For gym goers, dumbbells are love tools. Portable in size, they are versatile enough to target different muscle groups. To add to that versatility, dumbbells cover various training types, like weight training, strength training, endurance training, circuit training, and more. However, due to their ease of use, dumbbells are often handled wrongly. Here are common mistakes people make during training with dumbbells.
Reasons for Exercising at Home
Exercising always has its perks. By training with weights, you can build muscles that will not only add features to look better but also maintain a healthy metabolism system and support fat loss. Weight training has another special perk. It can increase the bone density. So you can avoid deficiencies like osteoporosis and become more energetic.
Though doing excercises involving different tools at home projects a few risks. However, you can easily overcome these mistakes by learning about them. Fear of making mistakes should not keep you from doing the good work.
If losing weights is your primary goal, and having a good metabolism system is your second, then strength training can help you with the both. But if you are more like on to improving your posture, flexibility, sleep and mobility, weight lifting is what you want get involved into. It will help reduce your stress level, too.
One general misconception about weight training is that they need heavy machinery. The reality is different. You can get the most out of exercise and fit with simple tools like dumbbells. And the whole undertaking can be done from your little sweet home. Less costly and under your own roof, here are two more reasons why you should exercise beingt at home.
Common Dumbell Exercise Mistakes
It would be best to know about these common mistakes related to dumbbell exercises even before you decide to buy a set. This will help you buy the right set of dumbbells for the right exercises.
Exercising Incorrect Form
Learning the correct forms of exercise is crucial during your weight-lifting sessions. It will save you from falling into injuries. There are different ways you can engage in practicing incorrect forms.
One common mistake with form involves not bracing the core correctly. The other is not spending sufficient time learning different general principles and prime movements like hip hinge, the press, and the squat.
To overcome this, you need to spend more time studying deadlifts, presses, and squats. You can also include chess and shoulder presses. If you feel it is necessary, hiring a coach will be helpful. Otherwise, you can film your exercise sessions and watch them later to see if they are improving.
You can also send the video to a consultant trainer. Ativafit has a few veteran trainers who will be happy to help you by consulting online.
Overlooking Warm Ups
We know it is always too tempting to jump right on your workout mood and starting lifting heavy weight instantly. Howver, it’s not what you should do. We recommend you to use a little time for warming your body up before engaging in heavy workout.
Regarding workout sessions, they don’t need to be long. And they don’t need to be intense. You just need to do a light regula warm ups. It will get your overactive muscles, expecially the tight ones, lengthened and inhibited.
You can start with light excericises like foam rolling. A dynamic yoga flow is a good idea, too. Once you get along, you can start activating those muscles you are to work on.
Using Only the Light Weights
For the best impact, you must choose a weight that puts sufficient pressure on your muscles. When you feel enough weight, you perform an exercise for 8 to 12 reps. You may think that doing more repetitions with lighter weight will produce the same result. But nothing is more false.
Real muscles grow by low repetitions and heavy weight. It will also produce the most strength. Most dumbbell exercises will be considered a failure by 12 reps or lower. It will depend on your particular goals for your workout plan. Closer to 12 reps is considerably better for muscle health, while closer to 3 or 5 reps would be better for maximal strength. So, you must choose a heavier weight.
Using Only Too Heavy Weights
Using low weights for working out is not the only mistake you can do. You can also fall into problems by choosing only the heavy weights. Earnest people have a tendency to overdo themselves for satisfaction. But ignoring the risk wiill only push you to the edge.
Watch your sessions. If every set needs you to take a break afterward, you are possibly working with heavy weights. Needing to modify your form often is also a sign of using heavy weights. You need to drop the weight a bit lower. Your prime consideration will be keeping a proper form. Exercising with heavy weights with an improper form will never produce as good a result as exercising with lower weights with proper form.
Using Momentum for Weightlifting
If you rely on momentum to lift your weights and can’t finish your reps without pushing with your body, you must be lifting heavier weights. When you are using body momentum to lift weights, the real muscles are not participating in the exercise to the extent they are supposed to. So, the whole point of lifting weights becomes futile.
