This is the ultimate guide for leg workouts with dumbbells.
Here we will discuss the most recommended leg workouts that can be done using dumbbells.
Leg workouts are most avoided workouts no matter where you exercise in your home or at the gym.
But undoubtedly, leg workouts are the most important workouts of our exercise routine.
If you have ever seen any person who just train his upper body and not the lower body, you have noticed that he looks weird (maybe like chicken).
Therefore, here we will discuss which exercises to do during leg workouts with dumbbells.
Let’s start.
But why use dumbbells for legs workouts?
There are some reasons for choosing dumbbells to perform leg exercises.
1) When we use a barbell to perform the exercises like squats, we have to put the barbell on the backside of the neck near the cervical spine.
It is somewhat risky as it can cause injury to the cervical spine. So using dumbbells is a much safer option.
Of course, you can also use a bar pad to make it easy but still it is risky.
2) In exercises such as lunges and calves, it is very much easier to use dumbbells than a barbell. You rarely have seen any person performing lunges using a barbell.
3) If you are exercising in a narrow place or in a place where many people are training then also dumbbells are a good option.
Dumbbells are also useful when you have to combine more than one exercise with leg workouts.
Suppose you want to train your legs and shoulder together then dumbbells are good.
Leg workouts with dumbbells
After knowing the benefits of using dumbbells in legs workout, let’s start discussing the best leg workouts that can also be done by dumbbells.
1) Squats using dumbbells
This exercise can help you target glutes and quadriceps muscles.
It is one of the most common leg workouts with dumbbells.
Method:
- Stand straight.
- Keep the distance between your two legs the same as the width of your shoulders.
- Hold a dumbbell of your weight choice in each hand.
- Slowly lower down flexing your ankles, hips, and knees.
- Keep your back straight.
- Keep your buttocks out.
- Slowly get back to your normal position.
- Don’t hyperextend your knees at the top.
- Keep your both feet flat throughout the exercise.
- Keep your both knees straight ahead.
- Repeat the same exercise 3-4 times.
There are also variants of this exercise. One of them is shown in the below images.
To identify the quadriceps, adductors, and glutes muscles of your leg, see the below images.
2) Same-place lunges using dumbbells
With this exercise, you can train your quadriceps, glutes, and core muscles.
Method:
- Stand straight.
- Hold a dumbbell of your weight choice in each hand.
- Step forward with one foot and flex your ankle, knee, and hip until your foot is flat on the floor and your knee at a 90 degrees angle.
- Keep your back leg flexed and your back knee a few inches upper from the floor.
- Then get back to the original position.
- Do the same exercise with another leg.
- Repeat 3-4 times with each leg.
You can also keep walking ahead and ahead doing the same exercise. It is known as walking lunges.
Increase the weight of dumbbells as your stamina increases.
Keep your front feet flat. Step far enough so that the knee stays over the ankle and does not go out over the toes.
The same place lunges with dumbbells is shown in the below image.
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3) Bench single-leg squats with dumbbells
This exercise can help you strengthen the quadriceps and glutes muscles.
Method:
- Stand straight ahead of the bench or any stable step that is 22-24 inches high.
- Hold a dumbbell of your weight choice in each hand.
- Place the top of any foot on the bench.
- Place another leg out in front of you with your knee slightly bent.
- Keep the foot of the front leg flat.
- Lower down your upper body flexing the ankle and knee of your front leg.
- Once your knee flexes to 90 degrees, stop lowering and return back up to the starting position.
This exercise is one of the best leg workouts with dumbbells. This exercise is also called Bulgarian Split Squats.
The depiction of this exercise is shown in the below image.
Do not let the knee of the front leg go out over the toes and always remember to keep the upper body straight.
4) Wide squats using dumbbells
This exercise can help you train your glutes, quadriceps, and adductors.
It is one of my favorite leg workouts with dumbbells.
Method:
- Stand straight keeping the distance between two legs 6 to 8 inches wider than the width of the shoulder.
- Keep your both feet pointing outside at 45 degrees.
- Hold a dumbbell with two hands.
- Flex your knees and hips and lower your body.
- Stop lowering when your thighs are parallel to the floor.
- Then get back to the original position.
- Don’t hyperextend your knees at the top.
- Keep your both feet flat on the floor.
You can also wear a weighted vest or hold a weighted plate instead of using a dumbbell.
Most people feel tightness in the thighs during the lowering movement. Try to keep your knees from collapsing inward due to the tightness.
5) Lateral/side lunges using dumbbells
You can train your quadriceps, glutes, hamstring, and adductor muscles with this exercise.
It is one of my favorite leg workouts with dumbbells.
Method:
- Stand straight.
- Hold a dumbbell of your choice weight in each hand.
