Arm strength is often an overlooked key to performing various exercises, participating in sports, or even day-to-day activities. That’s because our arms play a supporting role when we exercise every other muscle group.
When performing push exercises like bench press or shoulder press, we use our triceps. When performing back exercises like pullups or rows, we use our biceps. Even when working out our legs, we use our shoulders and forearms to hold the bar steady during squats, and we especially use our forearms when deadlifting.
There are tons of different ways to exercises our arm muscles, but for those with working out from home with no more than a pair of dumbbells, the question is often asked, what dumbbell exercises can I do for my arms?
Below, we share 15 exercises one can perform with dumbbells for your biceps, triceps, and forearms. Whether your goal is to build or tone your muscles, these exercises can all be performed with dumbbells from your own home gym.
Dumbbell Arm Exercises List
Biceps
Our biceps come into play in nearly every back exercise as we pull the weight towards us, or when we pull ourselves up during pullups or chin-ups. By strengthening our biceps, our biceps become less of a limiter on how we perform during back exercises. If our biceps are strong enough, we can either increase the weight we pull or put more focus on our back muscles during back exercises. Here are five dumbbell exercises to target your biceps.
Standing Bicep Curls
Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, hold a dumbbell in each hand with palms facing forward, and curl the weights while keeping your elbows close to your torso.
Hammer Curls
Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, hold a dumbbell in each hand with palms facing forward, and curl the weights while keeping your elbows close to your torso.
Concentration Curls
Sit on a bench with legs spread, rest one arm against the same side leg with your palm facing forward and curl the dumbbell towards your shoulder.
Incline Dumbbell Curls
Lie back on an incline bench with a dumbbell in each hand, and curl the weights with a controlled motion, keeping your back and shoulders stationary.
Preacher Curls
Use a preacher bench and hold a dumbbell with an underhand grip, and curl the dumbbell upwards, focusing on squeezing the bicep.
Triceps
Our triceps are the sidekick for every type of press, whether it’s bench, incline, decline, or shoulder press, and even pushups. Our chest or shoulders do the heavy lifting, but our triceps are in action as well to help extend our arms fully. Below are five dumbbell exercises to help strengthen your triceps.
Overhead Tricep Extensions
Hold a dumbbell with both hands above your head, and then lower the dumbbell behind your head by bending your elbows, then extend your arms to return to the starting position.
Tricep Kickbacks
While standing, lean forward with knees slightly bent and extend your arms straight back, focusing on the tricep.
Close-Grip Dumbbell Press
Lie on a bench and press dumbbells up with hands close together, focusing on the triceps.
Dumbbell Skull Crushers
Lie on a bench with dumbbells held straight up, and then lower them towards your forehead by bending the elbows, then extend back up.
Dumbbell Floor Press
Lie on the floor and press dumbbells up with hands close together, focusing on the triceps.
Forearms
Last but not least, our forearms. Our forearms can truly be the unsung hero of all our lifts. Any time we need to grip the bar, our forearms are at work. The most obvious examples where our forearms are working are deadlifts, pullups, or bicep curls, but even when performing press movements, we want strong forearms to ensure we keep the weight stable as it moves. The following five dumbbell exercises will help improve your forearms and increase your grip strength on all your lifts.
Wrist Curls
While either standing or sitting, hold a dumbbell in each hand, and let your wrists flex downwards, then curl them up towards your torso.
Reverse Wrist Curls
While either standing or sitting, hold a dumbbell in each hand, and let your wrists flex downwards, then curl them up away from your torso.
Hammer Curls
Standing with your feet shoulder-width apart, hold a dumbbell in each hand with palms facing forward, and curl the weights while keeping your elbows close to your torso. Although this primarily targets the biceps, this exercise is also beneficial for the forearms due to the neutral grip, which engages the forearm muscles.
Farmer's Walk
Hold heavy dumbbells in each hand and walk a certain distance, increasing the distance as your strength improves. This simple exercise greatly enhances grip strength and forearm muscle.
Zottman Curls
Perform a regular dumbbell curl, but at the top of the movement, rotate your wrists so that your palms face down, then lower the dumbbells. Rotate back at the bottom and repeat.
Dumbbell Arm Exercises: Armed for Success
As you can see, you can build a lot of arm strength through dumbbell exercises, and even do it from your own home gym. Even better, by strengthening your arms, you improve on all the other lifts your arms support. By performing these bicep, tricep, and forearm exercises over time with consistency, proper form, and gradually increasing weight or reps, you’re likely to see great results.
Despite whether you’re new, experienced, or a pro, proper form is always more important than the weight lifted, so always start with lighter weights when learning new exercises, but slowly increase the reps and/or weight as you learn the form and your strength increases. Form, along with proper nutrition and rest are your key ingredients in seeing improvement.
For those of you who don’t already own your own dumbbells, one option we recommend is the Bowflex SelectTech 552 Adjustable Dumbbells, which we touched on in a previous article, or the ProForm Weight Dumbbells. Because you will be performing various exercises that may require different weights, these dumbbells cover a wide range of weights without taking up too much space.
Also, some of these exercises mentioned incorporating a bench. One potential solution is the Weight Bench Press from Orinar. The simple design, low relative price point, storage applications, and multiple workout functionality make it an easy addition if you’d like to add it to your home gym for these arm workouts or other home gym workouts in the future.
Now, with the exercises mentioned and the equipment referred, we hope this guide helps you begin achieving your goals in your arm workouts. Whether you’re a veteran or a beginner, these exercises are great ways to build arm strength. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to Contact Us so we can continue to help!