standing dumbbell beginner strength workout. Great job, everybody.