A general adivice is to keep the elbows pinned to the torso during performing a bicep curl. Because it gives away the sign that you are doing the excercise with your muscle, not with momentum.
Always be sure that, whey you are excercising, the muscles you are working are the muscles that do the lifting, pushing or stressing.
Exercising Too Much Control
Now it’s time to talk about control. Using momentum without controlling an exercise is a mistake. Again, trying to take too much control and ignoring momentums is a mistake, too. Putting in excessive control or trying to resist a movement can create painful strain.
You don’t have to use your body momentum take the control. But just understanding the pattern and rythm of the momentum will bring your muscles into rythm. Which will be much easier to practice with.
Let your muscles go free and achieve moemntum with action. Let you body complete the action, take time. If you are giving in and lifting or lowering your weihts quickly, you are not letting muscles do their best.
Bending Your Wrist
Never let your wrist bend. Regardless of the weight you are lifting or the type of weights you are using, never bend your wrist during lifting. You want to keep your wrists straight, and you should always keep them straight. It will keep from making mistakes and prevent accidents.
This “never bend the wrist” rule applies to all types of free weights, movements, pushes, and pulls. Whether it’s a dumbbell or a kettlebell, you should keep your wrists straight. If you struggle to do that, consider using lower weights. You can choose other excercises that let you straigten your wrist.
Using the Same Pair for the Entire Body
Every muscle of our bodies differs in flexibility and strength. Lighter weights won’t have enough impact on stronger muscles, while heavier weights will tear apart weaker muscles. So, you should choose your weights according to your muscle capacity.
Loose Grips
How you grip a dumbbell will determine how much you can get out of it. Gripping wrongly can instigate injuries and produce wrong results. You may feel pain in your hands and forearms, and your whole body can feel fatigued.
Right gripping style will benefit you at different levels. You can excercise for a long time without stressing out your hands and body. Wrong gripping will lead you to having sore hands. And excersing with sore hands will practically kill the energy exhausting the muscles.
To overcome this problem, you need to learn about different types of grippig. You need to plan your workout sessions so that you have to change your grips one after another for each excercises. You need to ensure that your gripping style is changing everytime you cange.
Wrong Breathing
Breathing is not something you can ignore when you care about excercising. We all know how it feels to hold our breaths during a cumbersome workout. Often we do it involuntarily. However, for the sake of good practice, you need to stop it.
When you are exercising, putting maximum pressure on your muscles, they need a regular supply of oxygen. Easy and rhythmic breathing can supply the right amount of oxygen to your muscles during this time. Correct breathing will make exercises easier.
The best way to breathe during training is to do it steadily and rhythmically. Keep inhaling and exhaling when you start the exercise or when engaging in it with maximum effort. Keep breathing even when the session ends.
Using the Wrong Set
Dumbells are available in various sizes, materials, textures, and coatings. Depending on their variations, some dumbbells are comfortable for hands; some are easier to grip, some are heavier, some are lighter, and so on. You should only buy dumbbells that suit your needs. Buying a set of adjustable dumbbells can be a great choice if you want to stick with your exercise for a long time.
Rushing Reps
You should keep a balance between a slow phase and an explosive phase in every rep. The regular pattern for lifts is about a slow phase followed by an explosive phase.
For example, when you perform the shoulder press, you push the dumbbells up. So, your muscles are contracting. During this time, your goal is to push your boundaries and put more pressure on the muscles.
Now, when you pull down your hands, you have to slow the phase down with more control. It will set a fine pattern for an ideal rep. Don’t always engage with rushing reps.
Final Words
Dumbells are pretty reliable in terms of do it yourself gyms or home gyms. Because of their versetality, dumbells have become one of the most common tools to use in a gym. However, because of their simplicty, many use them with negligence or without giving them much importance. So, they count their losses by not improving their muscles and body even after training for a long time.
Be aware of these common mistakes people do while training with dumbbells. Abiding by them will do you a favor by prising you with a goold body with full of developed muscles.
Using a adjustable dumbbells set can eliminate most of the common dumbbell exercise mistakes. Ativafit offers durable and high-quality set of adjustable dumbbells. They are flexible enough to suit any of your workout needs.
