September 27, 2021 6 min read
Seateddumbbell exercises are versatile and can provide your workout with variety. These types of exercises are perfect for any level of gym experience and are suitable for gym-goers of any age.
Whether you are just starting out, or are a regular at the gym, you can find a seated dumbbell exercise to match your experience and the intensity you require for your workout.
Add some excitement to your workout with some of the different variations of seated dumbbell exercises that we’ll be discussing and explaining in this article.
The following exercises are some of the best seateddumbbell exercises that you can do to increase upper body strength.
Although you may not believe it, these are alsodumbbell exercises for women. Just because they focus on upper body strength, doesn’t mean that women can’t do them. In fact, it would actually be recommended and can be very beneficial for them.
To perform a seated bent-over dumbbell row start on a bench with a dumbbell in each hand. Position your hands so that the palms are facing inwards. Bend slightly forward at your hips, but make sure that your back remains flat and shoulders are pulled back.
Bring your elbows up past your back while simultaneously squeezing your shoulder blades together. Make sure your arms stay close to your side and that your neck muscles stay relaxed.
Pause slightly at the top, and then lower the weights slowly down to their starting position and repeat.
Start seated on a bench - you can choose whether or not you’d like to adjust the bench to make a backrest or not.
Choose two dumbbells that weigh the same, but aren't too heavy for you. Lift the weights to shoulder height and make sure your palms are facing forwards and that you have a 90-degree bend at the elbow.
Push the weights upwards until your arms are extended straight. Slowly lower them down to starting position.
This exercise can also be incorporated into adumbbell barbell workout. The benefit of making it asingle dumbbell exercise is that it helps you to strengthen both arms equally, and prevents one arm from working harder than the other.
This exercise can be done standing too, but doing it seated is better for beginners, it isolates your biceps more, and stops your neck from working too hard.
To perform this exercise, sit on a bench that is adjusted to 90 degrees to form a backrest. Hold a dumbbell in each hand with a supinated grip (which means that your palms are facing forwards).
Pull your shoulders back and tighten your core. Make sure your back is flat against the backrest (and remains this way for the duration of the exercise) and your neck muscles are relaxed.
Simultaneously bring the dumbbells up towards your chest, making sure your elbows remain in contact with your sides at all times, and that your head and shoulders remain in contact with the backrest.
Once at the top, take a breath, exhale, and slowly lower the weights back to their starting point.
Start this exercise by being seated on a bench. Hold one dumbbell directly above your head.
Make sure your arms are straight and that you are sitting upright with good posture, and your shoulders are pulled back and core muscles are activated.
In a slow and controlled motion, bend your arms back behind your head and slowly lower the weight.
Pause and extend your arms straight above your head again.
Start seated on a bench, leaning against a backrest. Hold a dumbbell in each hand, extend the arms so they are hanging down by your side, and your palms are facing inwards. Your feet should also be together and your back should be straight with core muscles activated.
Lift the dumbbells out and up until they are at shoulder height. Your arms should remain straight.
In a slow and controlled manner, lower the dumbbells back down to your sides.
It is very important that your neck muscles don’t work too hard in this exercise. To prevent this from happening, pull your shoulder blades down.
Start by adjusting the bench so that the backrest is at an inclined angle. Sit on the bench and place your back and head against the backrest.
Hold a dumbbell in each hand, with the palms of your hands facing down towards your feet, and bend and pull your elbows back behind your head so that the dumbbells are almost level with your shoulders.
Extend your arms straight up above your head until your arms are fully extended and straight.
Slowly lower them down to the starting position.
When trying to look for adumbbell workout for beginners, seated dumbbell exercises such as single-arm shoulder presses or single-arm rows, are the best approach to take.
The reason for this is that the bench offers a lot of support for those who are not familiar with weights, the types of exercises you can do when seated are also a lot safer.
For example, if you had a beginner do a deadlift with a heavy barbell and without knowing the correct form, they would very likely injure themselves. But with seated dumbbell exercises it is a lot harder to do that, and they provide a safe, basic introduction into weight training.
Seated dumbbell exercises for seniors are some of the safest, and most effective exercises that you can choose for them.
Any of the exercises that we mentioned in the strength training section would work for them, you would just have to adjust the weight and make sure they are done aslight dumbbell exercises.
You should also make sure that you go a lot slower and provide clear instructions and help with correcting their form where necessary.
Two of the most popular recreational sports are running and cycling, and it is very important to train in a sport-specific manner in order to increase performance and prevent injuries.
Since both cycling and running involve a lot more use of lower body muscles, seateddumbbell exercises for cyclists and runners may not necessarily have a huge benefit performance-wise, as these dumbbell exercises mainly work upper body muscles.
But, if you are serious about improving in these two sports, it would be recommended to include any of the abovementioned seated dumbbell exercises in order to increase strength and maintain full-body fitness.
Weight loss comes down to whether you are in a calorie deficit or not by the end of the day, so technically any type of exercise would elicit weight loss if you’re in a calorie deficit.
But, exercises that are more high intensity and get your heart rate up tend to burn more calories, which would help you if you are trying to maintain a calorie deficit.
This means that you can still use seated dumbbell exercises to help you reach this goal, but incorporating adumbbell cardio workout would be more beneficial to do so.
Another beneficial aspect would be to swap out the exercise bench and dodumbbell exercises with an exercise ball instead.
This means that you can incorporate bouncing on the ball which will work your leg muscles, it will increase your heart rate, and it will make use of your core muscles a lot more than the bench does.
All these elements make the seated dumbbell exercises more of a full-body workout, which is more ideal for weight loss.
As you can see, seated dumbbell exercises are some of the best exercises to use for almost anyone, and are a great way to improve your strength and functional capabilities.
If you are wondering what dumbbells you should get since there are so many out there, we would recommend givinghex rubber dumbbells a go.
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