The home gym craze is well and alive. But if you’re starting slowly with equipment purchases and only have a few dumbbells lying around the house, it can take some creativity to design an effective arm workout.
So, I’ve got you covered. I have two arm workouts with dumbbells you can do at home based on how much time you have available.
Ultimate Dumbbell Arm Workout At Home
Biceps & Triceps Superset Workout
Exercise | Set/Rep | Load |
|---|---|---|
A1) Rolling DB Triceps Extension | 3 x 15-20 | 9 RPE |
A2) DB Curl | 3 x 10-12 | 9 RPE |
B1) Overhead Triceps Extension | 3 x 10-15 | 9 RPE |
B2) DB Hammer Curl | 3 x 10-12 | 9 RPE |
C1) Decline Close Grip Push-Up On DB Handles | 2 x 20-30 | Bodyweight |
C2) DB Zottman Curl | 2 x 10-12 | 9 RPE |
Supersetting biceps and triceps for your dumbbell arm workout is a time-efficient strategy. The idea is to perform a triceps than a biceps exercise before resting. A workout like this may takes approximately 20 minutes, perfect for busy bodies at home!
One Muscle Group At A Time Workout
Exercise | Set/Rep | Load |
|---|---|---|
A1) Rolling DB Triceps Extension | 3 x 15-20 | 9 RPE |
B1) Overhead Triceps Extension | 3 x 10-15 | 9 RPE |
C1) Decline Close Grip Push-Up On DB Handles | 2 x 20-30 | Bodyweight |
D1) DB Curl | 3 x 10-12 | 9 RPE |
E1) DB Hammer Curl | 3 x 10-12 | 9 RPE |
F1) DB Zottman Curl | 2 x 10-12 | 9 RPE |
The advantage of training one muscle group at a time is completely fatiguing the muscle group before training the other, potentially leading to greater muscle growth.
Dumbbell Arm Exercises At Home
Rolling DB Triceps Extension
The rolling dumbbell triceps extension is the elbow-friendly version of the skull crusher. The great thing about it is that you don't need a bench, even though you can perform it lying on a bench. So, if you only have dumbbells at home, you’re in luck. You can lie on the floor and get these done. Here’s how:
Overhead Triceps Extension
The overhead triceps extension is one of the best triceps dumbbell exercises for mass. The overhead position puts the triceps long head under extreme stretch, stimulating a strong hypertrophic response. Using the overhead position led to 1.5 greater gains in triceps mass than triceps pushdowns [1]. Here’s how to do it:
Decline Close Grip Push-Up On DB Handles
The push-up is slept on when getting big triceps. Adding dumbbells increases the range of motion, improving the muscle-building response. By elevating the feet, you place more body weight over the arms making it more powerful! Here's how to do it:
Dumbbell Biceps Curl
The dumbbell curl is a staple biceps exercise. The supinated position preferentially targets the biceps brachii, which is responsible for building big upper arms.
Some lifters will start in a neutral hand position and supinate the dumbbells as they curl to target the secondary movement the biceps perform. However, maintaining the supinated position is a stronger stimulus in my experience and will build bigger biceps. Here’s how to do it:
DB Hammer Curl
The hammer curl attacks the biceps brachii but preferentially targets the strongest elbow flexor, the brachialis. It will add thickness to your biceps when looking from the side. Because the neutral hand position is advantageous for the brachialis muscle, you can lift the most weight with this curl variation. Here's how to do it:
DB Zottman Curl
The Zottman curl is a two-in-one, hitting the biceps brachii during the concentric phase and targeting the brachioradialis during the eccentric phase. This will add meat to the top of your forearms, rounding out your biceps training. Here's how to do it:
Summary
Only having a pair of dumbbells at home is enough to get an epic arm workout done. Use these workouts to blast through muscle growth plateaus and add variety to your arm training.
References
1. Maeo, S., Wu, Y., Huang, M., Sakurai, H., Kusagawa, Y., Sugiyama, T., … & Isaka, T. (2022). Triceps brachii hypertrophy is substantially greater after elbow extension training performed in the overhead versus neutral arm position. European Journal of Sport Science, 1-11.