Powerful Legs Make It Easier To Develop A Powerful Chest
by
healthy_blogging
Last week I talked about dumbbell lunges as an example of the importance that lower body exercises have to strengthening the chest and other muscles in the upper body. That was the first in a series of articles that will focus on dumbbell exercises designed to train your leg muscles. Today I'm going to discuss the dumbbell squat - a close relative to the barbell squat. Dumbbell squats are a good leg strengthening exercise and it has a number of benefits.
Benefits of the dumbbell squat:
- strengthens thighs
- strengthens glutes
- strengthens core muscles
- promotes production of growth hormone
You'll need a pair of dumbbells for this exercise. For newbies and for anyone doing a warm up set, start with light weight dumbbells, but in order to reap the benefits of the dumbbell squat you must progress to heavy weights. Heavy weights stimulate nervous system activation which promotes strength, there's no way around this if you hope to develop strong thighs and chest. Don't go too heavy too fast, though. Remember "safety first". Gradual progression is what you need. The key word here is progression.
Stand up straight while holding a dumbbell at your sides. Palms must be facing in. Take a breath. Now, slowly bend down to the floor. Go as low as you can, until your glutes are almost touching the floor. Keep your back straight at all times. Now, using the muscles in your legs and glutes, exhale as you slowly push yourself back to upright position. That's one rep. You'll want to do eight to ten reps on this exercise and go for five sets. Each week, you'll need to add weight, after a point, you'll be performing less reps. This is a good thing because what happens is your nervous system needs more time to re-charge, in other words you're getting stronger. Just do more sets at the lower reps. If you don't experience a decrease in the number of reps you're doing even at heavy weights, it's even better. Why? Because now you've graduated to the dumbbell squat's bigger cousin: the barbell squat. And that is an exercise that is one of the top of free weight leg exercises that is so intense that you'll be adding muscle and building strength in a way that will surprise you.
How Often Should You Do Dumbbell Squats?
Leg exercises are just like anything else - you need to allow your body enough time to recover. No sense in working your muscles to failure which screws up your nervous system. Not only that, your muscles won't have time to heal if you tear them down before new muscle fibers have a chance to grow. After you've done five sets of dumbbell squats, move on to dumbbell lunges. I recommend giving yourself twenty-four hours rest after doing the lower body exercises. Lower body exercises not only help strengthen the muscles in the legs, glutes, and core, they help to round out your physique. You'll look more symmetrical than if you only trained your chest, tris and biceps. You ever see those lifters with huge upper bodies but little chicken legs? Lol! If you want to avoid that look, then make sure to exercise your lower body, too.
Okay, that's the how to on dumbbell squats. You won't get anything done if you sit here just reading about them. You've got to do them. Get to it. Now.
"Great Chest Workouts: How To Do Dumbbell Squats- Powerful Legs Make It Easier To Develop A Powerful Chest" copyright 2011 Great Chest Workouts. All Rights Reserved.
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