- Keep the distance between two legs the same as the width of your shoulder.
- Slowly flex your knee and hip of any one leg laterally until the knee is just below 90 degrees.
- Keep the foot of the side leg flat on the floor and toes should point straight.
- Step laterally about 3 or 4 feet with the same leg and land slowly on your foot.
- Keep holding both dumbbells in your hand.
- Keep your head up and back straight.
- Make sure that majority of the weight comes to the engaged leg.
- Get back to the starting position and repeat the same exercise 3-4 times.
You can also use a weighted vest or weighted plate instead of using dumbbells. As this exercise is one of the intense leg workouts with dumbbells, gradually increase the dumbbell weight.
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6) Single-leg Romanian Deadlift
This exercise is practiced to train the glutes, calves, hamstrings, and lower back muscles.
It is also one of the important leg workouts with dumbbells.
Method:
- Stand straight holding a dumbbell in one hand.
- Keep the distance between two legs the same as the width of the shoulder.
- Hold the dumbbell with the overhand grip.
- Keep a slight bend in the knees and keep your shoulders back.
- Flex the hips by moving your buttocks backward.
- Lower the dumbbell slowly until shin levels.
- keep your shoulders drawn back with your back straight and head in the neutral position throughout the movement.
- Then get back to the normal position.
- Repeat the same exercise for another leg.
Now, we will discuss the leg workouts using dumbbells for the lower leg.
The lower leg anatomy is shown in the below image.
In the above image, look for gastrocnemius and soleus muscles as these two muscles will be our main target.
7) Standing Calf raises using dumbbells
You can target your gastrocnemius muscles with this exercise.
Method:
- Stand straight
- Hold a dumbbell in each hand.
- Keep the feet flat on the floor.
- Push the front part of your feet by plantar flexing your ankles.
- Hold for 1-2 seconds on top and then get back to the normal position.
- Repeat 3-4 times.
8) Seated Calf Raises
This exercise will help you to train soleus muscles.
Method:
- Sit upright on the bench.
- Place the balls of your feet on the board as shown in the below image.
- Put a dumbbell on each lower thigh and hold the dumbbell in the upright position.
- Push the balls of your feet by plantar flexing your ankles.
- Hold for 1-2 seconds at the top and then slowly return to the starting
position. - Repeat 3-4 times.
Make sure the balls of your feet remain on the board as there is a chance that they slip through the board.
Also, don’t move your upper body while using your lower legs.
9) Leg extension and leg curls
With leg extension, you can train quadriceps muscles and with leg curls, you can train glutes and hamstring muscles.
These both are very famous exercises. But most people use machines to perform this both exercises.
However, it can also be performed using dumbbells.
You can see the below video to understand how to perform it.
After discussing the leg workouts with dumbbells, now we will discuss the warm exercises you should do before starting the leg workouts.
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Warm-up exercises before leg workouts
As you know the warm-up is extremely important before starting any workouts.
It increases the blood flow through the body and your muscles get more oxygenated blood supply.
Warm-up also decreases the stiffness of muscles. Training the stiff muscles can injure them permanently.
Let’s start.
1) Jogging
Jogging is the most preferred warm-up exercise. 5-10 minutes of jogging warms your body enough to start any exercises.
You can also practice high knee jogging.
The below image shows the benefits of jogging.
2) Jumping Jacks
After jogging, you can do this exercise.
3) Ankle Up-down
Good to remove the stiffness of ankle joints.
It also increases ankle flexibility.
4) Ankle rotation
It is also good to increase ankle flexibility and remove ankle joint stiffness.
5) Knee rotation
Rotate your knees to increase knee flexibility.
As the warm-up is important before exercises, in the same way cooling down is also important after exercises.
Most people after completing their workout stretch their bodies and leave the gym. It is wrong.
You also have to cool your body and for that walk or sit for 5-7 minutes in the gym then stretch your bodies.
Conclusion
Here we have discussed most of the leg workouts with dumbbells.
We also discussed the benefits of using dumbbells for leg exercise. You can do all these exercises even at home if the dumbbells are available at your home.
Let’s summarize the article.
- To eliminate the risk of cervical spine injury, use dumbbells for leg exercises rather than a barbell.
- There are many exercises such as front lunges, side lunges, etc in which it is easy to use dumbbells.
Leg workouts with dumbbells
- Squats
- Wide squats
- Standing lunges
- Walking lunges
- Lateral lunges
- Calf raise
- One-leg Romanian deadlift
- Single leg bench squats
The video given above shows how you can perform leg extension and leg curl using dumbbells.
Then we also discussed the benefits of warm-up and some warm-up exercises.
These are some leg exercises that you can do with dumbbells. If you like this article, share it with your friends.
